Future Economy (2010) [video](youtube.com) |
Future Economy (2010) [video](youtube.com) |
You'll notice that the crew quarters in the show are decorated in a minimalist style. The only objects people keep are the ones that are important to them. Tools, games, gifts can be conjured as needed and recycled when you're done with them.
Scarce resources do exist, however, especially on a starship: crew quarters are probably not all of the same size, for example. Some people might have to walk a little further to the turbolift (elevator). These sorts of resource allocation problems are likely solved by either a lottery method or based on need. For example, if the Captain gets bigger quarters, it's not because she's the captain, it's because she might need the space to host visiting delegates, etc.
Although I suppose there are still some material inequalities based on rank. For example, ensigns get a single rank pip, while a captain gets four.
When you think about it, there's a lot of stuff that'll still be scarce even when we have magic robots that can build everything instantly.
Additionally it would be 100% recyclable, with the idea that you would 'give back to the earth' when you were done with it (materialism would be a thing of the past).
Oh wait.
I'll never understand why people who promote this "magical robots solve everything" view ignore the simple examples that robots, no matter how sophisticated, cannot fix. For example, scarcity of prime real estate.
This have already been tried you know. Didn't work. At all.
So if you're waiting for the future to make this altruistic lifestyle mainstream, ask yourself what's holding it back now. It's certainly not a lack of material wealth, we've had that for centuries.
But isn't that pointless? You could instead just enjoy life doing whatever else you want to do, if the machines already produce everything you need.
Yes. But it is our collective decision, not a decision of any of us. The needs of the society take precedence over the needs of each of us. The only way to reverse the decision is -
- to collectively agree that every one of you wants something else?
Yes. There is an old economic theory predicting that the preferences of the society should eventually reflect individual preferences of its members, at least in the long run. There is still hope that this will happen in the future, but not before I will be long dead, I'm afraid.
It used to be that each person was responsible for performing tasks that would ensure their survival and the survival of those important to them.
Specialization and division of labor allowed certain people to do productive activities that didn't directly connect to their own survival.
Some people built houses and thatched roofs. Some people became blacksmiths and made tools. Others farmed large plots of land.
Markets in equilibrium allow producers and consumers to exchange goods and services for money and the system as a whole can be said to be more productive.
As some point in time though, machines will advanced such that nearly any productive output a human can undertake would be performed more efficiently by a machine instead. The value of human labor output will be driven to nearly zero.
Where people go wrong is that they ask the question, "If humans make no money how will they buy anything, won't everyone just starve to death?"
The purpose of an economy seems to be to create information in the form of prevailing wages which signal to members what tasks the system values. Once machines are the supermajority of the productive value output and humans are a mere tax on output, we take on a role similar to the ones pets have right now.
If the machines are sentient, then they simply outcompete us and we lose unless they support us with generosity. If the machines are owned and directed, then either the majority of people will decide to ensure some component of the machines output will always be directed to the sustaining of humanity. If a minority owns the machines and resist the taxing of their wealth, then there will be revolution and violence.
The essay argues that any tyrant remains in power until his subjects grant him that, therefore delegitimizing every form of power. The original freedom of men would be indeed abandoned by society which, once corrupted by the habit, would have preferred the servitude of the courtier to the freedom of the free man, who refuses to be submissive and to obey.
Transhumanism had a Backdoor.
You don't need to get rid of it to acheive your personal goals.
Oh. It takes money to do that? Well shoot.
EDIT: to actually respond to the video clip, it's kind of surprising how interesting Star Trek got when they threw out some of Roddenberry's ideas during the Deep Space 9 era. The Starfleet people co-existed with the Ferengi and Bajorans who didn't have post-scarcity economies. The Bajorans were also highly religious. Starfleet had a shadowy spy organization willing to assassinate foreign leaders. A Starfleet Captain becomes a traitor to Earth-- twice!
And yet despite that, Deep Space 9 is one of the most beloved Star Trek series.
Related to the clip above:
(Quark is selling an auction of a 1950s baseball card Jake wants. Jake's convincing Nog, a Ferengi, to help him.)
Nog: "It's my money, Jake! If you want to bid at the auction, use your own money."
Jake: "I'm Human, I don't have any money."
Nog: "It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement."
Jake: "Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity."
Nog: "What does that mean exactly?"
Jake: "It means... it means we don't need money!"
Nog: "Well, if you don't need money, then you certainly don't need mine!"
The main problems that STNG deals with are ethical, philosophical and spiritual, not technological or economical.
Just as there is "technobabble" about space-time continuums and positronic brains, there is also a bit of hand waving about the specifics of how the economy functions.
Just as it's silly to worry about whether they're calibrating the plasma manifolds correctly, it is missing the point to think that STNG is going to deliver actionable economic advice.
Asking seriously. Because I have a lot of imagination and I can't come up with anything. Except perhaps we all plug into VR 24/7 like The Matrix. But even in my fake Matrix VR house, I'd envy the guy with the real thing.
If you are well slept and content, then arguably everything you undertake will be the 'improved' version.
But you're right, it's not all the way there yet: I also need to hire someone to do the basic maintenance and cleaning. Or perhaps a robot. But either option takes money.
Shared ownership allows you to drastically reduce the number of items that need to be produced. Look around you at the things in your house. How many of those things do you use on a regular basis, and how many things are under utilised for most of the time. Shared ownership means you get access to a much wider range of items whilst reducing the cost of ownership.
as someone who has done a recent job search, i knew i couldn't afford to live in the bay area with my large family, but half og the companies i interviewed with were in the bay area allowing me to work remotely. the technology and kind of work we do (software engineering) is getting good enough to broaden the reach of "the office."
if we had just fully integrated audio and visual environments, for work collaboration, i could see many people choosing to live at the lakeside in montana and work in seattle rather than having to live on Lake Washington.
Warp drive? A thousand habitable planets that make Earth look like dusty, irradiated backwater? An vast frontier to explore, filled with endless new challenges and experiences?
if $your_vr_house == $his_real_house
& you are envious then you are the problem in the equation
1. you have to build round existing structures
2. if the sea level rises, there is nothing you can do
3. small roads can't be widened to accommodate heavier traffic and so on.
In the future the concept of a fixed house would be bizarre, with everything being able to be made portable. It would be normal to have giant shifts in house placement and rewiring of pipes and electricity via AI bots, in order to accommodate change.
Why would the guy with the beautiful lake front property move his house? Why would he make his lot smaller to let other people live closer to him? What's his incentive?
Being able to easily move a house doesn't do anything to make lake front property less scarce.
If your answer is: "the government would force him", then that sounds more like a dystopia than a utopia.
People have been predicting this for some 200 years. It's older than flying cars.
Many sought-after things are scarce. Starship commissions are scarce. They require hard work and are assigned based on merit. Not just anyone gets the opportunity to explore the edge of space; it takes dedication and sacrifice.
The show is certainly influence by the philosophy of Stoicism[0].
By the definition of economic scarcity it will be required to in order to merit the name. However, that illustrates that a post-scarcity society will never exist (or at least is vastly farther off than some people imagine), which is the more critical point.
If anything that anyone wants is limited such that enhancing one person's realized utility is a trade-off with someone else's realized utility, you don't have a post-scarcity situation.
Which is why post-scarcity isn't really something we are ever likely to need to worry about.
What we need to worry about is a scenario with scarcity where large masses of the public are (some in a static way, and some in a transitional way that, with optimal policy, could resolve given time), through arrangement of capital and the relative utility of automation vs. labor (including when it comes to producing additional automated production units) unable to contribute significantly to output, and thus have nothing to sell in the marketplace.
I do agree we we need to think at the individual level first. I means we have to think out of social/collective convention during this first step. Money is one of it. Desire is not. Let's start with desire, then figure out what we can do with money?
Perhaps you don't believe me. If so, how do you think the cultural meme of the unhappy rich person came about? What is it about the lifestyles of the rich that would get in the way of living life to the full?
No, one needs money to prioritize one's desires relative to the availability of resources. Two persons might have the same order of preferences (A > B > C), but one person might rather have (A) alone, while the other prefers to have (B, C). By having an universal credits system, the two can bid on stuff and come out with a good compromise.