# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/61 "2022-10-06T05:35:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Unless it’s altruists who get there first.
It wouldn’t be.
The true altruists would always be at a competitive disadvantage in the race. It would a very asymmetric affair. The altruists would share all they have and know while those who want more power than others (if only to protect themselves from someone else getting more) would not.
Real world is of course that it would never get that far: multi-turn game theory would apply. The various agents would each try to cheat and try to detect and punish cheaters. Sharing that which could potentially result in power would be restricted highly to those who haven proven they will give power in return; helping indiscriminately without getting anything back, i.e. true altruism, is playing against the house.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Did the CR only take place in creches exclusively?
Exclusively? No. There? Certainly. Generally that’s the tactic of most wannabe lasting totalitarian states, whether they imagine lasting for a thousand years or anticipate constant revolution, indoctrination from the earliest ages possible. The idea is that by generation two educating preteens, let alone adults, is not necessary.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/62 "2022-10-06T07:12:02Z")
“true” altruists is some No True Scotsman construction you’re attempting.
Altruism =/= absolute pacifism nor does it entail just rolling over for cheaters. “Share freely initially, but shun the greedy when they reveal themselves, so you’re in the end only dealing with other altruists” is the best policy - the very game theory you’re appealing to bears this out, as my cite discussed.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Sharing that which could potentially result in power would be restricted highly to those who haven proven they will give power in return
Wait, how are they restricting anything, when the thing (let’s say cheap MrFusion plant plans, for example) that would allow them to exercise the power to limit sharing _is already shared_ (because it was invented by the altruists in this scenario)? You’re assuming the “cheaters” _already_ have the power to put that genie back in the bottle, when it’s having the control of the genie that gives them the power to limit access to the genie. That’s paradoxical.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Exclusively? No.
Then your example (and the associated _reductio ad Mao-um_ you’re attempting) is irrelevant.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Generally that’s the tactic of most wannabe lasting totalitarian states
And also every liberal state that ever ran a school system…
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/63 "2022-10-06T13:33:59Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> as my cite discussed.
You mean this section?
> [@](#):
>
> The key point to remember is that biological altruism cannot be equated with altruism in the everyday vernacular sense. Biological altruism is defined in terms of fitness consequences, not motivating intentions. If by ‘real’ altruism we mean altruism done with the conscious intention to help, then the vast majority of living creatures are not capable of ‘real’ altruism nor therefore of ‘real’ selfishness either.
I have no argument with article and it’s discussion about biological altruism. It leads to helping those who we are wired to perceive as of our family most, those of our tribe next, and to be worried that others may be threats.
“Altruism” as YOU seem to want to define it, helping, including sharing resources such as information, those others who have proven they will share back in ways that benefit you at least as much, and restricting it from others? No need for social engineering; it is current human nature. They’ve won and are in charge. Sharing is selective and mostly transactional.
You imagine a world in which we have no adults who are “wrong thinkers” to start, it appears de novo with all adults having been indoctrinated from the crèche in “right thought”? Disciplining from the crèche with shame? Created by those who got there, to the power to implement and enforce universal unwavering social values of the approved type.
Okay.
---
### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/64 "2022-10-06T14:23:24Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> 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.
It’s not about the individual cell, it’s about the genes. Since all the cells have the same genes, they work together. Try putting some of my cells into your body, and things aren’t going to be so cooperative.
It should also be pointed out that it did take at least 2 billion years before cells started cooperating with eachother at all. It wasn’t an inherent drive to be cooperative, it was environmental factors that made cooperation more beneficial to all than competition.
> [@Babale](#):
>
> By that same token, an animal may be selfish, but it is formed of billions of individual cells, working in concert.
Until you get cancer. Then the inherent selfishness of the individual cell manifests itself.
It requires quite a bit of work to keep all these cells in line. If we were anthropomorphizing, then I would say that we have an extremely authoritarian government in control of our bodies. One that will command its constituents to commit suicide on a regular basis if they get even slightly out of line.
So, along with social engineering, we’d also have to just murder a whole lot of people who don’t live up to society’s altruistic standards.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Where did _I_ say anything about “abstract altruism” ? Your argument was [already handled](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#ButItReaAlt) in my link.
I don’t see how it is handled. It talks about cooperation within tribes. It doesn’t talk about altruism towards other tribes.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> 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.
I don’t think it’s the _same_ as sexuality, but I do see it as an inherent, not a “socialized” behavior.
Put two strangers in adjoining rooms, and put one of them in charge of which one of them receives food, and 999 times out of 1000, the person in charge will feed themself rather than starve. Even if there is enough food for two, 99 times out of 100, the person in charge will take more than their share, even if that leaves the other hungry.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> The trick will be in getting humans to realize that _all_ humans are their “tribe”. Hence the social engineering.
That will be one hell of a trick. And even if such techniques are possible, there is still the trick of implementing them, and making sure that those in charge of doing so aren’t just brainwashing the masses to be “altruistic” while they keep the bulk of production to themselves.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Yes. But some have been altruistic to all.
Eh, I don’t know about that. Is it common that someone subjects themselves to extreme poverty in order to give everything they have more than they need for basic survival to others?
Sure, you can say that Bill Gates is altruistic, since he gives away more money in a day than I will make in a lifetime, but he isn’t giving it _all_ away, he still has more money than I will make in a thousand lifetimes.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Neither have the robots.
We haven’t put the robots in charge yet. Putting the robots in charge is part of this utopia plan.
Besides, if we do have strong AI that we use to give _ourselves_ a utopian lifestyle, then doesn’t that make the AI’s live in a dystopia?
---
### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/65 "2022-10-06T15:26:28Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It’s not about the individual cell, it’s about the genes. Since all the cells have the same genes, they work together. Try putting some of my cells into your body, and things aren’t going to be so cooperative.
I mean, your mitochondria and the rest of the parts of your cells have different DNA, so cross-gene cooperation is certainly possible.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/66 "2022-10-06T15:33:27Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> That will be one hell of a trick. … … then doesn’t that make the AI’s live in a dystopia?
I think these two portions of your post answer each other!
The evolution of human altruism beyond kinship groups rests upon the creation of “[fictive kinships](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28161/chapter-abstract/212975084?redirectedFrom=fulltext)”, and fictive kinship require an us and a them. It is conceivable that we can create a group of AIs that we can oppress as the “them” (and use to do all the work, to take all the risks, to have as sexbots and to kill for kicks), and possibly then extend our fictive kinship to all of “us” … until of course the AIs realize that they actually possess all the power. Pick your dystopian fiction for that option; I’ll go with we are left with Spice as the scarcest resource.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/67 "2022-10-06T15:34:54Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> You mean this section?
No, I mean the Prisoner’s Dilemma discussion. The maths works out the same way if the partnerships are deliberately chosen as if they’re familial relationships.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> You imagine a world in which we have no adults who are “wrong thinkers” to start
I specifically accounted for adult wrong thinkers i.e. sociopaths.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> it appears de novo with all adults having been indoctrinated from the crèche in “right thought”?
No. The model merely requires that altruists prosper over the selfish.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Disciplining from the crèche with shame?
i.e. the same way it’s done today.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I don’t see how it is handled. It talks about cooperation within tribes. It doesn’t talk about altruism towards other tribes.
It very much discusses non-related altruism, when it discusses adoption and non-kin assistance.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s the _same_ as sexuality, but I do see it as an inherent, not a “socialized” behavior.
I disagree, which doesn’t leave much room for debate there.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Put two strangers
Are they magical unsocialized strangers?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> That will be one hell of a trick.
It’s still an entirely possible one.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> making sure that those in charge of doing so aren’t just brainwashing the masses to be “altruistic” while they keep the bulk of production to themselves.
Sure. My scenario assumes actual altruism.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Eh, I don’t know about that. Is it common that someone subjects themselves to extreme poverty in order to give everything they have more than they need for basic survival to others?
Again with people making up shit I didn’t say and then responding to that. Did I ever, anywhere here, say _any_ fucking thing about “common”?
That there have historically been people who have given away all they have and lived in poverty is not disputable. No-one said anything about it being common.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Sure, you can say that Bill Gates is altruistic, since he gives away more money in a day than I will make in a lifetime, but he isn’t giving it _all_ away, he still has more money than I will make in a thousand lifetimes.
So? Did anyone cite Bill Gates as an example of mendicancy?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Putting the robots in charge is part of this utopia plan.
My plan didn’t say anything about putting “robots” _in charge_ of anything. Just using them as a tool to regulate human behaviour. Who tells the robots what to do is irrelevant - could be altruists, could be AI, could be aliens, could be a genetically-engineered super-smart aardvark for all I care.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> if we do have strong AI that we use to give _ourselves_ a utopian lifestyle, then doesn’t that make the AI’s live in a dystopia?
I don’t see how the latter follows from the former. We could just all live in a utopia together (again, see The Culture)
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/68 "2022-10-06T16:12:30Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> No, I mean the Prisoner’s Dilemma discussion
You mean this section, which deals with a described simple model of one turn Prisoner’s Dilemma and concludes as bolded by me?
> [@](#):
>
> From these expressions for the fitnesses of the two types of organism, we can immediately deduce that the altruistic type will only be favoured by selection if there is a statistical correlation between partners, i.e., if altruists have greater than random chance of being paired with other altruists, and similarly for selfish types. For suppose there is no such correlation—as would be the case if the pairs were formed by random sampling from the population. Then, the probability of having a selfish partner would be the same for both _S_ and _A_ types, i.e., P(_S_ partner/_S_ ) = P(_S_ partner/_A_ ). Similarly, P(_A_ partner/_S_ ) = P(_A_ partner/_A_ ). From these probabilistic equalities, it follows immediately that _W_ (_S_ ) is greater than _W_ (_A_ ), as can be seen from the expressions for _W_ (_S_ ) and _W_ (_A_ ) above; so the selfish type will be favoured by natural selection, and will increase in frequency every generation until all the altruists are eliminated from the population. Therefore, **in the absence of correlation between partners, selfishness must win out**.
Really, read your cites.
In real world circumstances the Selfish individual will perceive the Altruistic one as an easier mark than another Selfish one, a sucker, and seek them out, avoiding other Selfish individuals as much as possible (harder to take advantage of). It wouldn’t just be random; it would be an inverse correlation.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> I specifically accounted for adult wrong thinkers i.e. sociopaths.
You appreciate the fact that we live in a world that does not think of every other person on the planet as members of the tribe, and therefore sharing fully with them, even at loss of personal fitness. So you’d define and deal with most of current humanity as sociopaths?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> the same way it’s done today.
As a pediatrician I will state categorically - bullshit. Shame is a tool in the child rearing tool box but in other than the most dysfunctional families is not the main one. It is not the most effective tool in most circumstances and it is not how children learn Theory of Mind, empathy, how to share, and how to play well with others.
If you were raised with shame as the main teaching tool then you have my sympathy.
---
### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/69 "2022-10-06T16:25:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Are they magical unsocialized strangers?
I don’t even know what that means. Are you saying that to be selfish is somehow “magical”? I’m talking about people, the ones that exist in reality.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> It’s still an entirely possible one.
Sure, cults do that sort of brainwashing all the time. But who will brainwash the brainwashers?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Sure. My scenario assumes actual altruism.
Right, your scenario _assumes_ that people are already altruistic, without giving a viable path for your scenario to ever actually be realized.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Again with people making up shit I didn’t say and then responding to that. Did I ever, anywhere here, say _any_ fucking thing about “common”?
I didn’t say you did, so it sounds like it’s _you_ that’s making shit up that _I_ didn’t say.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> That there have historically been people who have given away all they have and lived in poverty is not disputable. No-one said anything about it being common.
I did however, _ask_ if you thought this was a common occurrence. Sociopaths make up around 1% of the population. Would you say that this level of altruism is more or less common than that?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> So? Did anyone cite Bill Gates as an example of mendicancy?
No, you haven’t cited _anyone_ as an example of either the kind of altruism you expect, nor the kind of mendicancy you claim people will accept in order to be altruistic. I provided an example of someone that people often call altruistic since he gives away so much money. If you don’t think that he’s a good example, please provide one. If one exists, anyway.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> My plan didn’t say anything about putting “robots” _in charge_ of anything. Just using them as a tool to regulate human behaviour.
Eh, your second sentence there contradicts your first. If they are a tool to regulate human behavior, they are in charge of regulating human behavior.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Who tells the robots what to do is irrelevant - could be altruists, could be AI, could be aliens, could be a genetically-engineered super-smart aardvark for all I care.
It’s important to me. What if it is selfish people, telling the robots to brainwash the masses into accepting impoverished conditions so that those selfish people can keep the rest to themselves?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> We could just all live in a utopia together (again, see The Culture)
Banks was a fun writer, but he wasn’t writing a documentary. I can point to many writers who have a much more bleak outlook on the future of humanity, and it would be at least as relevant.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/70 "2022-10-06T16:56:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Really, read your cites.
Read them yourself:
> altruistic type will only be favoured by selection if there is a statistical correlation between partners, i.e., **if altruists have greater than random chance of being paired with other altruists** , and similarly for selfish types.
This is exactly the situation if altruists shun the greedy and associate only with other altruists.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> So you’d define and deal with most of current humanity as sociopaths?
Most of current humanity hasn’t been educated out of selfishness.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> As a pediatrician I will state categorically - bullshit.
Perhaps shame is the wrong technical term. Guilt may be a better word. Whatever motivates kids to avoid doing things socially-disapproved of (as opposed to the feelings generated by approval for desirable things). I do know kids aren’t logiced into avoiding things. So what would you call that feeling, oh expert?
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> If you were raised with shame as the main teaching tool then you have my sympathy.
I wasn’t shamed or guilted much, but then, I didn’t claim to be altruistic either.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I don’t even know what that means.
You’re using these strangers as ome kind of counterargument to me saying people are socialized into being selfish. As though they were not socialized. That socialized strangers are selfish is no counterargument to socialization generating selfishness.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> But who will brainwash the brainwashers?
“I don’t have a wife to beat, sir”
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Right, your scenario _assumes_ that people are already altruistic
It only requires some to be. Which some always are.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I didn’t say you did
Then what the hell was that a response to?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Would you say that this level of altruism is more or less common than that?
Less. And?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> nor the kind of mendicancy you claim people will accept in order to be altruistic.
Where’ve I said there needed to be mendicancy in order to be altruistic? I consider Gates perfectly acceptably altruistic for instance. But you were using him as some example of not actually being altruistic because he’s not begging for alms or some shit like that.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> If they are a tool to regulate human behavior, they are in charge of regulating human behavior.
Are guns in charge when _they’re_ used to regulate behaviour?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> What if it is selfish people, telling the robots to brainwash the masses into accepting impoverished conditions so that those selfish people can keep the rest to themselves?
Then that’s not my scenario, and I don’t care.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Banks was a fun writer, but he wasn’t writing a documentary
He wasn’t writing surrealist poetry either. What he wrote was possible (given the tech), which is my point - there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, in human nature or the nature of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, that means a Culture-type situation would be _impossible_ with that kind of tech.
Hard to achieve? Yes. _Incredibly_ so. No argument from me there. But not impossible. Yes, that tech itself is impossible (well, the FTL is). That’s not the point.
---
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/71 "2022-10-06T18:57:05Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> Wealth is a measurable quantity, not a state of mind
Of course it’s a state of mind. We have people right on this board saying they’d feel poor if deprived of things that didn’t even exist for most of human history, and without which plenty of humans have felt “rich”.
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> ISTM you could do real post scarcity if we transferred our minds into a simulation. Upload our consciousness into a computer and then you can have anything assuming a suitably realistic simulation.
>
> Leave AI robots to maintain the computer in the real world
For one thing, why would they?
For another: I very much doubt that we’re only what we think of as “our consciousness”. I strongly suspect that even if that could be uploaded into a computer, it would very rapidly stop being anything like the person who lived in the entire body which sustained it.
For three: if once the consciousness is uploaded we stopped sustaining the body, the person living in that body is still gonna die.
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> That is the essential premise of the OP: a search for power and control is fundamental to our nature, not a response to scarcity, and the drive to accumulate power will create scarcity in almost all cases
I think at least as likely to cause problems is that a desire to do something useful is also fundamental to our nature; and being told that we’ve become essentially useless to both ourselves and to others would cause huge problems.
I think that may in fact be underlying, just as much as a tendency to always want More, much of the modern tendency to take what should otherwise be lots of available free time once needs have been met and instead take up huge amounts of time requiring the production of things that people not only don’t need but, in many cases, don’t actually want.
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> We already have more information than any person can get through in a day.
We always did. We didn’t always have it written down; but a lot of our nervous system structure and mental reactions have to do with keeping us from being overwhelmed by more inputs than our minds can deal with.
(Try really looking at every leaf on a tree. Both sides. In comparison with others. In different lights and different winds. Including how and where it’s connected to the tree and how it’s reacting to the air flow. And before and after something took a chomp out of it. You wouldn’t have time to do anything else that week or possibly that lifetime, even before you tried doing the equivalent with whatever creature took the chomp.)
> [@Babale](#):
>
> 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
I keep saying that I hope our species can manage to survive long enough to evolve into an improved version. We need to, if we’re going to survive long term; but whether we’ll pull it off I don’t know.
There does seem to be some evidence that we’re gradually getting less violent. There are a whole lot fewer places where people will cheerfully bring the children to cheer on public executions by torture. We’re still torturing people to death, of course; but now we’re mostly hiding it. This is an improvement. Not enough of an improvement, of course; and further improvement may not be fast enough. Or we may move in the wrong direction for a while – and we don’t have a hell of a lot of leeway left, if we’ve got any, for spending time and resources heading in wrong directions.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It wasn’t an inherent drive to be cooperative, it was environmental factors that made cooperation more beneficial to all than competition.
Hoo boy are we looking at such environmental factors right now.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Put two strangers in adjoining rooms, and put one of them in charge of which one of them receives food, and 999 times out of 1000, the person in charge will feed themself rather than starve. Even if there is enough food for two, 99 times out of 100, the person in charge will take more than their share, even if that leaves the other hungry
Has anybody actually run that study? the one in which there’s obviously enough food for two to eat their fill, and one of the options is to give the other person what’s clearly not enough food to keep them from hunger?
---
### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/72 "2022-10-06T19:21:08Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Of course it’s a state of mind. We have people right on this board saying they’d feel poor if deprived of things that didn’t even exist for most of human history, and without which plenty of humans have felt “rich”.
I think that you can reasonably have a conversation about wealth as a state of mind, but that way of thinking is not relevant to the issue at hand in this thread.
Like, if you wanted to say “In a world with X technology, would there be people who were (or felt) much poorer (in relative terms) than others who were (or felt) much richer”. And the answer would I think almost certainly be yes.
But the question here is not about that. It’s not asking about how the people in the Star Wars universe feel. It’s about whether a universe with a demonstrated level of certain technologies at a cheap price (droids that are demonstrably AGI, and ubiquitous and cheap/simple enough that a talented kid or scrappers can assemble them out of spare parts) is consistent with one in which humans are chattel slaves and live in dirt-floored huts and do manual labor. That is a question about real resources and measurable things.
I think you can make good arguments on either side of that question, and several have been made here. But none of them hinge on whether the humans in question “feel” poor. “Do poor people have the material wealth to live in houses with manufactured floors?” is a question we can answer without understanding the mental state of anyone involved.
---
### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/73 "2022-10-06T19:22:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> You’re using these strangers as ome kind of counterargument to me saying people are socialized into being selfish. As though they were not socialized. That socialized strangers are selfish is no counterargument to socialization generating selfishness.
Ah, I see. So, pick an example of a society where people are socialized to be selfless, and we’ll see how they do.
Any society that lacks greed. Any one of them throughout history. Just one.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> “I don’t have a wife to beat, sir”
That’s a non-sequitur. What was that supposed to be in response to?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> It only requires some to be. Which some always are.
No, you require them _all_ to be. That’s been your whole thesis so far this thread.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Then what the hell was that a response to?
It was not a response, it was a question. One that you have avoided by reacting with hostility to twice now.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Less. And?
So, you agree that there are more sociopaths than selfless, and yet, you seem to think that we can make _everyone_ selfless?
That’s the “and”.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Where’ve I said there needed to be mendicancy in order to be altruistic? I consider Gates perfectly acceptably altruistic for instance.
It’s easy to be altruistic when it costs you nothing. It’s harder when it actually costs you something.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> But you were using him as some example of not actually being altruistic because he’s not begging for alms or some shit like that.
That was not what I said, not at all. Seems someone got all upset about responding to things that were not said recently…
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Are guns in charge when _they’re_ used to regulate behaviour?
Do guns choose who to shoot? The one who is choosing who to shoot is the one in charge. If you are taking back all your talk about AI, and instead just talking about guided drones that people use to kill anyone that doesn’t show appropriate selflessness, then we are going back to leaving it in the hands of people.
So, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so you tell me, in this scenario, who is making the decisions, the people or the computers?
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Then that’s not my scenario, and I don’t care.
Right, your scenario is when everyone is just _made_ to be altruistic. Including the people in charge of making everyone else altruistic. I just don’t see that as something that is likely to happen.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> What he wrote was possible (given the tech), which is my point - there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, in human nature or the nature of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, that means a Culture-type situation would be _impossible_ with that kind of tech.
Yes, and in the Culture novels, the AIs are in charge, and they are the ones who have “conditioned” organic life to be less selfish.
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Hard to achieve? Yes. _Incredibly_ so. No argument from me there. But not impossible.
Well, but it seems that you were not saying that it’s not _impossible_, but that you seem to be claiming it to be inevitable.
I’ll agree it’s not impossible, but I don’t think it’s likely, not at all, much less inevitable.
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Hoo boy are we looking at such environmental factors right now.
No, they are not the same. I’m finding it difficult to explain how they are different, as to do so, I’d have to find some way that they are similar to start off, and they have no similarities that I can think of.
Do you think that increasing scarcity of resources is going to foster cooperation and selflessness?
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> Has anybody actually run that study? the one in which there’s obviously enough food for two to eat their fill, and one of the options is to give the other person what’s clearly not enough food to keep them from hunger?
On the one hand, it would be highly unethical for such a study to be run. On the other hand, it is run every single time someone eats more than they need to, while aware that there are others who don’t have enough to eat.
---
### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/74 "2022-10-06T20:04:46Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Any society that lacks greed. Any one of them throughout history. Just one.
Give us the set of all societies throughout history that had access to so many resources that they could reasonably be defines as “post-scarcity”, and I am certain that @MrDibble would return the subset of those nations which are highly altruistic.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/75 "2022-10-06T20:13:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Ah, I see. So, pick an example of a society where people are socialized to be selfless, and we’ll see how they do.
WTF? Have i said, at any point, that such a society existed?
Are you arguing that because a selfless society has never existed, it can never exist? Then just come out and say it.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> That’s a non-sequitur. What was that supposed to be in response to?
Your obvious well-poisoning.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> No, you require them _all_ to be
Not initially.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It was not a response, it was a question.
Questions _are_ responses. Especially srawmanning ones that introduce terms I didn’t use.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> One that you have avoided by reacting with hostility to twice now.
Like strawmanning isn’t inherently hostile itself…and I have answered it - by calling out the bullshit way it was asked.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> So, you agree that there are more sociopaths than selfless, and yet, you seem to think that we can make _everyone_ selfless?
Yes. Because i don’t believe either of those percentages are immutable.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> It’s easy to be altruistic when it costs you nothing. It’s harder when it actually costs you something.
And easy altruism is what, not real? Where does it say altruism has to be hard?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> That was not what I said, not at all.
Then why did you bring him up at all? I certainly didn’t mention him. So you brought him up to make _some_ kind of point. Or try to, at any rate.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Do guns choose who to shoot?
Do slap drones? They’re not guided, but neither do they make their own decisions.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> The one who is choosing who to shoot is the one in charge.
Yes. I gave a whole list and everything. Pick one. I hope it’s the aardvaark…
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> in this scenario, who is making the decisions, the people or the computers?
False dilemma when the computers _are_ people.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Right, your scenario is when everyone is just _made_ to be altruistic. Including the people in charge of making everyone else altruistic.
No, they can be naturally altruistic too.
> [@](#):
>
> I just don’t see that as something that is likely to happen.
“Likely” was never my argument. “Possible” was.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Yes, and in the Culture novels, the AIs are in charge, and they are the ones who have “conditioned” organic life to be less selfish.
Yes. And?
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> you seem to be claiming it to be inevitable.
I made no such claim. At all. The word “possible” has been _all over_ my posts. _You’re_ the only one to use the word “inevitable”.
Note how you’re responding to what I “seem to be claiming” - see what I mean about responding to what you think I wrote, rather than what I actually wrote?
---
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/76 "2022-10-06T20:52:28Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> the question here is not about that. It’s not asking about how the people in the Star Wars universe feel. It’s about whether a universe with a demonstrated level of certain technologies at a cheap price (droids that are demonstrably AGI, and ubiquitous and cheap/simple enough that a talented kid or scrappers can assemble them out of spare parts) is consistent with one in which humans are chattel slaves and live in dirt-floored huts and do manual labor. That is a question about real resources and measurable things.
OK; I see that point. I thought the thread had rather wandered from that very specific question, however.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> On the other hand, it is run every single time someone eats more than they need to, while aware that there are others who don’t have enough to eat.
No; because getting the extra on one’s plate to the people who need it isn’t very often, in this society, a simple matter of handing it out to somebody outside the door.
And when it is: no, not everybody does it. But a significant number of people do. And a significant number of people give enough to feed at least one, often more than one, stranger, in other fashions.
---
### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/77 "2022-10-06T21:20:07Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> OK; I see that point. I thought the thread had rather wandered from that very specific question, however.
I think it largely has, but when I posted that I was trying to keep it to what I thought was on track.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2022, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/78 "2022-10-07T06:42:12Z")
BTW, the answer to the question if the SW universe, with magitech + slavery, is internally consistent? I think yes, it is.
Slavery doesn’t _need_ to exist in that universe, this is true (leaving aside droid sentience for this argument). However, often slavery _is_ its own _raison d’être_. It’s often depicted as a punishment- or race-based, in the SW universe. And that’s entirely consistent - people can, and do, sustain their hate and prejudices far past any practical considerations like cost-effectiveness or future outcomes.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/79 "2022-10-07T16:22:10Z")
So before addressing some of the wandering discussion points, let me start with what we can agree on and that hits the original inspiration of the thread. It may help us build from there.
Tribalism mainly expressed as speciesism, especially humanocentrism, is rampant in the SW universe. We seem to agree that even if one accepts the potentially available of an unending supply of resources a desire to have power and control over “the other” (or to prevent “the other” from having power and control over you) would create scarcity for some, even to the point of slavery.
The key way in which we differ is that I see us-themism (“I, against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I my brothers and my cousins against the world.”) as fundamental to the human condition. By way of informed self interest we can learn how to mutually cooperate and foster our altruistic impulses, but othering is, in my estimation, always going to be our default state. You OTOH see a possibility for that to be socially engineered out of our psyches, by education from the nursery on, designed by the right people getting to the power to implement those social engineering programs first.
So let us imagine that applying in a Star Wars like universe forming.
A society of altruists is the first to create FTL travel and AI droids that can create more AI droids who enjoy working in distant regions bring those unlimited resources to them. How do you see them sharing these with the other sentient life forms that are extant in the galaxy who have not gotten there first, who are by the standards of this society of altruists, sociopaths (IOW more like our current state) knowing that at some point those societies will otherwise either develop the same technology on their own, or the knowledge will leak out?
There are other aspects of your comments in the wandering discussion that I think are worth further discussion, but I think it is better to just raise this one question for now.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2022, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517/80 "2022-10-07T16:35:25Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> I think at least as likely to cause problems is that a desire to do something useful is also fundamental to our nature; and being told that we’ve become essentially useless to both ourselves and to others would cause huge problems.
Agreed with the caveat that the post-scarcity proponent response is that we could be useful creating works of art, or music, or of culinary heights (posting replicated versions on our social media feeds), or flower arranging. Some would of course choose to go off post-scarcity grid OG style and live in primitive conditions by choice, and they would be free to do so. In some of these imaginings status still matters but is earned by reputation points for the value of your creativity in entertaining others. And one way that humans get satisfaction and sense of purpose is by having children. With no worry about the costs of child rearing or if they will have anything they want, some may choose that route with very large families.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517.md?page=3)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-scarcity/972517.md?page=5)