Post-scarcity/Intro

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.