Post-scarcity
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The post-scarcity age is an anticipated period where due to advancing technology, efficient use of natural resources and co-operation there will be a great abundance of the material items, goods and services that people need, achievable with a minimal impact to the environment. It should not matter where you live.
Many fictional visions of post scarcity involve as yet undeveloped technologies and unproven theories but it is interesting to note that material abundance can be produced with existing technologies. Food is one example, where there is more than enough for everyone on the planet, but it is logistics, politics and economics that prevents a more egalitarian distribution. There exists far more energy, raw material and biological resources on Earth than humanity requires, it is a matter of developing systems that use and distribute them more efficiently.
When humanity reaches the point of developing closed-loop automation, everything from basics like clean water, nutritious food, medicine and suitable housing to increasingly essential material goods such as vehicles, computers, mobile phones and all the way up to purely luxury items, could be easily and freely available to anyone that requires them. It would be foolish to think there will be totally unrestricted abundance, but it should be possible to abolish significant scarcity for all people within the first half of this century.
The simplest analogy is that of a vast jungle providing fruit in abundance for anyone to eat; but in this scenario the jungle is highly autonomous distributed machinery that has been transparently and collaboratively designed.
Contents
Abundance of the fundamental resources
- Do we really have the resources for this kind of society?
- Civilisation boils down to four fundamentals: material, energy, information and intelligence – none of which are in short supply. It is the current inefficient methods of use (and re-use) and perceived economic restrictions that make it appear that there are significant limitations to these resources.
- See the fundamental resources page for more information on resource availability.
- How do we design machinery advanced enough to give us all of this?
- See the open design and closed-loop automation pages.
What does this mean for people and society?
It means all worthy projects that should happen, can happen - the resource will be available if there are the people to make it happen. It will not only provide everyone with the basic necessities for a decent life but give maximum opportunity for people and societies to live and prosper how they might like to.
This means different things to different people. For some it enables a life enhanced by advanced technology, able to do new things they have never been able to before, and for others it means almost the exact opposite - allowing them to lead a more basic rural life perhaps with a smallholding, more in touch with nature and older ways of living. But they can they can do this without worrying about a bad year in terms of yield from the land or medical care because of the advanced infrastructure in the background that they can call upon if required.
It means we can have enough time to think about the really important things and do them properly.
People will not have to suffer drudgery and what amounts to wage slavery during the best years of their lives. Unfortunately a large proportion of people today in both white and blue collar jobs would really rather be doing something else than the jobs they are employed to do. They feel perhaps that what they are doing is not directly relevant to their lives or is not particularly interesting and feel they are simply a cog with little control in a larger machine. Currently they have to do it to afford food, shelter and goods. A post-scarcity society enables them to have the time and space to work on things that are important to them, and to learn the skills needed to reach their goals and have room to be more creative.
One scarce resource today for people is time. In a post-scarce culture, not having to spend the best part of the day working for a living also frees people up to spend more time with each other - something that is vital for a proper community. Both for friendship and mentoring the next generation.
However some people feel that increasing automation is a threat. A threat to their livelihoods, a threat to humanity's pride even. The reality is that automation is likely to provide in scenarios where people would prefer not to do that job. It leaves people free to be creative and industrious in activities that they want to be part of and allows for greater variety than the average working life offers today. Open design will enable people to be involved in the creation or customisation of the goods they want in a way not seen before and reverses the trend of people simply being passive consumers. Creativity is something that can give huge satisfaction to people but if not fulfilled can cause great frustration.
See also
External links
Wikipedia
Some others thinking along the same lines
- Jacque Fresco - The Venus Project (and Future by Design which is a documentary film about Jacque)
- Eric Drexler - Author of Engines of Creation and prophet of molecular nanotechnology. He describes molecular assemblers as "engines of abundance
- John McCarthy - Prominent computer scientist. There is some interesting information on his website about the sustainability of human progress.
- Marshall Brain - the Australia project in the story of Manna
