# Post scarcity
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 30, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517 "2022-09-30T18:32:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/41 "2022-10-04T15:51:04Z")
People are not going to be greedy for ubiquitous objects that have no effective value. They aren’t now, and they aren’t going to be in the future.
If I wanted to I could likely outfit a whole house with usable household items at effectively no cost. Table, chairs, bed, dinnerware, paper and pencils… the floor cost of these items is effectively zero now, enough is set on someone’s curb, thrown away, so that if you really need this sort of stuff, the objects themselves are not going to be much of a barrier. Food in much of the world is the same, simply finding a meal, any food, the floor is zero.
If the thesis is that more things like this will be solved, perhaps energy is solved in this world to be effectively free because it’s simply so abundant. Do I think people will be greedy over SOMETHING, yeah probably. Do I think people will be greedy over EVERYTHING, no, they aren’t now and they won’t be in the future. Someone making an effort to collect Faberge eggs isn’t going to impact the lives of people not pursuing such things.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/42 "2022-10-04T16:24:38Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> People are not going to be greedy for ubiquitous objects that have no effective value. They aren’t now, and they aren’t going to be in the future.
No, but people are greedy for things that compete with those that have an effective value only to those who don’t have enough. A wealthy person isn’t going to order a feast for ten thousand and leave it to rot after they have had their fill, but they may buy up land where that food is produced in order to build a factory or other item that they perceive as having value.
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> If I wanted to I could likely outfit a whole house with usable household items at effectively no cost. Table, chairs, bed, dinnerware, paper and pencils… the floor cost of these items is effectively zero now, enough is set on someone’s curb, thrown away, so that if you really need this sort of stuff, the objects themselves are not going to be much of a barrier.
Yet there are homeless, and many of those with homes are lacking furniture and accoutrements.
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> Food in much of the world is the same, simply finding a meal, any food, the floor is zero.
Yet there are those who go hungry.
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> Do I think people will be greedy over SOMETHING, yeah probably.
A large part of what people will be greedy over is the ability to control others, and controlling others is hard to do if those others already have all their needs and reasonable wants met. The reason to create artificial scarcity isn’t to have more for yourself, it is to deny it to others.
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> Someone making an effort to collect Faberge eggs isn’t going to impact the lives of people not pursuing such things.
Okay, I’ve got a Faberge egg that you want. You ask me what I want for it, I say, “Nothing, I’ve got everything I need and reasonably want.”
Now you have an incentive to deprive me of having everything that I need and reasonably want in order to force me to trade that egg to you.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/43 "2022-10-05T03:49:34Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Explain Linux
What’s to explain? You think Linux wanted to be free? It was a creation subject to the wants of its creator who had control over it. It didn’t break free. He decided to share it so it could have a bigger impact. Creating things and seeing them have impact is satisfying. There are definitely people who are more motivated by those accomplishments than by more things or more power. There always will be. And there will also always be those who want control over their own ideas, and control over other’s ideas too. You somehow think all it takes is one person who wants to share information to make any and all information free. There’s no logic to that leap.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> There is no need for poverty _now_, we have enough that no one need lack for the essentials, and yet, they do.
Exactly.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
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> A large part of what people will be greedy over is the ability to control others
Which prevents being controlled.
It’s an unavoidable consequence of interacting with other sentiences that have the same ability to have wants and to make choices that you do. You want them to do things, they want you to do things. They may be not mutually compatible things. Someone may have to compromise more than the other. Power can be exerted by force, by stuff, by information, by sales ability, even with empathy and alliance.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/44 "2022-10-05T08:47:03Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> it’s a problem of stopping human nature from being greedy.
This seems like a solvable problem. Or just remove human greed from the equation, _à la_ The Culture. Greed-triggered slap drones FTW.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/45 "2022-10-05T12:44:08Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> This seems like a solvable problem.
I’ll believe in FTL and time travel before I believe that humans can be separated from their greed.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Or just remove human greed from the equation, _à la_ The Culture. Greed-triggered slap drones FTW.
I _can_ see a post scarcity civilization that is run _by_ AI. Where that AI decides what is a “reasonable” want, and ensures that that stays within sustainability for the population.
I can see a whole lot of less utopian results that could come from having an AI in charge as well.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/46 "2022-10-05T12:47:25Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I’ll believe in FTL and time travel before I believe that humans can be separated from their greed.
Are you saying you don’t believe _any_ humans have ever been selflessly altruistic?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I can see a whole lot of less utopian results that could come from having an AI in charge as well.
I don’t see what AIs can do that’s worse than what we’re capable of.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/47 "2022-10-05T13:07:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Are you saying you don’t believe _any_ humans have ever been selflessly altruistic?
No, that’s not what I am saying. However, I assume you are not saying that there has ever been a society where _everyone_ is selflessly altruistic.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> I don’t see what AIs can do that’s worse than what we’re capable of.
There was a documentary a while back, by that guy that did Avatar. I think it starred an up and coming actor named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, I think it was a bit of an indie film.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/48 "2022-10-05T13:12:22Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> However, I assume you are not saying that there has ever been a society where _everyone_ is selflessly altruistic.
No. But if it’s _possible_ for some individuals, I see no reason it can’t be possible for more individuals. Or all. Whether that’s upbringing, socialization, brain chemistry - nothing that can’t be repeated (given there have been multiple altruistic individuals in the course of human existence)
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> There was a documentary a while back, by that guy that did Avatar. I think it starred an up and coming actor named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, I think it was a bit of an indie film.
Snark aside - are you saying humans _aren’t_ equally as capable as Skynet of human extinction?
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/49 "2022-10-05T13:24:30Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> No. But if it’s _possible_ for some individuals, I see no reason it can’t be possible for more individuals. Or all.
I’d give the history that it’s never happened before as a reason that it’s unlikely to happen in the future. But I’ll also say that I don’t see how it works, as if you have just one greedy person in the mix, then it all falls apart.
Now, if we are talking about drastically altering brain chemistry with genetic engineering, surgery, or drugs, then maybe, but I’m not sure that what would be left would be human anymore.
It’s not human nature to be greedy, it’s not mammal or animal nature. It’s life itself that is greedy. You’re not overcoming thousands of years of psychological conditioning, you are trying to overcome billions of years of evolution.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Snark aside - are you saying humans _aren’t_ equally as capable as Skynet of human extinction?
Maybe, but we haven’t done it yet. Anyway, my point is that an AI that can bring about utopia can also run a much more authoritarian government than humans can.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/50 "2022-10-05T13:30:17Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Now, if we are talking about drastically altering brain chemistry with genetic engineering, surgery, or drugs,
Or _social_ engineering and upbringing…
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It’s not human nature to be greedy, it’s not mammal or animal nature. It’s life itself that is greedy.
I disagree. [Altruism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/) is just as common in Nature as selfishness, IMO.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Maybe, but we haven’t done it yet.
\* looks at world \* Maybe we’re just doing it very _slowly_?
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/51 "2022-10-05T14:28:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Or _social_ engineering and upbringing…
If social engineering and upbringing could have that level of effect, then gay conversion therapy would work. Parents would be able to prevent their children from taking on any non-standard identities or orientations.
But, until gay conversion therapy is deemed effective, altruistic conversion therapy is going to be even less so.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> I disagree. [Altruism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/) is just as common in Nature as selfishness, IMO.
That paper doesn’t really say what I think you want it to say. Yes, helping out the group that you are in can help with your own survival. Helping others who are close genetically can be more useful to spread your selfish gene than reproducing yourself.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9p2F2oa0_k)
Show me abstract altruism in nature. Not helping out family or tribe, but helping out some completely other, unconnected group or species.
Humans can be extremely altruistic to those they care about, while being brutal to those they don’t.
If I give to my church, stop to help people on the road, even give you the shirt off my back if you are cold, am I an altruist? Does it change it at all if I am also racist, and only will do so if you are of the same ethnicity as I am?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> - looks at world \* Maybe we’re just doing it very _slowly_?
Still haven’t done it yet.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/52 "2022-10-05T14:42:18Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> If social engineering and upbringing could have that level of effect, then gay conversion therapy would work.
I don’t think selfishness is an identity the way sexuality is. I think it’s learned. I think there is a brain chemistry element to it (sociopaths do exist) but I think for neurotypical people, it’s socialized. And what can be socialized in, can be socialized out.
For the sociopaths etc, sure, let’s go the drugs and genetic engineering route. Not to make them _less_ human, but _more_ so.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Show me abstract altruism in nature.
Where did _I_ say anything about “abstract altruism” ? Your argument was [already handled](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#ButItReaAlt) in my link.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Not helping out family or tribe, but helping out some completely other, unconnected group or species.
The trick will be in getting humans to realize that _all_ humans are their “tribe”. Hence the social engineering.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Humans can be extremely altruistic to those they care about, while being brutal to those they don’t.
Yes. But some have been altruistic to all. So it’s not fundamentally impossible.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Still haven’t done it yet.
Neither have the robots.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/53 "2022-10-05T15:24:18Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It’s not human nature to be greedy, it’s not mammal or animal nature. It’s life itself that is greedy.
That’s true, and is why life never managed to get past the unicellular stage, since every individual cell was always in it for themselves.
I kid, but I hope my point is clear. Life isn’t GREEDY, life trends towards whatever is most effective in ensuring survival. For a single celled organism, that usually involves being greedy. For the zooids that make up a colonial organism (say a Portuguese Man O War), however, greed is deadly. If the zooids that do the actual digestion of prey, for example, somehow evolved to keep more of the energy they worked so hard to release from the captured prey, they’d soon starve out the zooids that make up the stinging tentacles and would no longer be able to capture food to digest more efficiently.
By that same token, an animal may be selfish, but it is formed of billions of individual cells, working in concert.
A hive of ants or bees is selfish, but the individual ants or bees that make it up would sacrifice themselves in an instant for the good of the hive.
If it is possible for a group of individual cells to evolve into a colonial or multicellular organism, I don’t see why it is impossible for a group of multicellular animals to build a society in which they cooperate. Are we going to be the multicellular animals to do so? Maybe, maybe not. But I don’t think it’s categorically impossible.
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### Author:  [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/54 "2022-10-05T17:23:07Z")
There are two types of greed IMO. Competitive greed and abundance greed.
Take squirrels as an example. Squirrels will defend their territory even if food is abundant locally and all local squirrels are fat. However, suppose someone is feeding squirrels in the park. Here all of the squirrels are gathering together, because the greed of “look at this food source, I gotta gobble up all of this free food” outweighs competition.
A human population grown dependent upon self sustaining replicating machines that are advanced enough to produce sex robots on demand is going to lose its competitive greed, just as animals do when given the opportunity for abundant greed. The human population isn’t going to expand to use up all of the resources either, more likely keeping the humans interested enough to maintain population is going to be a challenge.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/55 "2022-10-05T19:20:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Or _social_ engineering
Out of curiosity, in this socially engineered future you envision, _who_ is it that has the power to implement the social engineering program that entrains everyone? How are wrong thinkers handled?
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/56 "2022-10-05T19:44:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Out of curiosity, in this socially engineered future you envision, _who_ is it that has the power to implement the social engineering program that entrains everyone?
Whoever gets to it first.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> How are wrong thinkers handled?
With shame.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/57 "2022-10-06T00:57:46Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> You think Linux wanted to be free?
That was what is known as a “metaphore”. I was not saying that information has agency and a conscious will towards what it wants, I’m saying that if it is possible for information to leak out and it is information that interests people, then that information will tend to leak out. Or a free equivalent be created. Linus vs Unix. OpenOffice vs Microsoft Office. Gimp vs Photoshop. Not to mention every crack and hack made to defeat copy protection on commercial products. In a future where it is possible to have cheap AIs do every single step in the manufacturing process, including building more droid factories, and are able to do so anywhere thanks to cheap antigravity and cheap FTL, there would be free, open-source projects for creating those droid factories in competition with the profit-driven versions, and given enough time (such as the many thousands of years of history in the SW universe) and enough effort (such as among the millions of civilizations) “free” would eventually win. In a setting where unpaid labor can reproduce itself for free, the products of that labor could be free.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/58 "2022-10-06T03:34:53Z")
No offense, but it’s less a metaphor than parroting a silly slogan, one that goes back to a [misquote](https://digitopoly.org/2015/10/25/information-wants-to-be-free-the-history-of-that-quote/) several years back:
> [@](#):
>
> On the one hand you have — the point you’re making Woz — is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable — the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information **almost** wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have these two things fighting against each other. [Emphasis added]
The silly anthropomorphic slogan even has its own wiki page!
Taking its origin seriously, and taking out the anthropomorphizing bit - I’ll buy the concept that there are the two dynamics in conflict: the value of information pushing it to be hoarded by the few, vs the ease of getting it widely distributed due to low costs.
In the worlds we imagine the value of that information is immense and is THE key to having power (both to control and at least as motivating, the power to resist being controlled by others). As @MrDibble states, the power will go to “whoever gets to it first”. And whoever gets to it first will be sure to make the costs of getting it out potentially very high.
@MrDibble’s disciplining wrong thinkers by shame has Cultural Revolution tones to me.
> **[44 Photos Of China's Anti-Capitalist Purge That Saw Millions Tortured And Killed](https://allthatsinteresting.com/cultural-revolution#12)**
>
> "Those who are against Chairman Mao," the Red Guard would chant, "will have their dog skulls smashed into pieces!"
(Scroll through to see some struggle sessions where wrong thinkers are shamed …)
You cited the story _Printcrime_ in the Andor thread - I don’t see a happy ending.
In the story the father was jailed ten years I think for printing stuff. Upon release he decides instead to print the printers. … what do you think happens next? I see him being killed and his family tortured publicly as an example to others. Planets, planetary systems would be destroyed to keep that information under control of the few who currently have it.
There doesn’t even need to be a single greedy person. There just needs to be fear that there is one; that fear would motivate being willing to do whatever it takes to have more power pre-emptively. The fear of others’ greed is enough to create a power arms race. Lest someone else “gets to it first.” Then it’s too late.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/59 "2022-10-06T04:26:15Z")
Just for fun, since you cite Cory Doctorow’s _Printcrime_ as a way to explain “information wants to be free” to those of us who in your estimation don’t get it, here’s his recent assessment of that slogan:
> **[Saying information wants to be free does more harm than good](https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/18/information-wants-to-be-free)**
>
> Cory Doctorow: It's better to stop surveillance control because it is the people who really want to be free
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/60 "2022-10-06T05:08:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> As @MrDibble states, the power will go to “whoever gets to it first”. And whoever gets to it first will be sure to make the costs of getting it out potentially very high.
Unless it’s altruists who get there first.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> @MrDibble’s disciplining wrong thinkers by shame has Cultural Revolution tones to me.
Did the CR only take place in creches exclusively? Because that’s the target group for the kind of social engineering I’m talking about. By the time they’re even preteens it would be too late, never mind adults.
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