Post scarcity motivations

[RX-79G]

To my physicist's brain, that sounds like trying to get something for nothing, which never ends well.

When I say "cost", I'm referring to economic cost, in contrast to what Germany paid to create their system. Not getting something for nothing, just something without infrastructure expense.

There are always costs, no matter how hard you to try to hide them. Even if no humans are involved in producing the energy, something has to do it. Something has to build the machinery and maintain it, and all those layers of machines use energy which is the cost of production. Somewhere, something has to put work into producing the energy. If you do miraculously manage to harness large percentages of this ambient energy then you need to expect environmental impacts as the natural transport of energy and materials around the planet gets changed. There is no such thing as a free lunch, let alone a free energy system.

We're talking about a potential post-scarcity scenario, which is going to require a type of technology we don't have. But we do have some very good ideas about how biological or nanotechnological machines could work, and if they truly are built of atoms, the machines are not going to be something that will be "serviced".

As far as energy goes, I'm not saying there is no energy expense, I'm saying that the amount of energy required to make a smart phone with an assembler at home out of recycled garbage is orders of magnitude smaller than the energy used to produce and distribute a phone the traditional way. The drop in energy consumption from the change in production will be drastic, even if people become hoarders.

But aside from that, the energy required to use assemblers to cover every rooftop and roadway with solar cells would also be relatively modest compared to the energy cost of pavement or shingles. All the power we could need could be gathered via solar that is normally "utilized" to decompose asphalt by trapping heat. Instead of that energy heating those surfaces, they could produce power that wouldn't be radiated into the environment but locked up in production. The net utilization of sunlight would never exceed the amount of energy that is already heating the earth. So while energy consumption for production drops due to on-site production efficiencies, the gathering of energy could also be exceptionally low impact. Even, as I mentioned, reversing some global warming issues if enough earth heating is tapped off to replace abandoned non-renewable sources.

None of this is crazy - it is how the natural world uses chlorophyll and protein assembler machines to build all the life around us. We would just be using a similar process to build stuff.

 

[Biskit]

When I say "cost", I'm referring to economic cost

All cost is economic and I think it's dangerous to pretend otherwise. Regardless of whether you are accounting in gold, dollars or kilowatt-hours, it is all cost.

if they truly are built of atoms, the machines are not going to be something that will be "serviced".

That I take issue with. No matter what the scale, the machines will require repair/replacement.

The drop in energy consumption from the change in production will be drastic, even if people become hoarders.

I think that is overly optimistic - see my last comment below

All the power we could need could be gathered via solar that is normally "utilized" to decompose asphalt by trapping heat. Instead of that energy heating those surfaces, they could produce power that wouldn't be radiated into the environment but locked up in production

If you do that on a large enough scale, you then potentially impact the local environment and potentially have to expend energy and materials to compensate.

None of this is crazy - it is how the natural world uses chlorophyll and protein assembler machines to build all the life around us. We would just be using a similar process to build stuff.

Agreed that none of this is crazy, and some of the recent development in nano-scale machines and micro-scale chemistry suggest intriguing possibilities. However, this does highlight my main point - you have a limit, the solar energy supply. Unless you can produced assembler machines which operate at a far higher efficiency than the chlorophyll pathway then you have an energy budget commensurate with probably pre-historic times and certain pre-industrial. These sort of atom-scale assembler machines are going to have to be self-maintaining, self-cleaning, able to recover from contamination by unexpected material in their feed-stock, and self-replacing because everything wears out - and the real point here is all of that requires energy. Those assembler machines are going to consume energy doing nothing, just being ready or recovering from what they last did. And you still have transport costs, because if you want something made that has a high iron content, or a high copper content, then you need an appropriate feedstock. At the very least, these machines will need some sort of distribution network to ensure that the appropriate raw materials are in the right places, which all costs energy.

Unless you are incredibly lucky, your assembler machines are going to use rare/exotic elements to get the efficiency. Otherwise you are back to using good old green plants for everything. The ability of your assemblers to repair/replace themselves is going to depend on the availability of said rare elements, and no matter how good the design you are bound to have losses from the system and without the effects of geologic processes concentrating materials in particular places, there will be a potentially large energy requirement to extract trace amounts of these rare materials from the environment.

Overall, you have an energy budget. You have a production system which will consume energy even doing nothing and such a large and presumably distributed system will consume a lot of energy even throttled back to a minimal/idling state. You potentially have a reliance on rare materials which might not be easy to come by, even if they are recognised as 'communal resources'. Unless your post scarcity system is coordinated and controlled, it can't last long. At the very least, if you don't control population you will eventually have too many consumers and break that energy budget.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

I don't think any such system will work without some sort of control. Unless you have truly infinite resources, there is going to be at least one limiting factor, and realistically many more than one. The best you can have in a supposed post-scarcity environment is that there is enough of everything for everyone, provided no-one takes too much. Since people (both individually and en-mass) seemed to be generally incapable of self-restraint, someone or something is going to have to control the rationing.

Technically true, so maybe limit the concept to something more realistic. How about a society where everyone's basic needs are met, there is no homelessness (except for that small fraction who absolutely refuse to live within society), no hunger, everyone has an internet connection and cable. Public transportation is free and efficient. Education is free.

This makes it possible to grow up, live your life, and die without ever doing a lick of work. IMO, that's post-scarcity enough. You can add on a basic income allocated to every person for purchasing non-essentials.

 

[Nick B]

That's called Universal Basic Income. Something I support wholeheartedly. Basically, everybody gets a basic income, enough to house, clothe and feed you. Completely unafected by your earnings, therefore tying nobody into the benefits trap.
So, if you dont want to work, fine, you'll be ok. But anything you earn on top will enhance your life, thereby actualy encouraging people to work/create/do.

Some places are trialing UBI, but the idea has existed for decades. I doubt the UK would ever be so sensible.

 

[RX-79G]

Technically true, so maybe limit the concept to something more realistic. How about a society where everyone's basic needs are met, there is no homelessness (except for that small fraction who absolutely refuse to live within society), no hunger, everyone has an internet connection and cable. Public transportation is free and efficient. Education is free.

That is called communism, and maybe someday people will give it a try.

Overall, you have an energy budget. You have a production system which will consume energy even doing nothing and such a large and presumably distributed system will consume a lot of energy even throttled back to a minimal/idling state. You potentially have a reliance on rare materials which might not be easy to come by, even if they are recognised as 'communal resources'. Unless your post scarcity system is coordinated and controlled, it can't last long. At the very least, if you don't control population you will eventually have too many consumers and break that energy budget.

I think you're taking the perspective that this changeover would require and then be followed by incredible production growth. I disagree that post scarcity would cause a boom in consumerism. When objects no longer have value, they stop being individually valuable and people will just keep recycling their unused stuff for whatever they would prefer to have, unless they want their own yards to become landfills.

And landfills, along with closed industrial sites and defunct infrastructure, will provide incredibly rich sources of rare elements - especially when you consider that most structural things will be built out of the most common elements, like carbon and iron. But nearly all the copper that has ever been mined by humanity is banked in our current infrastructure, scrapyards, landfills and polluted top soil. It isn't a question of running out of it, but of processing and then using it efficiently. And self assembling, self servicing nano-assemblers will do things like refine waste and polluted soil with relative ease, in much the same way that biological systems do, but more efficiently because they are not haphazardly evolved life systems but dedicated machines.

You think that the average person will need a massive bank of rare or expensive elements to keep their own household running, and I disagree because our current machines so inefficiently use those materials, and because most people already have a huge bank of rare elements at their disposal.

I just don't think you are giving credit to how massively inefficient our current system utilizes both materials and energy, or how poorly we re-use materials. Advocates of even conventional landfill mining estimate that trash heaps are 40 times as rich in precious metal deposits than all the known natural mining resources. And we haven't even discussed filtering elements out of sea water.

So I will stand by my guns that on-site, needs based, post-infrastructure production using self replicating and easy to repair/replace nanomachinery will be several orders of magnitude more efficient than our current world systems. I also will stand by my assertion that such a system will greatly decrease net consumption as objects lose intrinsic value and trash collection goes away. Additionally, many of the devices we think of as essential or normal that consume a lot energy and resources, like clean water, will also be replaced by much more subtle and effective systems. There is no reason that picking up dirt in your home or watching TV requires large, hot running appliances when their functions can be replaced with tiny robots or a coating of intelligent paint on the wall. A lot of what we currently see as electrical processes can more efficiently be performed mechanically on the nano-scale. Army ants and camouflaging octopus skin give us crude examples of what I'm talking about.

 

[Biskit]

I think you're taking the perspective that this changeover would require and then be followed by incredible production growth. I disagree that post scarcity would cause a boom in consumerism. When objects no longer have value, they stop being individually valuable and people will just keep recycling their unused stuff for whatever they would prefer to have, unless they want their own yards to become landfills.

No, I wasn't. I was simply trying to make the point that I think you are vastly underestimating the complexity required to make it work, and the energy consumption involved. I can't imagine that such a changeover would be instantaneous but rather a slow migration towards more efficient systems and hopefully a matching change in mind-set.

I just don't think you are giving credit to how massively inefficient our current system utilizes both materials and energy, or how poorly we re-use materials. Advocates of even conventional landfill mining estimate that trash heaps are 40 times as rich in precious metal deposits than all the known natural mining resources. And we haven't even discussed filtering elements out of sea water.

I am aware of how inefficient our current systems are, but I think you are over-simplifying the practical problems of extracting precious elements from waste heaps or the sea. I would hope that we will find less energy intensive ways of doing that, but there will still be an energy cost, and this does not get away from these things being rare and therefore a limiting resource. More to the point, if you are going to have a society where no-one needs to work, all of these processes will have to be automated and coordinated in some way.

There is no reason that picking up dirt in your home or watching TV requires large, hot running appliances when their functions can be replaced with tiny robots or a coating of intelligent paint on the wall.

Yes. I agree. And I've seen lots of promising stuff being published along these line BUT to make a self-sustaining system to do this everywhere for everyone will require the sort of complex, energy consuming systems that we currently see in living organisms. Overall, I think you are underestimating the practical problems of creating and sustaining such a system. The tiny robots will wear out and the intelligent paint will need to be cleaned, replaced or otherwise maintained, or if self-maintaining will need a way to get rid of things it doesn't use and acquire things that it does. All of these systems will have to coordinate to ensure that they apportion resources so that they do not run out of anything.

 

[Montero]

Part way through reading this thread I was going to say "definite scarcity" - I think Bizmuth has effectively done that.

I also will stand by my assertion that such a system will greatly decrease net consumption as objects lose intrinsic value and trash collection goes away..

But people love things because for lots of reasons other than value. When I was a kid I had a jumper that my grandma knitted for me. I outgrew it quite quickly. But I loved the pattern, I loved the texture (it was quite a complicated bit of knitting) and I kept it because I loved it - fighting off my grandma who wanted to frugally unravel it, add some wool and re-knit it as a new jumper that would fit me. She couldn't understand why I wouldn't hand it over.

There is also a vast difference in current consumption - not talking mega-wealthy - but people in ordinary jobs. One person might have three pairs of shoes, another a dozen. Its what floats your boat. Its the "ooh look at that, I want one". Some people love dressing well - and it isn't a modern phenomenon - just look at grave goods. There are bead necklaces and other bling in the neolithic period.

There are also people who like to game any system - to see if they can. If you had a fully automated system, that fairly apportioned the energy and goods available - there would be someone would be out there seeing if they could mess with it. Then you need people to catch the people messing with it. Some people like challenges. Some people object to being controlled, however benign and beneficial the control. Some people would do something to mess with the system, just because it is there.

 

[Nick B]

Post scarcity isnt a system though, scarcity is the system, and we need to end it. It was created to make money, simple as that. Just as diamond supply is controlled to artificially inflate their perceived value, the same is done with pretty much all products. If you add that to planned obselescence, you control both supply/demand AND buying frequency.

If we end the scarcity and planned obselescence system that the wealthy have created, the capitalist system becomes fairer. Fair prices for high quality goods. Add in a UBI that covers housing, food, cloths and basic services (a persons basic needs) and tax fairly all earnings and you have a benevolent system that provides for everyone AND rewards those who want to strive for better.

This doesn't require any changes to our current technology or resources, just a change in attitude to each other.

This, of course, will never happen because the wealthy want to protect their status. Even though their lifestyles would continue unafected. For some reason, people like to see others less well off than themselves.

 

[RX-79G]

Overall, I think you are underestimating the practical problems of creating and sustaining such a system. The tiny robots will wear out and the intelligent paint will need to be cleaned, replaced or otherwise maintained, or if self-maintaining will need a way to get rid of things it doesn't use and acquire things that it does.

I think we are talking about different things, entirely. For the world to change over to post-scarcity conditions, the nanotech or similar machinery I'm describing is going to have to simple to utilize, self replicating and easy to repair/replace. Because we are talking about a system that will cause an economic collapse, and that's only going to happen if the technology is user friendly enough that people just give it to each other.

What do you do when the ants wear out? Make more ants that will keep cleaning and will sweep up the previous set. When your solar roof drops in efficiency? Use something similar to the ants to look for a fault, or tear the whole thing off to feed into the assembler for a replacement. It isn't like devices made by nanotech are going to be less durable - they will be more durable due to their precision.

Occasionally, someone may run out of some sort of trace element, and if they truly want to keep making more stuff, rather than just recycle what they have, they will have to send a drone to an abandoned industrial site or spend the afternoon fishing at an old dump or put an ad up for a trade of materials or services. But that's only after they have exhausted dismantling all their old junk in favor of more material efficient designs which will stretch the rare elements many times further than normal production ever could.

But people love things because for lots of reasons other than value. When I was a kid I had a jumper that my grandma knitted for me. I outgrew it quite quickly. But I loved the pattern, I loved the texture (it was quite a complicated bit of knitting) and I kept it because I loved it - fighting off my grandma who wanted to frugally unravel it, add some wool and re-knit it as a new jumper that would fit me. She couldn't understand why I wouldn't hand it over.

There is also a vast difference in current consumption - not talking mega-wealthy - but people in ordinary jobs. One person might have three pairs of shoes, another a dozen. Its what floats your boat. Its the "ooh look at that, I want one". Some people love dressing well - and it isn't a modern phenomenon - just look at grave goods. There are bead necklaces and other bling in the neolithic period.

You can keep your baby jumper and all the shoes you have storage for, as storage is going to the resource that will be the limitation on individuals. But even if you have an extensive collection of chatchkies, you won't have the same affections for cell phones, dishwashers, windshield wipers, cell phones, hair dryers, crusty shower heads and toothbrushes. All the stuff we throw out, sell, donate, store and recycle could just be turned into something you do want.

There are also people who like to game any system - to see if they can. If you had a fully automated system, that fairly apportioned the energy and goods available - there would be someone would be out there seeing if they could mess with it. Then you need people to catch the people messing with it. Some people like challenges. Some people object to being controlled, however benign and beneficial the control. Some people would do something to mess with the system, just because it is there.

There will be people that go overboard, but those people are not going to be able call the police, make a claim in court or threaten anyone effectively when their growing mound of junk starts getting recycled by the neighbors. Everyone is going to have a fair amount of personal power, but no one is going to have more than personal power. If someone is out of control, other people will likely take action to limit the abuses.

 

[Biskit]

If someone is out of control, other people will likely take action to limit the abuses.

Ah, welcome to the world of mob-rule and lynching.

 

[Nick B]

@RX-79G
What you are talking about is not post scarcity, it is a change from economic based system, to a resource based system. Scarcity is artificially created and could be ended right now.

 

[RX-79G]

This, of course, will never happen because the wealthy want to protect their status. Even though their lifestyles would continue unafected. For some reason, people like to see others less well off than themselves.

Wealthy people aren't all born that way. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that most Western billionaires had fairly humble origins. People become grossly rich because of the way capitalism rewards re-investment, not because there is some conspiracy to keep other people poor. In actuality, capitalism created the middle class, making enormous numbers of people who were poor relatively rich, and driving economies with their new ability to be heavy consumers.

This would have been okay for a long time, but globalism has taken the prosperity that comes from industrialization and moved it overseas to where other people are poor and would like to be middle class. Suddenly the relatively wealthy Western middle class is still buying stuff like they have sustainable wealth producing jobs, but those jobs have gone to poor people in Asia. We blame the "rich" for doing this, but all the rich did wrong is continue to be good at creating jobs and wealth - but they stopped doing so in their home country.

Who's fault is that? After WWII, Germany put laws in place to limit the way German companies utilized foreign labor, and the German economy is chugging along with a trade surplus. Countries like the US put no restrictions on trade and labor, so we have an enormous trade deficit. America is essentially done making middle class Americans and is using its consumer power to create middle class Chinese.

The rich are just doing what is "right" for their shareholders and what their governments allow and encourage with their trade and labor laws. The middle class has, to an extent, done this to themselves by demanding discounted foreign made goods and by electing officials that take no action to stop them.

Eventually, global trade might even out to the extent that the Western and Eastern middle classes are all equally employed, but the standard of living set by Westerners was based on huge output from small populations, and when 2 billion Chinese and Indian people get averaged in, then the overall standard for this global middle class will be a lot lower than what Westerners have come to expect.

But make not mistake - we have done this to ourselves with our short-sited consumer habits and national policies.

 

[RX-79G]

Ah, welcome to the world of mob-rule and lynching.

No, it is the world of communal resources. You're forgetting that a person able to make a dishwasher in an hour is also able to make items that will protect herself from harm. However, they aren't going to have the resources to take more than their fair share from the resource pool since everyone else is also using them. I'm not describing mob rule or violence, simply that anyone being a pig is likely to have some of their accumulated stuff disappear until it goes down to the same manageable level everyone else is working with.

You're calling the citizens of this society a "mob", and I'm calling the resource hogs "robber barons". I don't think the robber barons will be tolerated by the citizens, who will simply take back what has been unfairly hoarded.

@RX-79G
What you are talking about is not post scarcity, it is a change from economic based system, to a resource based system. Scarcity is artificially created and could be ended right now.

Artificially created by whom? You're just suggesting a nationalizing model of communism where you bank national wealth through capitalism, then steal from the most successful drivers of that wealth to give it to everyone evenly. How well has that ever worked, comrade?

Unfortunately, it appears to be very difficult to create a Ford Motor Company without having a Henry Ford to lead it. Groups don't take risks or self-organize into cooperative creative units. Individuals stick their necks out for the rewards of success, and they take their labor force along for the ride, making everyone involved more prosperous. That is the model that ended the middle ages, created the industrial revolution and created all the wealth necessary to support huge Western welfare states.

 

[Nick B]

Artificially created by whom? You're just suggesting a nationalizing model of communism where you bank national wealth through capitalism, then steal from the most successful drivers of that wealth to give it to everyone evenly. How well has that ever worked, comrade?

UBI is not communism. There is also no 'stealing' from anybody, since everybody gets the UBI, even the rich. At the moment, the welfare state rewards people for not working, it paralyses low income people into a position where they get penalised for earning more, and people get trapped in relying on state handouts.

UBI, gets paid regardless of status, earnings or position. Then anything you earn on top is taxed as per today. There is no unfairness to this. Nothing is 'stolen' from anyone.

Scarcity. Look it up the scarcity model, it is a real approach that has been used for a long, long time.

The thing is, most people believe this is the way it has to be, because it is the way it has always been. People need to start thinking instead of just believing.

 

[RX-79G]

UBI, gets paid regardless of status, earnings or position. Then anything you earn on top is taxed as per today. There is no unfairness to this. Nothing is 'stolen' from anyone.

I was commenting on your "we can end scarcity" post, which doesn't have anything to do with UBI. But UBI is another type of enforced wealth redistribution, since the money to pay out UBI comes from somewhere.

Scarcity. Look it up the scarcity model, it is a real approach that has been used for a long, long time.

The thing is, most people believe this is the way it has to be, because it is the way it has always been. People need to start thinking instead of just believing.

But scarcity isn't something created by rich people. Scarcity is everywhere, and the beginnings of human civilization was the invention of agriculture technology to create less scarcity in the form of surplus. And the technological creation of surplus is why we have a modern world. Artificial scarcity has been used in all sorts of ways since the first people burned each other's crops or damned a river, and it is still used today in things like the sparkly finger-rock market. But those are the hijinks wealthy, surplus rich societies do to create consumer demand where there is none. Overall, there is more wealth in the Western world than scarcity, we just like to talk about people who have homes, cars, full bellies and entertainment budgets as "poor", while a couple thousand miles away the real poor people are literally starving in rags.

The primary point I am making is that the level of wealth that even poor people in Western countries enjoy is the result of processes that are primarily capitalist in nature, and presuming to increase everyone's standard of living means screwing with the kind of people that created all of that wealth in the first place. And I don't mean the established rich, I mean the people that become rich out of their innovation and drive to create technologies like farming or engines or production lines or Twitter. So I am not especially optimistic about the suggestion that the evils of capitalism can be addressed by damaging the drivers of economic growth - individual entrepreneurs. Take away the ability for individuals to get unbelievably rich and you take away the ability of a society to grow and compete as a whole.


I'm all for tax systems that don't touch the first X amount of income, but that is different than a system where the government redistributes a pool of money that it got from a minority of the population. That is just a patronage system, and it does not encourage innovative individuals.

It is frustrating to live in countries that used to be economic power houses, and now so much of the discussion is about things like increased minimum wage and UBI, which are really just rationing systems for countries living on the dwindling savings generated by previous generations. Those countries would be far better off encouraging the creation of new industries that used only resident work forces then finding ways to provide classier welfare systems or higher paid McJobs.

 

[Nick B]

I'm all for tax systems that don't touch the first X amount of income, but that is different than a system where the government redistributes a pool of money that it got from a minority of the population. That is just a patronage system, and it does not encourage innovative individuals.

Firstly, the money to provide UBI wouldn't come from a minority, it would come from tax exactly like the current welfare system does. It isn't a minority that pay tax, it is everybody.
Secondly, it would encourage people to work, innovate and create, since you don't lose any of it by earning money (unlike the welfare system which traps people into relying on it). More people could afford to earn, thereby also paying tax into the system rather than just taking from it.
Anyway, enough abfut UBI.

Scarcity. RX, you said scarcity is not artificial, then went on to say it is created by the system. So that makes it artificial.

If you believe we live in a fair and just society, fair enough. I don't. I believe we have a responsibility to help everybody live without poverty, without struggle. That can't happen while the cost of living is artificialy inflated by those who have the power to control that cost.

Just my opinion.

 

[Vladd67]

Let's be honest here, today you have people who think socialised medicine is a bad thing, and ask why should they pay out money to help someone who should have done better at school and got a decent job. If certain sections of society won't go for an idea like social medicine there is no way they are going to stand for their tax money being given to people so they can choose not to work if they desire. Also from the other end of the spectrum you would have people wanting to know why people with more money than them are being given more by the government instead of being forced to hand more over to the ones they regard as being deserving. You only have to look at the arguments as to why old people should have their homes taken away from them and be rehoused in tiny shoe boxes because their family has moved out. No UBI is just a fantasy until the selfish and jealous can settle their differences.

 

[Mirannan]

@RX-79G
What you are talking about is not post scarcity, it is a change from economic based system, to a resource based system. Scarcity is artificially created and could be ended right now.

Wrong. At least for many items. Intrinsically scarce and aren't going to be increased in supply any time soon; unique art objects, rare elements (tellurium, gold, selenium, gallium, indium...), personal services given by actual people. (Yes, personal services given by robots and we might get industrial-scale transmutation sometime, but...) Also products from rare and/or slowly replaced species; mahogany, ivory...

Scarce because of complexity; anything related to computation. I'm personally convinced that even in a nanotech world, supercomputers are going to be more difficult to get hold of than garden chairs - at least initially. Also biological objects. It's probably possible for advanced tech to grow you a new liver, but it's going to be more difficult than a glass of water!

I do agree that many items are scarcer than they need to be. Most gemstones, for a start.

 

[RX-79G]

I'm personally convinced that even in a nanotech world, supercomputers are going to be more difficult to get hold of than garden chairs - at least initially.

Why? Perfect complex computer chips would be one of the simplest things to manufacture with nanotech without even having to go to nanotech specific designs.

 

[RX-79G]

Scarcity. RX, you said scarcity is not artificial, then went on to say it is created by the system. So that makes it artificial.

If you believe we live in a fair and just society, fair enough. I don't. I believe we have a responsibility to help everybody live without poverty, without struggle. That can't happen while the cost of living is artificialy inflated by those who have the power to control that cost.

Scarcity is everywhere, including some artificial versions that arise due to the way goods are marketed - and that kind of marketing is as old as the bizarre. It is simple haggling psychology.

The problem with all post-scarcity plans that aren't driven by technology is that they require a lot of people to decide to nationalize (or globalize) other people's possessions. Or, to have nearly everyone with surplus to decide to make gifts of that surplus.