"You really believe that people on welfare get luxury T Vs and have great five-star meals?"
No, I believe that a great many people on welfare have T Vs, at least old crappy T Vs; and most have more than enough to eat, evidenced by the fact that obesity is a much bigger problem than starvation.
And poor people by definition won't have luxury anything. Not being able to afford many expensive things is the definition of poor. The closest you could get to that is if everyone had more or less the same TV.
If you're going to get into "they only have junk food to eat!" bit, well, for one you're moving the goal posts, from "enough food to eat" to "organic, locally grown, etc food.". And two, ignoring that the poor people might like the junk food just fine. (I do notice that proposals to help "food deserts" usually go quickly from making the "good" food available in poor neighborhoods, to making the "bad" food unavailable in poor neighborhoods.)
"In the U.S. we're certainly lacking in supplying the poorest with food, shelter, and healthcare. Could be doing a better job of that in Canada too."
Beware of mission creep—making sure everyone has a *nice* home is a hell of a lot more expensive than making sure everybody has a home.
"This is good. That gets people out of bed to try and accomplish stuff."
Sometimes. Sometimes it motivates people to try and take other people's stuff. Sometimes it even motivates people to take away other people's stuff from them just so those other people are now poor too.
"or we could keep paying garbage collectors six figure salaries. I mean, if there's one profession that deserves it..."
As soon as you start thinking of prices in terms of "deserves",in moral terms rather than costs, you're likely to get economic distortions. Wages are the price of labor. Garbage collectors get good money because 1) it's a necessary job; 2) if you don't pay such wages, you can't get enough people to do it.
Two jobs that I think aren't paid right: social workers and librarians. Social workers are clearly underpaid. How can you tell? Because many social work agencies have trouble filling their billets. The job is unpleasant enough for various reasons that not enough people want to do it. Low salary is one of the easier job conditions to fix; you can fix it totally by throwing more money at it. (Attracting more people would help with another bad part of social worker jobs, overwork and heavy case loads.)
On the other hand—one could argue librarians are *over*paid. The evidence: librarian pay is notoriously low; and yet colleges produce more MLS degrees than there are librarian jobs. Evidently, the job is so pleasant that even with very low pay, there's a lot of people willing to do it.
Nothing to do with "deserves". No need to argue about whether garbage collectors are more or less worthy than librarians. The price of librarian labor, though low, still attracts a surplus of supply. The price of garbage collection labor, though high, seems to attract the right amount of supply.
"We do know how to make life fulfilling, and we've known it for a while. It's just a matter of sharing that with everyone instead of deciding to punish people for the crime of not having stuff."
I'm not sure what you mean. And I think you miss my point. People who have lots and lots of stuff, so much that they need never work, also have some tendency to get bored and slip into various bad behavior.
"AI rights become an issue, but giving rights to an artificial intelligence doesn't entail giving rights to an automated mechanism said AI may or may not control."
Oh, AI is a whole 'nother ethical can of worms. I mean automation. Cheap, even effectively free labor by mindless machines that do not want the surplus value of their labors because they are not the sort of things that can want anything.
Side note: almost always the ethical problem of whether slavery would be OK if the robot slave was programmed to not mind it is dealt with by the "twist" revelation that the robots really don't like being slaves, so they revolt. Using robots as a metaphor for human slaves, that is. Which is actually dodging the ethical question. The closest I've seen to examining the issue was not even in science fiction—it was in Harry Potter, with Hermione's efforts to free the House Elves who didn't want to be freed.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
I have agreed that luxuries and the resources to buy them are something you have to compete for in a post-scarcity society. I am not grading living space on luxuries. I am grading living space on how it functions as a place to live.
NOT THE BEES
I'd assume that historical scholars being overwhelmingly from privileged class speaks more to the fact that they tended to be the only ones that could afford decent education.
edited 16th Aug '13 5:52:00 PM by Pykrete
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Naturally. But if they were so well off, why didn't they slip into various bad behaviours when they were bored?
Evidently, because "ruin shit" is not the default behaviour for human beings when they become idle.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Maybe not for all of us, but for those of us for whom it is, they tend to ruin things for everyone.
The pool can't be open at night without being supervised because even if there's only one guy who's going to get hammered and pour tabasco in it every night, one is too many.
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scratching at .8, just hopin'
When did "post-scarcity" become "post-basic law enforcement"?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
NOT THE BEES
A good deal of them did — considerably more than were respectable scholars. Historical noble houses were a fucking mess, and the idea of holding them up as some kind of model is laughable.
Hell, look at how many historical scholars had drug abuse problems. Comparatively, they were the good eggs.
edited 16th Aug '13 6:25:35 PM by Pykrete
A bit of speculative fiction regarding two ways in which a post-scarcity society could go.
I thought it was relevant to this thread.
Yes; "Manna" is one of the sources I used for my own thinking.
About the bad behavior—even in the worst slums, most people are reasonably law-abiding, decent folk. Too bad it doesn't take very many junkies and street gangs to make the whole neighborhood dangerous. Too bad it doesn't take very many people pissing in the stairway to make the whole building smell like piss. In a post-scarcity society, boredom is going to be a real problem, probably *the* social problem. ("Manna" assumes total, omnipresent surveillance to solve this problem. Which is a possible solution.)
Though I think I agree that the overall benefits would outweigh the harm. There'd be more inspired geniuses and more bored antisocial assholes—but one genius can improve society more than several assholes can ruin it.
About "deserves"—think about my point about librarians. It is often argued that librarians deserve more money, since it's such a wonderful job that helps society so much. But even at present really low pay rates, we have more people wanting to be librarians (to the point of getting a master's degree) than we have jobs for librarians.
Or for another form of "deserves"—librarian is a female-dominated profession, garbage collector is a male dominated profession, and men on average make more money than women. And yes, there are people who make the case that this is enough to justify paying librarians more (or garbage collectors less). But do this in the name of fairness and sexual equality, you'll get even more MLS s not able to get library jobs; or even worse, not enough people willing to throw garbage in a truck.
Happy New Year!
It's interesting how wage discrepancy in gender interconnect. Cooking has always been seen as a female domain but most chefs are male. If a jobsworth doing its worth paying a man to do it it seem.
edited 17th Aug '13 5:39:27 PM by joeyjojo
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Being a jerk does, but I don't see why post-scarcity should cause people to be jerks more often. It should cause them to be jerks less often because they no longer have to think in terms of competing with other people for basic necessities.
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Happy New Year!
Basically boils down to how tolerant you are of social parasite. Just like people, -liberals- feel librarians and social workers deserve more money becuas what they are doing benefits society conservatives feel that unemployed and unmotivated deserve economic punishment for their failings and should with out food and shelter all even if it was relatively trivial to support them
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V
You'd like to think so — ever heard of an ASBO?
Happy New Year!
I can't even begin to express the flaws with Anti-social behaviour orders. I think the fact they were created by Tony Blair as a to correct minor incidents that would not ordinarily warrant criminal prosecution tells you everything you need to know.
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"Being a jerk does, but I don't see why post-scarcity should cause people to be jerks more often. It should cause them to be jerks less often because they no longer have to think in terms of competing with other people for basic necessities."
Really? Spoiled rich kids, who do not have to compete with other people for luxuries much less basic necessities, have been known to commit antisocial behavior. Some crimes, such as vandalism (up to and including many cases of arson) and barroom brawling have nothing to do with struggling to acquire the basic necessities of life from a cold unfeeling society; they have more to do with people who have the basic necessities provided unable to think of more constructive ways to amuse themselves.
Post scarcity society I believe would have people get into some forms of trouble more often precisely *because* they won't have to compete with others for basic necessities. Not having to work for a living means a lot more free time which means quite likely a lot more boredom. The Devil finds work for idle hands. And it doesn't take a lot of Beavises and Buttheads playing with matches to cause serious problems.
The work, "Manna", mentioned above solves another problem that a post-scarcity society could have—envy. Even people living lives like modern-day millionaires could get very angry, if rich people live much better than they do. (By some modern political philosophies, anyone living much richer than you by definition has stolen from you, and you have a right—maybe even a duty—to take their riches away from them. Which is why middle or even upper middle class Westerners, who live like princes by global standards, can seethe with resentment for "the 1%". A post-scarcity society would not stop that kind of envy.)
"Manna's" utopia solves this the 20th century way—rationing. Everyone gets the same allotment, period. In the modern world, this tends to make for a rather bleak society even when the rationing system works as designed. The big difference in "Manna"—the robot workforce is so productive, the ration is quite large. Buying a large mansion would only cost most of one week's ration. So the rationing does not mean enforced austerity, as modern rationing always does.
There are problems that "Manna" does not address. Big ones. But indeed, strictly enforced economic egalitarianism might work under conditions where 1) worker productivity is so large that the ration is luxurious; 2) there is no need to discourage social loafing or worry about the free-rider problem, because labor is practically free anyway; and, not addressed in "Manna", 3) there is relatively little "nanny state" restrictions. For instance, a "Manna" style rationing might still produce a lot of social discontent if a vegan diet were enforced, or pornography were banned (for religious OR for feminist reasons), or something like that. At the least, demand for a good + ban on that good = black market.
NOT THE BEES
I repeat: the most affluent classes throughout history tend to not be anything you want to use as an example for ideal society. At least not if your goal is to not be laughed out of the room.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
@dcc: You may want to hold up a second and rethink your argument, because there's some blatant internal contradictions there, as well as a few things that don't follow. It also doesn't really apply to what people in this thread are really proposing.
"Spoiled rich kids" - stop right there. Spoiled rich kids are a minority demographic of small regions of the country, and you acknowledge that they are, by definition, spoiled because everything including luxuries. As I'm sure you know from reading the thread, no one is proposing making luxuries freely available to everyone. The behaviour of spoiled rich kids is not an accurate predictor. That's the kind of amateur mistake that the guys who published that Time Magazine article made.
Secondly, you raise spoiled rich kids as an example because you feel behaviour would worsen without motivation. Then you raise the issue of envy, which will...motivate people. Can't have it both ways. It is not a consistent argument to state that people in a post-scarcity society would behave worse with no motivation and then argue that envy is a motivation that would increase and make these people behave worse. Personally, I see envy in a post-scarcity society as a feature, not a bug. That motivates people to get out and engage in economic activities. I want people to want T Vs, nice gardens, good books, video games, the latest phone, a trip to Aruba, and so on so forth. If seeing that the Joneses have nicer stuff than you motivates people to push themselves further, all the better.
Thirdly, you return to the conclusion that boredom will result from the free time that emerges when they don't have to compete for the necessities. Well, now they have to compete for the luxuries, and even if they don't they can use their free time as billions of humans have and do - to spend time with their families, practice musical instruments, and take part in human culture as a whole. The assumption that boredom leads to idle sabotage is just that - an assumption. You did watch those videos on the first page right?
Finally, I'd like to add that you may want to keep in mind what we're proposing. Nobody supporting a post-scarcity society on this thread, as far as I understand, has proposed any of the following:
- Forced egalitarianism
- Rationing
- Punishing the rich or whatever Wall Streeters are frightened of these days
Queen of Good Things, Honest
I think there is a valdi concern in the idea that spoiled rich kids will cease being a minority demographic and instead become the majority; not everyone will live in the lap of luxury, but everyone will still have a comfortable life. That this could end up raising an entire generation of entitled, spoiled prats is possible.
The biggest thing I worry about is that, as has been noted repeatedly, envy, greed, and ego will remain motivating factors for people. However, more palatable motivations like survival will be taken away. I worry that this will eliminate the entire concept of the "self-made entrepreneur who had to crawl to the top from poverty" type folk from the upper class entirely.
Effectively: if the only reason to climb the ladder is greed, then the only people at the top of the ladder are going to be the greedy members of society. Society will be ruled and governed only by the power-hungry. The famous will be people who actively sought a spotlight. Etc. etc. This is a recipe for a greater disaster than America's economic state presently is, because it would effectively remove good, decent folk from the running entirely, and a king whose sole motivation is that he wants to be king is often a poor king indeed.
edited 18th Aug '13 6:05:02 PM by TobiasDrake
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Though unlike you I have no personal experience with the subject, I have my doubts that such individuals ever existed in great numbers, or that they can in this economic climate. They mostly make for a nice inspirational story.
Of course, we could say that part of being post-scarcity means being able to easily fix vandal damage and the like. Part of the draw of vandalism, I suppose, is the thrill of causing serious loss and annoyance for another person. But if it can just be fixed by diverting a practically negligible amount of economic resources, then it could become such a petty act that all the fun goes out of it. Anyone who genuinely wanted to spend their time causing real trouble would have to turn to more severe crimes like rape or murder, but at that point they're also facing potentially serious repercussions.
Moreover, in the real world, crime is more associated with poverty than with middle-class lifestyles. The idea of post-scarcity is more about elevating the poorest people above poverty than about making middle-class people rich.
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I do agree that property-based crime rates would almost certainly go down. A very large motivating factor of crime is desperation. Stealing as a cry for attention would likely remain. Stealing luxuries would probably also stay a factor. But stealing for sustenance would vanish wholesale.
When we talk about scarcity, are we including shelter in this? Would property be distributed freely to all, so that matters such as rent and mortgage cease to be an issue?
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Well, the solution to that is to provide these things that we consider "necessities" at a baseline level for everyone. Our problem is that we're still living in a "root, hog, or die" mentality where we accept that certain things are needed but still force people to struggle to acquire them. Scarcity applied to a universal necessity is a recipe for privation, and especially artificial scarcity.
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