

First Steps Towards Post Scarcity - ph0rque
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/economy/first-steps-towards-post-scarcity-or-why-current-financial-crisis-end-world-we-know

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russell
This may seem to be OT but it's going to affect most people deeply. What does
it mean when most goods are very cheap or meaningless. We have been edging
into post-scarcity since the 1960's, but we dont realize it yet. We shouldnt
need two income families just to tread water. We have a lot of surplus, but it
has been sucked away. The biggest offender has been housing. Not just that
houses are larger than we need, but that speculation has driven land prices to
outrageous highs. Now we are at the point where we can live anywhere and
telecommute. Does the value get sucked out of the suburbs? Does the value of a
university education become meaningless because we can learn off the web? What
to the whole automotive/energy industry when cars are electric and long lived,
may be one or two cars last your whole life? Do we all become service workers
or do the service industries collapse, because we can do it outselves? What do
we do with 20-hour workweeks?

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sachmanb
although people here may have an aversion to the word 'anarchy' - "Post
Scarcity Anarchism" is a great book on this topic:
[http://www.amazon.com/Post-Scarcity-Anarchism-Working-
Classi...](http://www.amazon.com/Post-Scarcity-Anarchism-Working-Classics-
Bookchin/dp/1904859062)

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davidmathers
Scarcity is infinite. Post scarcity is, as they say, not even wrong. Totally
meaningless.

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mediaman
I agree with you -- decades of psychological research show that people
acclimate to what they have, and then want more.

Imagine cavemen postulating about what we'll do when we have these big
machines that can carry us around at great speed, and when our food is already
made for us and no hunting is required. Could they have guessed we'd work in
glass office buildings so we can buy iPods and McMansions?

I suspect we're in no better position to guess how we'll use our future
economic output, only that we will definitely want to spend it.

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sachmanb
yes, but not everyone in the world currently has this set of things: [1]
shelter,[2] food, [3] water. there are some things that are basic to our
survival and experience, and from there we build the 'more.' when i think post
scarcity, i think post-scarcity of life essentials. the quest to explore and
build new things is infinite.

