The repercussions, ethics, and morality of a post-scarcity society

Part of the reason they're looked down upon is because you can't live on them. You can starve to death less slowly, sometimes, but you can't live on them. Mc Donalds employees take more in food stamps, and welfare than they give in taxes. They hurt the economy by taking those jobs at the wages they're paid.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

There was an old theory that people liked variety in their work. He was on the whole a rather insane guy, but the early French socialist Charles Fourier advocated a society where everyone would turn their hand at every task (even the unpleasant ones) at a time, and so they would be less unpleasant. Just like people don't *hate* doing household chores unlike how they might *hate* being a garbage collector, it's essentially the polar opposite of the Henry Ford method of production, more focused on human dignity and far less so on productivity (but Fourier can be excused, as he was dawn-of-the-industrial era, and also a bit of a nut. He wanted to domesticate the whales so that they could pull Transatlantic shipping).

Edit: I may add that the "but what about the menial jobs?" question could be answered by the march of progress. Just as some of the most repetitious industrial jobs were replaced by automation, so too will less desirable jobs simply be weeded out over time. Surely McDonald's is hard at work trying to design a fully or mostly-automated restaurant. Maybe one where they'd only need two or three frontline workers to ensure quality, change the cash, and watch for malfunctions.

edited 11th Aug '13 12:50:18 PM by Ogodei

Star Trek's federation apparently is a post scarcity society. What with replications being common place and what not. Of course this depends greatly on the writer john luc picard does tell an investment banker that they abolished money and now work towards self betterment and the greater good.

Totally no reason why that wouldn't work.

Don't worry Barky. M Ps would be first against the wall when the revolution comes, so no need to worry

edited 11th Aug '13 2:24:06 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

When the revolution comes, we'll be the dudes on the front lines of ensuring the continuation of the status quo.

You're evidently not familiar with the second verse of the English version of the Internationale

The soldiers too will take strike action, They'll break ranks and fight no more.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Any sort of "post-scarcity" society is ultimately an illusion where people place their entire lives into the hands of a select elite that control the distribution of resources. Even if it were all robots, absolute power would be in the hands of the people who design the robots.

So no, it wouldn't be ethical. It'd be a one-way trip to an even scarier corporatocracy than we already have.

Then your fate is sealed. It's a shame it must end this way. Perhaps in another life we could of not been enemies... But Friends

You must understand most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it...

edited 11th Aug '13 2:39:09 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

1. Umm, why would this be the case?
2. How different is that from the current concentration of wealth?

EDIT: Barkey elaborated on a response to the videos, and it's worth reading.

edited 11th Aug '13 2:57:27 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

This. I'm lucky enough to be in a position where my education is being paid for, and I'm unemployed, so I've tried to do things like diet, exercise, and think of ways to stop spending money frivolously, because I began to realize I was just sitting on my ass gaining weight, and it made me fucking miserable. I couldn't stomach the way I was obviously taking advantage of the people around me.

Plus, I find the idea of a permanent safety net to be a powerful motivator, in a way. The knowledge that no matter how bad things get, I'll never starve or sleep on the street, provides hope and greatly reduces stress and anxiety. When people are happy, they're more productive.

edited 11th Aug '13 9:03:41 PM by Robotnik

Where do you think your magic give-me-everything robots are coming from, the bloody sky? Someone's making them, someone's upkeeping them, and if your entire wellbeing revolves around their stuff they basically own you.

The current concentration of wealth is ludicrously disproportionate but not a complete consummate dependence. While ways to survive outside that dependence are increasingly strangled (which we typically consider a bad thing by the way), they do exist and may be repaired.

I'm not assuming robots. We have the space and the food production capabilities to house and feed the world right now. It's just a matter of distribution and convincing people not to starve/murder each other. Ahhh, so your concern is robustness, as in do we have backups in case the system fails.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Not even robustness. A way out.

A project that sweeping absolutely has to be all encompassing to even be conceivable — if it's not, it gets shut out by profited interests. And if it is, you're basically enslaving yourself to the same problem as communism: what happens when (not if) the people in charge go bad?

Hell, expect to see your "post-scarcity" bullshit start embargoing dissidents within a decade.

edited 11th Aug '13 6:56:18 PM by Pykrete

We might break ranks, but regardless, we'll fight.

Fighting is what we do. I'd consider going against the system if the cause and the solution presented if the system is dismantled seems like a good choice to me, but it doesn't mean the fighting stops. If I feel the status quo is superior, I'll fight for that. If a revolution happened and the proposed regime appeared to me to be vastly better than what we have now, I'd break ranks, but I'd do it to fight the status quo.

No matter what though, it'd be a fight, with people on both sides.

This is the ethics and morality of post-scarcity economics, not revolutions. On topic, guys.

@Pykrete: The question then is how to make the acquisition of living resources work like it does in capitalist countries. You can't starve any dissidents out if you don't know they're dissidents and they have money. Thus, the solution is to place limits on the ability of the system organizers to find out harmful irrelevant information, like political affiliation, about the system users. Now, the powerful will try to get around that, as the recent NSA controversies have revealed, but again how is that different? I'm not pretending that this will solve everything, but "the powerful want to spy on you" is an objectively better situation than "the powerful want to spy on you AND starvation and homelessness is a great fear for many".

Really, your criticisms are more aimed at central government control rather than at post-scarcity societies per se. With an increase in urban agriculture and better residential/civic planning, it should be easy to make it happen without someone at the top saying it has to happen.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

One of my questions is, what is it that I have to give up, and what do most people have to give up, in order to make a model such as that sustainable? And will I feel that it's worth it?

It's been said that if the entire human race had the same level of standard of living and resource usage as the United States, we would burn out the resources of the planet in a relatively short period of time. If a post-scarcity nation has to work on a global level, which is pretty much what many of us have concluded, it means something would have to give.

Now obviously alternative energy being brought into greater use, as well as a massive adherence to recycling, would put a dent in something like that. But it sure wouldn't cover it even close to enough. Lots of things would have to give if we would all supposedly be somewhat equal in such a scenario.

If we're talking a post-scarcity economy, then we don't need to worry about taxes or food stamps, quite literally. The only thing that will matter about the job is how much it contributes to the society, and by that measure I think a Mc Donalds fry cook is of more worth than a stock broker even now.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

oh hell yea. The'res a terrible tendency for higher paying jobs to be LESS useful. CE Os for instance, how many of them actually DO ANYTHING to deserve the huge paychecks?

I'm baaaaaaack

Given that there aren't enough jobs available for everyone who wants to to be able to work, it's probably a better idea to let those who don't want to work stay out of the workforce and not take up space. To that extent, we're already potentially post-scarcity in needs, though not in luxuries.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

being the ultimate decider is not exactly an easy task.

@Ramidel, I'm starting to get the feeling that we might be at that point as well. We have food insecurity in this nation but how many people starve to death in the US?

edited 11th Aug '13 9:12:24 PM by soban

@soban: Not nearly as many as those who die of overeating. First-World Problems ahoy.

However, people die due to not receiving necessary medical attention. So that scarcity needs to be addressed.

edited 11th Aug '13 9:17:25 PM by Ramidel

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

While nine-figure salaries are a little much, I will concede that CEO's tend to work very, very long hours. It's not anything resembling what a single parent has to pull in minimum wage, but they're rarely lazy by any stretch.

Yeah, CEO's don't necessarily have an easy job, they just get paid way too much for what they do. My overall opinion of all my private sector jobs has been that the higher you go in the corporate food chain, the more you get paid to do even less work with even less risk of getting fired.

@Barkey: Well, aside fro CEO salaries, we would have to pay the full price of energy intensive agriculture methods, like our current models of beef farming. So unless Google gets that vat grown meat going, that could mean 80 dollar steaks. The staples should still be cheap though (piece of advice - buy local grown corn).

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

CE Os do put in long hours make no doubt about it. They're hard-working, ambitious, highly skilled and motivated thefts, liars and crooks.

hashtagsarestupid

We can pay CEO types 200 dollars an hour, giving them yearly salaries in the hundreds of dollars. That's fair.

Nobody needs to make billions of dollars off of capital gains.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.