# Past the technolgical singularity, is communism the only way forward? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440 "2012-03-01T14:04:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/41 "2012-03-03T09:38:46Z")
There is a precedent for this sort of fabrication, by the way; one of the basic requirements for human life is free oxygen, something that doesn’t occur on Earth-like planets unless billions of photosynthetic fabricators manufacture it for us. Nowadays there is _abundant_ oxygen, so much so that we could never use it all. Given appropriate technology we could fabricate all the basic needs of the human population, and many of the luxuries as well. Even entertainment could conceivably be computer-generated, which might lead to a population immersed in soma-like synthetic dreams. However I would like to think that there will be a place for human-produced entertainment of many sorts in the post-scarcity future. But even in a post-scarcity future there will not be infinite wealth; large scale projects such as terraforming, megastructure construction, and interstellar flight would all eat up vast reserves of energy, matter and processing power. Some sort of allocation procedure must decide whether or not to carry out such projects, and where to draw the line. For instance it would take much less resources to terraform Mars than Venus; both would be easy compared to Pluto. Or should we send missions to the five closest stars, or the closest two thousand? How would we, or our post-human descendants, decide? Would free trade, a command economy or a mixed economy provide the best model? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/42 "2012-03-06T01:34:41Z")
In the recent thread about Anarchism, **Untoward Parable** said > [@](#): > > Artificial intelligence and robotics will eliminate the need for 99.9% of the population of the planet and then most people become only an obstacle for the entrenched elite to dispatch before moving forward into their utopia: The one where they no longer need the genetically similar cattle to feed off of, the cattle that always present a risk to their domination. . :eek: That’s one scenerio. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/43 "2012-03-06T04:41:32Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In the recent thread about Anarchism, **Untoward Parable** said . > > :eek: That’s one scenerio. It has already been hinted at in posts by me and Der Trihs. Economic and political power is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of relatively small elites all over the world. When and if tech reaches the point where machines and capital are all you need to have anything you want, what the hell do you suppose those elites will do? Read some history. Elites have a LOOOONG track record of treating common folks badly. Hell they won’t even have to set up ovens and camps to kill people en masse, all they’ll have to do is NOT HIRE them and then when they start dying en masse say “Sorry, it’s the marketplace, economics y’know, nothing we can do.” And of course accuse the common folks of being stupid, shiftless and lazy. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/44 "2012-03-06T05:44:41Z")
What’s the difference between a world where the elites let the non-elites die of neglect, and a world where everyone is an elite? Is the point to have more wealth and power than everyone else? Then killing off the proles doesn’t make sense, because who are you going to lord it over? Or is the point to have a luxurious opulent lifestyle where you can do whatever you want? Then killing off the proles doesn’t make sense because you’d have to care about the proles enough to want them dead. The notion that a few uber-rich will own the entire world is kind of silly. I mean, what’s to stop us from just ignoring them? They only own the world if everyone agrees they own the world, if we stop pretending they own the world then they don’t own the world anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/45 "2012-03-06T09:52:35Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > It has already been hinted at in posts by me and Der Trihs. Economic and political power is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of relatively small elites all over the world. When and if tech reaches the point where machines and capital are all you need to have anything you want, what the hell do you suppose those elites will do? Read some history. Elites have a LOOOONG track record of treating common folks badly. Hell they won’t even have to set up ovens and camps to kill people en masse, all they’ll have to do is NOT HIRE them and then when they start dying en masse say “Sorry, it’s the marketplace, economics y’know, nothing we can do.” And of course accuse the common folks of being stupid, shiftless and lazy. If it were true that power is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of elites, and that this entails a worse lot for joe average, then we’d expect things to be worse for joe average now than in the past. But instead, in most of the developed world, we have better healthcare, education, general standard of living, we’re wealthier in absolute and relative terms (as long as we’re looking over at least decades and not just the recent recession). And actually I think you could say the same thing about the developing world too, despite the increasing population. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/46 "2012-03-06T22:21:48Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The notion that a few uber-rich will own the entire world is kind of silly. I mean, what’s to stop us from just ignoring them? They only own the world if everyone agrees they own the world, if we stop pretending they own the world then they don’t own the world anymore. Yet, somehow, looking at history, that almost never happens. Most times and places, there are a few who own the world and everybody else agrees that they own the world. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/47 "2012-03-06T22:29:43Z")
Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, the people do “stop pretending,” and then you have a revolution, which is a thing sometimes worth having, but always chancy – even when the revolutionaries can be sure of winning, they can never be sure what the results will be. You swear the Oath of the Tennis Court, and the next thing you know Danton has been guillotined and Napoleon is Emperor. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/48 "2012-03-07T16:16:13Z")
In a post-scarcity world there would still be certain things that are valuable. If all basic needs and many luxuries are catered for, so that they are as free to obtain as (say) oxygen, then the definition of a luxury good would change. Items made by human hand, or entertainment created by humans, would be more valuable than automatically produced goods. Given fabricators which are sufficiently sophisticated then even human-made cultural artefacts might be replicable by non-human agents. A sufficiently advance AI could weave amateurish baskets and write sonnets, putting the handicraft folk and poets out of work. I wonder what would happen if these non-human agents begin to have desires and demands of their own; would human demands take a back seat? Would we have to compete for resources with our own tools, who have requirements of their own simply because we have made them too sophisticated? ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/49 "2012-03-09T00:37:43Z")
I will still try to enforce my views on those that I think are wrong, a communist society will never let me do that unless I am first among equals. Plus I want and dammit deserve what you have… ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/50 "2012-03-09T02:05:16Z")
If Communism is defined as “The People” _collectively_ owning the means of production, then a post-scarcity world would not be communist per se because _individuals_ would own their own means of production. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440/51 "2012-03-09T20:35:48Z")
That’s exactly the point I was trying to make. The means of production won’t be owned collectively if everyone who wants one has a replicator on the kitchen countertop. Communism, by definition, means the collective ownership of the means of production. Therefore, no communism. If it’s raining soup collective ownership of the buckets is pointless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-the-technolgical-singularity-is-communism-the-only-way-forward/614440.md?page=2)