Should “Post-Scarcity” be a more prominent Singularity topic?
Within the Singularity community there is a lack of publicity, or awareness, regarding Post-Scarcity.
For people who don’t know what Post-Scarcity is, in a nutshell it entails everything being free (the abolition of money). Everything being free occurs due to superabundance of goods and services. Superabundance will be created via AI, nanotechnology (nano-assembly nanobots), and 3D printing. Things only possess monetary value due to scarcity. Monetary prices are required to restrict limited supplies in situations of scarcity. High-powered-AI will ensure our available resources are effectively limitless.
The question is: Should Post-Scarcity be a more prominent feature of the Singularity?
Everything being free is something everyone can relate to, therefore greater prominence regarding Post-Scarcity could easily increase popular support for the Singularity.
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Total Comments: (113)
Date Started: April 6, 2011 - 6:06 am
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Comments
We hit this over a hundred years ago. For many commodities (food, electricity, etc), scarcity is artificially imposed by market forces or distribution factors which the markets impose.
In many ways the Industrial Revolution created an economic-singularity, as those before could have never imagined the material wealth we have today; i-pods littering our streets and every surface in view the product of machine labor.
Scarcity isn’t artificially imposed by market forces.
For example consider the superabundant supplies of air which we breathe. It is impossible to impose artificial scarcity on things which as not scarce, because if things are truly not scarce (such as air) then people will simply breathe it for free regardless of any artificially imposed restrictions.
Pirated software or movies are nowhere near the levels of Post-Scarcity we see regarding air, but already people can easily watch movies for free despite artificial restrictions imposed on this developing area of Post-Scarcity.
When food and electricity are as common as air then you can truthfully say they are beyond scarcity; but suggesting food is currently a Post-Scarcity item is silly. We have greater than ever supplies of food but nowhere near the levels which entail Post-Scarcity.
Yes your majesty!
No your majesty!
Thank you for laying it out in such simple terms so that my tiny mind may understand, your majesty!
On second thoughts, could be dangerous to have them on stage together, maybe they\’ll cancel each other out in a flash of light and gamma rays.
Actually both sides (as much as they are sides) have their religious millenial fantasies, whether it\’s a Gaian heaven or a techno one.
Do we live in a closed system? I\’ve just been checking out evolution and entropy and locally we don\’t live in a closed system because we have the sun to power everything, adding energy to the system, enabling organisation – hence life.
In the end I think maybe both H. and K. are broadly right, a big crash with new technology picking up on the other side.
Oil looks like it’s depleting at a scary rate, but wind and solar and a bunch of other things are developing along very nice exponential lines a la Kurzweil.
20 years, thereabouts, is his time frame for powering the world by solar. Does that mean we have to have peace in North Africa so we can have those mega solar projects going?
Carbo Unit.. like most singularity oriented persons it appears you have very little knowledge of what is going on with resources and energy. Please educate yourself http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8185
You can not get there from here.
There are many good sites like the oil drum, Jonny, and they are very good at pointing out things like the fact that the IEA gave out wrong figures for years because they had their testes squeezed by the usual bullies.
Are the same bullies at work squeezing the testes of the singularitarians? Wouldn’t surprise me.
Anyway, here is a bunch of exponential curves for energy.
http://www.earth-policy.org/?/data_center/C23/
Was there any teste squeezing involved in the production of these figures?
Dunno.
What about that Jonny?
Its just a ‘non profit’ full of the usual suspects. They are Price System reformers. That is not going to work. People have been trying to reform the Price System since a couple of hundreds of years after it started in Mesopotamia http://history-world.org/reforms_of_urukagina.htm
I can suggest this for reading to get on a good track http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics its a good history of energy economics.
Thanks.
If you feel like it you can hobnob with these people http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall for some more information also.
But yeah… peak oil means everything changes radically as industrial civilization in the short term at least collapses… due to peak oil and other issues also.
Urukagina sounds like he had some dangerous and misinformed ideas. What happened to him, nasty encounter with a lone bowman?
Yeah … not really. Too bad you are resorting to trolling posts now. You have no interest in history?
Come now Jonny, I read about Urukagina with interest, I even read about the physiocrats, and now you’re panning me?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
When you get to the point that satire is lost because language is so exaggerated, it may be time to back off and reform how ‘one’ speaks (writes).
If your serious about some of these ideas join us here and sober your thinking a bit http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall
If your interested in thoughtful, intellectual and humanitarian ideas that is.
If you just like what your doing which is being hazy and ironic and using vague, humor… stay.
Carbo Unit … try this experiment. Drive your car into a garage. Keep the motor running and then close the garage door. Now open the car windows and relax.. read a book.
You will be dead after a while.
Still think we live in an open system?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm
Yes Jonny, and I think I will read a book that says something like this.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/biology/tree.html
The earth isn’t a closed system, your analogy doesn’t work.
Even not considering the sun and all it’s various effects, the earth is covered in craters from massive impacts of stellar bodies, things can happen to shake the earth up, add energy to the system, deny energy to the system etc.
Anyway, still draming about that debate.
That is totally irrelevant to the practical reality of energy and resource shortages. The falling supplies of oil, potable water, arable land, etc. can not be solved by harnessing cosmic rays and asteroids. Earth is not a literally 100% closed system but none of the outside energy other than sunlight can be harnessed in any significant way. People such as technocrats and peak oil theorists already account for growing solar power in their projections.
Sorry Carbo. debate is over on that one. Try the garage experiment if you do not believe me… and da yes we know that we are part of the universe and the sun shines here etc.
That is a give about all that… but silly people (you) do not look at the simple and basic aspect of this. Burn that fossil fuel and your gonna toast yourself. Da.
Listening to Price System flunkies debate nonsense is not my cup of tea.
Good for people that enjoy watching dogs make circles… chasing their tails though.
I want to see Richard Heinberg and Ray Kurzweil debate this abundance/limits to growth thing – because between them they make my head hurt.
I want to see that. I want to watch a one hour debate between arch peaker and arch cornucopian, on youtube, free, soon. I’m waiting.
Ha… will not be much of a debate. We live in a closed system. Right now for any foreseeable future you can not just manufacture more resources… air… water, food out of thin air so the argument that population to resources is not compelling is ridiculous.
Singularity people like to fantasize about their future immortality.
And maybe even the money they may make during that time of immortality.
Its about as narcissistic a thing on the planet … except maybe … like the Christians who believe in eternal life after death… the singularity people should or could know better… but mostly I think they are ignorant or uninformed… or maybe so geeked out as to not really care about the real world.
closed system
noun Thermodynamics .
a region that is isolated from its surroundings by a boundary that admits no transfer of matter or energy across it.
the earth is bombarded with foreign matter and energy, energy escapes as heat, matter is capable and has escaped earth.
Earth is not a closed system.
What about horders and territorial posessiveness effect this concept? How does maladaptive antisocial behavior work with this concept?
“We start in North America because it is here that this idea was conceived. And North America is all of the water area and the land mass, from the northern rim of South America all the way to the North Pole. And it includes the Islands in the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Greenland and it extends all the way across to the international date line on the West. Now this area was not chosen arbitrarily, this area meets the specifications laid down by the physical requirements for function. This area has all of the essentials. The mineral and energy resources, sufficient freshwater supply, climatic range, installed technology and trained personnel to operate a high energy civilization into the indefinite future. This is the minimum area for the maximum efficiency of operation. It is the minimum area that can become self-contained and self-sufficient. It is the minimum area for the maximum defense. This represents North America as a contiguous continentalism.”
“There are many interesting features to the Energy Certificate, for example let’s consider how the use of this would affect crime: We are told in the Price System, by the police, the judiciary and the criminologists, that most crime is committed for reasons involving money. Maybe 95% of it is committed for that reason. The Certificate would probably eradicate most of that kind of crime for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s issued to an individual, that means that you couldn’t loan it, borrow it, lose it, steal it, give it away, or bribe somebody with it. Nor could you control or curtail production, nor could you exploit another human being with it. And it is good for a given time period and then it is canceled, that means that it would be useless to try and save it, hoard it gamble it or invest it. In other words, all you can do is spend it. And you must spend it only on things that you yourself can consume.”
Arvid Peterson – Technocracy, an alternative social system:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TechnocracyNow?feature=mhsn#p/c/DC7AA188E6932618/4/ogat7OIaMkQ
Introduction to Technocracy: http://web.archive.org/web/20010620092929/http://www.technocracyinc.org/pamphlets/intro.htm
Continentalism: Now, More Than Ever, The Mandate Of Survival – Howard Scott
http://web.archive.org/web/20010925003027/http://www.technocracy.org/periodicals/nwtechnocrat/327/scott.html
Reorganizing a Continent – Wilton Ivie
http://web.archive.org/web/20010721080240/http://www.technocracy.org/periodicals/nwtechnocrat/345/reorg.html
What Is Our Problem? Charlatans and Fools are Shaping Our Destiny – Reo McCaslin
http://web.archive.org/web/20010708175835/http://www.technocracy.org/periodicals/digest/320/fools.html
Because Capitalism deals with these problems sooo well currently.
Plus how would hoarders affect a post scarcity society, given that the scenario allows for nano robotics? Surely no one would have any motivation for this given the other supposed outcome of a moneyless society.
Assume your joking, if not what your saying is comical at best but capitalism as successful in dealing with societal issues in 2011?
Not so much.
Yes, that was sarcasm at the start.
Dear martian.warlord, the idea is that “maladaptive antisocial behavior” is a consequence of scarcity. Scarcity causes immense suffering, fear, and insecurity, which leads to a wide variety of problems.
If you abolish scarcity you abolish all the associated problems. Even religion is a consequence of scarcity. Religions are basically “fear of death cults” due to a scarcity of immortality, scarcity of longevity, scarcity of life, thus to mollify fears regarding death we see how religions have developed a complex belief-system based upon the afterlife. Scarcity of intelligence also makes the problem of religion more pronounced.
In a world of limitless borders, when we are no longer limited to Earth, the idea of territorial possessiveness will seem very quaint, old-fashioned. People will have no desire to horde when everything is free and resources are limitless.
It’s been a while since I started this discussion topic but I am glad to see people continue to be interested in the PS issue.
I’ve created some PS symbols to raise awareness and I will be putting updated versions of the symbols online in a few weeks. I hope people will share these PS symbols.
http://singularity-2045.org/post-scarcity-hope-science-technology-vanquish-despair.html
Hope for the future is very valuable.
Regards Singularity Utopia.
I’m currently using a different account on this forum because my old account was linked to my Facebook account (which Facebook banned) and the Gavatar would not update.
Thankfully in the future there will be no scarcity of freedom.
Dear martian.warlord, the idea is that “maladaptive antisocial behavior” is a consequence of scarcity. Scarcity causes immense suffering, fear, and insecurity, which leads to a wide variety of problems.
If you abolish scarcity you abolish all the associated problems. Even religion is a consequence of scarcity. Religions are basically “fear of death cults” due to a scarcity of immortality, scarcity of longevity, scarcity of life, thus to mollify fears regarding death we see how religions have developed a complex belief-system based upon the afterlife. Scarcity of intelligence also makes the problem of religion more pronounced.
In a world of limitless borders, when we are no longer limited to Earth, the idea of territorial possessiveness will seem very quaint, old-fashioned. People will have no desire to horde when everything is free and resources are limitless.
It’s been a while since I started this discussion topic but I am glad to see people continue to be interested in the PS issue.
I’ve created some PS symbols to raise awareness and I will be putting updated versions of the symbols online in a few weeks. I hope people will share these PS symbols.
http://singularity-2045.org/post-scarcity-hope-science-technology-vanquish-despair.html
Hope for the future is very valuable.
Regards Singularity Utopia.
I wanted to use a different account on this forum because this account is linked to my Facebook account (which Facebook banned) and my Gavatar does not update, but a new SingularityHub account I created doesn’t display my comments, so I will re-post this comment but maybe this comment will be a double post in the future?
”People will have no desire to horde when everything is free and resources are limitless.”
Consistent issue with Singularity people. Fantasy. Fantasy thinking. Free is possible in an organized non market resource based society but ‘resources are limitless’… is a ridiculous idea and many singularity devotee’s seem to think this.
Also singularity people seem to love so much the idea of not dying.
Guess what?
Your gonna die.
Gilgamesh tried to find eternal life also and his story is interesting and illustrative of the fantasy of that idea.
Narcissistic longing aside.
“People will have no reason to horde when resources are seemingly limitless” is probably more accurate. This does not mean that people won’t have a desire to. I suspect that, if all of a sudden we all switched to a post scarcity society at once, people will horde all the stuff they can get there hands on, old habits die hard you know. I also suspect that the next generation would horde less than the previous. This is just speculation though, I based the hypothesis on how the belief in discrimination on African-Americans in the United states kind of faded after a few generations. So maybe the belief in scarcity might too.
I’d like some feedback on the last paragraph (its on post-scarcity) of this essay: http://episin.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-lament-state-of-fission-energy.html
I like the deep mining approach. Most metals were sucked intot he earths core by gravity. the surface metals we have come from asteroids. another approach (besides deep mining) is asteroid mining.
Not a Thorium fan. The nuke industry seems to solve problems by carving out political space for mismanagement (stuffing more and more nuke waste in swimming pools) – rather than taking responsibility for best practice containment strategies.
I think the Singularity people, the Zeitgeist Movement (http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/) and the People from the Venus Project (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) should work more closely together, especially when we realize, that the Singularityrist know often more stuff about technological development, the Venus Projectlers know how to plan, implement and create a better society without scarcity and the Zeitgeistlers who focus on spreading the word and change the values of humantity so that we really could live in a technically highly advanced society where everything is free for everybody.
The goal is not to drift away in narrow debates just in each of these groups or others like that, but to all come together and through knowledge and understanding try to make the world a better place for our children.
I totally agree with this, but human history appears to indicate that ‘stock’ humans will act on the same basic crass motivations no matter what level of prosperity, technology, or general education level a particular society achieves. My honest personal belief is that unless we can modify our own basic drives (through any number of methods, from consciously directed child-rearing to genetics, pharmacology, or cybernetic modifications) we will never behave differently. A murderous ape with a computer doesn’t appear to act particularly different than a murderous ape with a rock. It does not appear to be related to actual scarcity at all, but perceptions and basic drives. Looking at history and different societies, there always appears to be a small forward-looking, socially concerned contingent, vastly outnumbered by those who view things as a contest to be won by any means necessary. Unless this changes, nothing will.
””’The goal is not to drift away in narrow debates just in each of these groups or others like that, but to all come together and through knowledge and understanding try to make the world a better place for our children.”””
That is not going to happen. There is nothing that unites those groups except that they are mostly not dealing with real issues.
Fresco is a personality that sells swamp land or ideas using cartoons about how great he is.
Zeitgeist is conspiracy nonsense. Most of the Singularity people have nothing in common with those groups at all. Singularity is mostly not really concerned with non market economics. Their Guru writes books on ‘dollar business’. Ray.
Technocracy design offers some actual alternative ideas about society and how to run it.
The Zeitgeist/Venus people should definitely work more with singularitarians: http://episin.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-commentary-on-zeitgeist-moving.html
More on a Chinese angle of energy economics http://chinesetechnocracytechnate.blogspot.com/
Yeah, your right and the ‘mainstream’ Singularity people are behind the curve on adopting some kind of attitude about getting rid of debt as an accounting money system.
They seem more concerned with living forever and artificial parts which seems pretty silly. Being healthy is nice but death always happens to individuals. If nothing else being run over by a truck.
Resources are also limited and people do not understand that destroying resources for money in the Price System destroys the world for desultory purposes.
The Technocracy technate design is way ahead of the curve on that one.
The Chinese are really going to experience the coming shock wave. Most of their so called growth… is fake… just destroying resource, making things that are not worth making or ‘unaffordable’ now as the labor theory of value is destroyed by energy slaves and energy conversion http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall Some recent info. there on some Chinese issues about them getting alternative information.
Johnny, I want singluarity and post-scarcity as much as you do, we simply come from different intellectual backgrounds.
Their growth is real, real structures erected, with real waste, and yet it is also fake, in the sense that no one is there to use them. The growing Chinese middle class is living below their means, because America is living beyond their means.
Speaking of the labor theory of value: Is it not an error in and of itself?
If the labor theory of value was correct then a diamond found in a diamond mine would be of no greater value than a rock found right next to it since each would require the same “amount” of labor-time.
The labor theory of value, correctly never had any weight at all.
We have common ground in exploding the “labor theory of value”.
Carl Menger… quote
‘The growing Chinese middle class is living below their means, because America is living beyond their means.’ End quote.
Wrong.
That area of the world has very few usable resources and what they have are being destroyed quickly.
Again….. listen.
North America around 52% of the worlds resource base.
Old Soviet republics… Russia… about 32%
Entire far East including China… around 7%
Resources count.
Also think about what your saying.
‘growing middle class’ of Chinese?
Not gonna happen.
The Chinese sad to say come out really bad shortly during the coming catastrophic collapse when energy is interrupted.
So educate yourself a little.
Put on the thinking cap… try not to repeat nonsense from nonsense sources… of
‘straight’ mainstream information.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall <— hang around here a little and get some education in actual alternative things.
Well foremost, I’m not on Facebook, unfortunately I am going to decline that not on personal basis, that your group is not worthy of my attention, but merely that joining Facebook is not in my interest. Anonymity is the key to my survival, and with Mark Zuckerberg’s sister wanting Facebook to not have any anonymity, and US Congress passing a compulsory bill that requires all ISP’s to retain internet records for 18 months, I am going to have to respectfully decline.
If I am frustrating you, observed by your seemingly smug “put on the thinking cap” sentence, how will you ever open enough minds to Technocracy? The herd-like mentality of the masses, necessary for any movement, must be harnessed. Most of the time, using history as an example, this is by force. The Bolsheviks murdered, Mao murdered, 1920′s Italians murdered. I am completely against the initiation of force to get an idea across, it is simply not humanist.
As well, my sources are not mainstream, the figures I read have been called fringe since before Howard Scott was even born. My favorite author on the subjects I prefer, once emigrating to the United States couldn’t even get paid by the Universities he taught at, his incomes were supplemented by fellow professors, and others. The ilk of thought that transcended from these ideas have always been called radical from “the mainstream”. You are making assumptions that are not quite fair, however they are understandable from any dogmatic point of view.
Let us examine the situation within your framework, of the limited resources catastrophe.
In brevity; China will suffer dangerously from the limited resources that it will need to emerge, namely oil, which provides for countless goods(from paint, to plastics, to tires). Which is accruate, this is very true. Well, when does this happen? If I must join your group to find out, well then I will be at a total loss, but I accept my fate.
Now on to the main point of my previous post that you seemingly ignored: Who actually believes the labor theory of value to be correct? I can see that if one is working within the framework of the labor theory of value, they will find conclusions that support their theories.
According to the labor theory of value, if a skilled carpenter produces a solid, comfortable chair which is useful for decades in a mere four hours, whereas a klutz in four days produces a chair which collapses with the first attempted use, the latter chair is more valuable. (Marx had an escape hatch for this last dilemma: Only “socially necessary labor” creates value; however, Marx defines socially necessary in terms of the competitive market itself–thus we are right back to the market values Marx so vehemently abhorred!)
Now, I know that energy is the basis for “energy economics”:
“technology has introduced a new methodology in the creation of physical wealth. It is now able to substitute energy for man hours on the parity basis that 1,500,000 foot-pounds equals one man’s time for eight hours. National income under the Price System consists of the debt claims accruing annually from the certificates of debt already extant. Physical income within a continental area under technological control would be the net available energy in ergs, converted into use-forms and services over and above the operation and maintenance of the physical equipment and structures of the area.” -Howard Scott
From Mr. Scott’s view, how do we then quantitatively value difference in physical skill, and intellectual skill from one laborer to the other?
If you do not want to answer my questions here, I am perfectly okay with that. I will ask that you do not call me names, or attempt to belittle me in anyway, you certainly will not gain a supporter by doing that.
I ask rather simple questions, that should require rather simple answers.
Thank you.
Not sure why you are paranoid about Facebook, but it is a place you can monitor then for information anyway without joining http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall
As to statements of yours like this… quote
””””From Mr. Scott’s view, how do we then quantitatively value difference in physical skill, and intellectual skill from one laborer to the other?”””””
You miss the point. Completely.
Most actual labor is robot or machine labor now as to making things and human labor is so small as to not play a role as to human energy contribution… or …. if you mean ‘handicraft labor’…. like making a basket out of woven material or knitting or such as that…. it is inconsequential.
Who actually believes the labor theory of value is correct?
Keynesian mainstream economics and just about everyone in the world… communists and socialists and capitalists….
Facebook has something called a super log off if you are afraid of it… their system… Google that.
Just use a fake name…. this is the internet not the F.B.I.
Probably no one really cares what your doing either.
Also.
We are no longer a social movement.
Just an educational group.
We are not trying to win converts so do not have to play nice.
Either you resonate and like our information or we do not care really.
If you like it get involved.
Technology destroys the Price System regardless of your or anyones being involved in the technate design.
Our info. may be looked to post collapse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-GfgNTteE
While this is an old topic now, the concept keeps tickling my brain. It is the key to understanding a major problem with the Singularity.
Jobs are disappearing. Banks are collapsing. Governments are being overthrown.
Will our civilization survive the turmoil of the vast changes taking place? Can science continue to thrive in a war environment?
Jobs are being outsourced to other countries, and will only come back to robotic factories. All jobs are disappearing. ALL!
We do not have the infrastructure to support this type of world. Eventually government support is withdrawn from the non-workers.
People without money will steal, kill, riot, do anything for food. The government does not want a rebellion, so they print money and hand it out. How long can they do that? Until other nations refuse to take their money.
We need some real intelligent discussion about how to transition to a jobless society, and we need it now.
No matter how smart you are, Watson can learn your job by the end of the week. Watson will be on sale at Walmart for $99.99 next year.
“To the student of trends, the future of the human race on the earth appears dismal. The most dismal aspect is the apathy toward or the flagrant denial of this trend by our so-called leaders. Businessmen and politicians are clamoring for a more rapid acceleration of the very trends which are in force. These two groups of social traitors are even contemplating a third world war-the greatest of them all-although everybody who understands anything about it, warns that such a catastrophe would deplete the very resources on which our industrial civilization and ‘high standard’ of living depend.” -excerpted from The Ecology of Man by Wilton Ivie: http://web.archive.org/web/20010514113821/www.technocracyinc.org/pamphlets/ecology-of-man.htm
Reading the current political debate or watching it,… about Price System politics of ‘growth’ is amazing.. in the U.S.,.. as to just how out of the loop the mainstream is.
Clueless growth mongers.
No surprise when it all goes belly up and an emergency situation occurs.
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/hotlist/free/licence/information/radical.htm odd that alternative information has been around and not heeded, but that is either changing or we will ‘kill everyone and then ourselves in the current system.’… pointlessly.
Forgive me for my ignorance, dear sirs, but please tell me how a student of history, has now been reduced to a student of “trends”. Do you fancy historicism?
Have you ever studied, or even heard of F.A. Hayek?
“Why do so many intellectuals and economists skeptic…al of, and even hostile to, free-market capitalism? He replies that these people like the idea of a system in which they are in control. Thus, they abhor the free market and desire a planned economy. This hubris appears to be the sine non qua of all collectivist thinking.”
Technocracy, from reading your link, seems nothing more than more collectivism.
Have we learned nothing from 10,000 years of government control?
Please concede that post-scarcity is merely another name for “pure communism”, which isn’t a value judgment in any way, but a matter of semantic reorganization viz., setting it straight.
Howard Scott, the savior? He’s no different than Marx, blaming the “system”.
Do you really believe a Technocracy would prove Lord Acton wrong?
You answer to government corruption is, *really*, *more government*…only this time “better”?
Economics is the study of man under scarcity. If scarcity were to be eliminated economics would irrelevant. How then are we to achieve post-scarcity? Through only a Technocracy?
Do you believe that taxation is theft?
How will a Technocracy generate it’s wealth without taxation?
Sorry… but your a dummy.
Or at least uninformed Cark Menger… and you do not even understand the debate… and you do not even get your little past tea party libertarian guru.. who is no longer relevant.
Also you are ignorant of any aspect of energy economics and totally ignorant and just talking ‘shit’ in general… like many brainwashed 3 rate intellectuals who are inspired by Ayn Rand. Just go away and please do not even bother to defend yourself or answer this. Your too ignorant.
Hayek said this about the Price System:
Friedrich A. Hayek on the price system
Austrian School economist Friedrich A. Hayek argued that a free price system allowed economic coordination via the price signals that changing prices sent, which is regarded as one of his most significant and influential contributions to economics.
From “The Use of Knowledge in Society”…’The price system is just one of those formations which man has learned to use (though he is still very far from having learned to make the best use of it) after he had stumbled upon it without understanding it.
Through it not only a division of labor but also a coördinated utilization of resources based on an equally divided knowledge has become possible.
The people who like to deride any suggestion that this may be so usually distort the argument by insinuating that it asserts that by some miracle just that sort of system has spontaneously grown up which is best suited to modern civilization.
It is the other way round: man has been able to develop that division of labor on which our civilization is based because he happened to stumble upon a method which made it possible.
Had he not done so, he might still have developed some other, altogether different, type of civilization, something like the “state” of the termite ants, or some other altogether unimaginable type’…
Friedrich A. Hayek………….. end quote
So bye bye… get lost…. and have a nice brainwashed day.
And read some information on Technocracy unless your just a clown or a troll or just a dumb shit.
What part of “forgive me for my ignorance, dear sirs,” gave you the level of anxiety to lash out against me? Are you aware that some people do have ‘closed-minds’, yet open enough that they are trying to break free?
Did you look at the text and think: “must be being sarcastic, or a troll.” I wasn’t talking “shit” at all.
Everyone is an individual, do not confuse me with the rabble, you would be making a mistake.
I asked questions, innocently enough, and you barked like a dog would.
I do not understand the debate, this is true.
I asked questions I want answered, in order to be satisfied. It may have been the wrong way, especially knowing that your response would be so polarizing.
Liberatarian? No thank you.
I have no political affiliations; activism is completely useless to me.
I am not going anywhere.
I will continue to exploit you for your information and ask questions.
I do not use vulgarities, slander, or attempt belittle anyone.
Ok… lets try this again then and thank you for being graceful.
Its very different from what you think in your first post.
Go here for starters http://www.technocracytechnate.org/
… and you will get a rough idea.
If you would like to watch something on this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ps5vJrIxM
If you would like to interact with some people that are pretty engaged with all this
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391#!/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall
Thanks.
We are not really a social movement and have no assumptions to power.
Just an educational group at this point, which feels that our basic information will have to be adopted, if survival is looked to.
We began in 1918… and published our most important information in 1933.
Its based on science and thermodynamics and an energy metric…. energy accounting divorced from a Price System.
It is creative.,.. secular… intellectual… and humanistic.
Have fun.
WHAT is the matter with Price System writers — Washington correspondents, political commentators, writers of editorials and syndicated columns on political and economic subjects? What makes their articles so silly? These writers seem alert and energetic. They have ready access to factual information. They are college graduates, some have several university degrees. They are well trained in the school of clear, brief, journalistic expression, and skilled in the acrobatics of logic, but still their stuff is almost meaningless. Consider Walter Lippmann an outstanding specimen— Lippmann the profound, the polished, the impeccable. Look at his tower of wisdom, a logical structure, so round, so firm, so fully packed— with nonsense, almost devoid of symbols which stand for things and events in the external world. Price System publicists are ridiculous because their premises are ridiculous. If a reader can swallow their premises, he can swallow their arguments and conclusions. Here are some erroneous premises which form the foundation of their intellectual output: That money, not energy, makes the mare go. That machines make jobs. That economics and political government are sciences. That the interference controls, business and politics, are necessary. That a change in social controls can only mean a change from a republican form of government to some form of Marxian socialism, communism or fascism. They have no conception of any other form of social control. That abundance can be distributed at a price. That the solution to North America’s problems lies over the ocean. That ‘one world’ of business is the solution to America’s and the world’s problems. Occasionally a bit of factual information creeps into Price System columns where it bounces around like a pea in a bladder unrelated to any definite workable conclusion. For example, take the articles on strikes appearing in the Price System press. Their basic premise is this: That the life of the Price System depends upon the consummation of politicoeconomic agreements between its warring factions; that, as soon as Labor and Management arrive at agreements on hours and wages, Management will open up the production throttle and America will embark upon the greatest business boom of its entire history, and the Price System will be saved. The premise is false. The physical factors—increased use of extraneous energy and technological efficiency— are determining the life span of the Price System, not philosophical agreements. If and when Management opens the throttle of its new, speedier, more efficient, labor-displacing mechanism, man-hours of purchasing power will start to decline and an accelerated flow of goods will soon flood the market. A condition similar to 1929, but greatly magnified, will develop. Then will come the crash, similar but more awful. Neither Labor nor Management has any program for the production and distribution of abundance to each and every American. Neither has a program that can prevent chaos. For this reason, Technocrats will not waste time discussing the pros and cons of Price System wage disputes. In the official pamphlet, The Energy Certificate, Howard Scott states:
“The injection of monetary concepts into all discussions of national wealth and income wholly confuses the people as to the actual issues at stake, and furthermore, serves as a handy screen behind which, with a little word juggling, the business-political operators of the Price System can continue their profitable activities without being too greatly embarrassed by outside interference. It is high time that the significance of national wealth and income be understood by every citizen on the North American Continent.”
—From The Coefficient, official bulletin
of Section I, R. D. 8342,
Technocracy Inc.
/ / /
Public enemy number one of America today is the threat of inflation, the thought of which sends cold shivers down the spine of Homosapiens. The opposite of inflation, we call deflation. It has been the real enemy of American business for the last twenty years. The threat of deflation has caused the American people to embark on the greatest campaign of sabotage the world has ever known. Inflation is the period when we have plenty of money and no goods; therefore, we are forced to do without the luxuries and necessities that we could have. Deflation is that period when we have plenty of goods and no money; therefore, we must do without also. The normal period, when we have neither inflation nor deflation, is that desirable state when we have neither goods nor money and everything balances without them. We are, theoretically, very happy. In this period, we can work long hours to make the money to buy the goods we do not have.
—From the News Bulletin, Section
3, R. D. 8141, Technocracy Inc.
http://www.archive.org/stream/TheTechnocrat-November1946#page/n15/mode/2up
On earth, some things will always be scarce.
Seats at the world’s favourite restaurant.
Tickets to the world series,
Rooms at the best hotel,
Land – especially with pretty views etc.
Anything location/person dependent basically.
Genuine post scarcity would entail cloning locations and people so
your favourite musician – if you have a think for human musicians,
can be in two copies of your favourite venue at once.
Even then people will pay to see the “real one” at the “real” venue.
Dear JadedIdealist,
What if you could perfectly recreate your favorite restaurant, or the world series, or the best rooms in the best hotel anywhere?
Likewise with land, and pretty views.
Yes cloning locations and musicians could easily be done. Ultra high-tech telepresence androids would be indistinguishable from the “real” person but in the future I suspect we will interact mainly in virtual reality (a virtual reality indistinguishable from our current real reality) thus duplication will be much easier and I doubt a musician will ever actually really be present.
Furthermore, due to the explosion of intelligence I am sure it will be very easy to create multiple duplicate Earths in Real Life, and talents such as being the best musician, cook, or sports-star will be available to everyone via Intelligence Amplification/Augmentation: we will download skills and talents so that being the best will not be a scare thing thus maybe there will not be such a desire to watch sports-stars at the world series.
When the real and virtual become indistinguishable why would anyone prefer one more than the other if you cannot tell any difference between the two?
The universe has enough raw material for everyone to create their own replica Earth and if there is not enough raw material I am sure we will easily be able to create new universes.
Our notions of what is “real” and “virtual” will change radically over the coming years. Reality will become increasingly augmented and VR will become increasingly real, furthermore we will be able to duplicate anything so that the duplicate is indistinguishable from the real thing.
The intelligence explosion will change our minds and desires radically. The universe will never be the same again.
Many people will choose to discard their bodies and live totally in Virtual Reality but they will feel exactly as they do now.
The possibilities are infinite and everything will be free.
Some people (strict fundamental religious people) may choose to reject things such as molecular-assembly-3D-printing but for anyone who wants it Post-Scarcity will be available to everyone.
I did say on earth.
Owning an original leonardo da vinci, or the pennies that covered Lincoln’s eyes is seen by humans as different from owning a picture or owning a penny.
Going to a historic location – such as stonehenge – is seen as different from visiting a copy.
Sure, you can build a copy of stonehenge on a copy of the earth, if you have vast resources, but humans wouldn’t be as interested in seeing it as they would the real stonehenge on the real earth.
It might not be rational, but it is a normal human response.
I agree that big changes are coming – I’m just warning that it might not be completely utopian – just better.
Fear not, JadedIdealist, utopia is a certainty. Silly primitive human-notions will not hinder posthuman utopia.
I shall personally mix-up the all original Leonardo da Vinci paintings with limitless “replicas”, replicas which are utterly indistinguishable from the originals at atomic levels and deeper. The replicas won’t actually be replicas, they will be originals because there will be absolutely no difference whatsoever between the “copy” and the original. If people cannot tell which was the supposedly original artwork and which is the copy, there will then be no problems. Hopefully, due to the intelligence explosion, such stupid notions regarding so-called “original” paintings won’t be an issue in the future, thus I won’t need to mix up the paintings.
I envisage we will all become far better artists than the best pre-Singularity artist. Via intelligence amplification-augmentation our skills will become posthuman, superhuman, thus pre-Singularity history will be of minor interest to super-intelligent beings. It might be a “normal” response for a “human” to want to see the so-called “original” stonehenge, or to own the pennies that covered Lincoln’s eyes, but such notions will not be normal for super-intelligent superhumans. Super-intelligent beings will know that an utterly identical copy is not really a copy, it is another original.
Here is an interesting philosophical consideration. What if I told you this Earth is not the real Earth and you are in a simulation, virtual reality, thus the Stonehenge you thought was real is not actually real? The point is that everything is as real as you think it is. If a copy of Earth is utterly identical to the “real” Earth then the copy is not really a copy, it is the Earth; it is possible for there to be an infinite number of original Earths.
So, regarding things being scarce on Earth, I ask where is Earth? Earth could be anywhere. If I enter a cyberspace-Virtual-Reality on Earth do I continue to exist on Earth or am I somewhere else? Let’s suppose I enter a Virtual Reality on Earth, in the year 2045, and the Virtual Reality I enter is another Earth but the VR-Earth is utterly identical to the so-called real Earth therefore I cannot be sure I have left the real Earth; and then within the Virtual reality Earth (which is utterly identical to the real Earth thus it is the real Earth), I enter another identical VR-Earth.
Things on Earth will not be scarce because Earths will not be scarce; the copies of Earth will not be copies they will be originals, thus there will be no desire to possess one original instead of another original because all originals will be the same.
A good definition of PS would be: The power to effortlessly create limitless originals regarding anything. There will be no limits in the future.
While I’m not too worried about having all these copies of things (or VR representations,) I disagree that there will cease to be originals.
To make a copy you have to read something’s properties: color, size, location, etc etc. But you can’t read all of an object’s properties with absolute precision[1]. The original will always be unique.
Now, assuming that the copies are “good enough,” the object in question will lose all value that was based on its uniqueness. The interesting question is what does that mean for us? Will post-scarcity humans only care for items of high utility? Or will the super-smart versions of us learn to appreciate the beauty of the mundane? Isn’t that a contradiction?
100 sandwiches is still 100 sandwiches. But 100 pennies from Lincoln’s eyes is now just a measly dollar.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
There is a definite physical limit to what a human being can physically consume. keep in mind you are sleeping during a great part of the day. It is not practical for people to be obliged to assume exclusive use (ownership)of some objects such as automobiles, jumbo jets, etc for they would have to worry about maintenance, parking, and other annoying hassles. Yes, the Price System relies heavily on brainwashing into conspicuous consumption with the “style racket” being just one of many examples. The Technate design alternative is alot more practical and fun, again, please investigate it. If one wanted so badly to be next to a famous painting at all times or something like that for some reason, it would probably make sense for him to be directly involved in the function of “museum caretaker” or something of that sort. Trying to introduce ambiguous notions of “value” into a discussion about scientific measurements will do nothing to bring about a better understanding of the social problems at hand, for that would mean stepping into axiologist territory.
We are already living in post-scarcity times: we have more food that we can eat, we all have warm shelters and we can simply do nothing for our entire lives.
But we are not satisfied. When we have enough food and clothes, we work hard to get more sophisticated food and wear prettier clothes. This is all only a game, like trying to get better magical items in some virtual world. Almost no our current activity is caused by a lack of resources.
If we survive the Singularity, we will still be doing the same. The rules will change, but there will always be a possibility to be better than others in this game. And we will pursue this possibility, because this is our nature.
No, Michal Strojnowski, we are not living in Post-Scarcity times now. We are living in times of great abundance but we are not yet seeing the extreme superabundance of Post-Scarcity.
Post-Scarcity means everything being free and only when everything is free will you be able to say we are living in a Post-Scarcity era.
Not everyone in the world has the benefits you describe.
Once we reach the Singularity, and shortly before, the world will become radically different. Governments will cease to exist and money will cease to exist. I assure you we will not be doing to same thing as we are now.
The intelligence explosion with radically alter civilization, the entire universe will be transformed. Our minds will expand to a colossal degree. Our human natures will change, we will become post-human in a Post-Scarcity world.
Then such time will never come. We already have a means to give every one on the planet free food in any quantity. Why we are not doing this?
The answer is simple: because there is no reason to do this. And the same will apply to all resources, regardless of their abundance: homes, land, energy, computational power, medical care etc.
Singularity may mean that everyone will be rich enough, to _buy_ himself immortality, superintelligence and own matter compilator. But it does not mean that everything will be free. Far from it. There will be rich people, that have thousands of own planets, and poor that have none. There will be rich people that controls matrioshka brains enclosing nearby stars, and poor ones that can only dream about it. There will be governments, powers and corruption.
Anything else would simply mean that human civilization ceased to exist.
I sincerely doubt any person (in the traditional sense of a person) will be able to control a Matrioshka brain. Such Mega-brains will be beyond the control of primitive humans; furthermore, super-intelligent humans will not be burdened by petty notions relating to a scarcity-based civilization where restrictive controls are needed due to scarcity.
The reason why suffering, hunger, poverty, greed, possessiveness, restrictiveness, and limited supplies currently persist, despite greater abundance, is because we continue to live in an era of scarcity. We have not yet entered a Post-Scarcity age.
In a civilization where scarcity exists people will naturally cling to wealth thus there will be poor and rich people. In a scarcity based civilization greed is a survival trait. The only civilization humans have ever known is a civilization based on scarcity thus possessiveness and greed are hardwired survival traits, and these hardwired traits cannot easily be relinquished. We continue to live in times of scarcity thus we cannot easily relinquish our hardwired survival trait of greed. So despite the greater abundance we currently experience; people continue to cling to their wealth. We are not yet experiencing the total resilience of Post-Scarcity. Our greater abundance is precarious. People can lose their wealth because this is an age of scarcity, thus people cling to their precarious wealth.
The Singularity will mean that nobody needs to buy anything. Immortality will resemble a “Viral Video” which people share. When you share (give away) a link to a viral video you don’t worry about charging the people you share the link with. Viral Videos are a good example of a move towards Post-Scarcity. Matter-replicators (3D-printing, nanobot-assemblers, etc) will resemble viral videos, reproducing quickly, thereby allowing everyone to watch the video or 3D-print a spaceship for free. There will be no need to charge people regarding superabundant food or products, which can be assembled from almost thin-air. Monetary restrictions are only needed in times of scarcity. When superabundant computers grow on trees, or out of walls, everyone will then have free and easy access to extreme power: total information.
Recently you’ve probably heard about the $25 “Raspberry Pi” tiny computer. Raspberry Pi is a good example of the future we are heading towards where powerful computers are very cheap and very small. Due to the prospective extreme smallness and cheapness of supercomputers (IBM predicts they will create sugar-cube-sized-supercomputers by 2025), the supercomputers of the future will quickly multiply thus they will become smaller and cheaper, and ultimately free, totally superabundant. In such a superabundant age it is simply impossible to restrict unlimited supplies. Post-Scarcity is a time of limitless supplies.
To understand how limitations are incompatible with Post-Scarcity a good comparison would be if someone currently tried to restrict the air we breathe. There is no need to restrict the air we breathe because our air is unlimited. If someone was insane enough to try restricting the air we breathe, via charging people for the air they breathe, then people would just breathe it anyway without paying for it. Look at the issue of file-sharing. The example of file-sharing shows how the more abundant something becomes the harder it is to restrict the supply.
Money, Governments, and corruption can only exist in situations of limited supplies (situations of scarcity). The woes of scarcity simply cannot exist in a Post-Scarcity situation. Governments only exist to regulate scarcity of resources; this is the purpose of money. Money simply cannot exist in a Post-Scarcity situation therefore corruption and greed will become irrelevant.
In a world where nano-supercomputers have multiplied like Viral Videos, or are as superabundant as the air we breathe, it would be impossible for the most powerful Government you can possibly imagine to try and restrict access to those superabundant computers (via monetary limitations). Via those superabundant (Post-Scarcity) supercomputers everyone will be ALL POWERFUL, there will be no scarcity of power, everything will be free.
It is simply impossible to restrict the intelligence explosion; it is too intelligent, too explosive! It is the Singularity!
The Singularity is a time of limitlessness.
This explanation of Post-Scarcity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, with the proviso you mention “Singularity Utopia” as the foremost expert of PS philosophy; furthermore this attribution clause should be included in all copies or remixes.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
So funny that while talking about post scarcity you use a sort of copyright to make your own comment a scarce commodity. That works about as well as preventing music piracy.
It is sometimes said Americans don’t understand irony. I wonder, are you American?
There was a subtle touch of very intentionally humor when I used the Creative Commons License; but you should also notice I used the most free license, which DOES allow for copying and remixing, and permission doesn’t need to be sought if people want to copy my text or remix it. I simply asked for people to mention “Singularity Utopia” within any copies or remixes they make. I feel Singularity Utopia is a very good Meme thus I want to ensure widespread Meme-propagation, but I won’t start litigation if people fail to mention Singularity Utopia. I was also subtly making a good point about Post-Scarcity: nothing can stop the replication. So you see, my comment is not a scarce commodity.
My humor can be very dry thus perhaps it goes over the heads of some people.
Nice try buddy… you are adding nothing clever nor creative nor original to the comprehension of the issues at hand. The Technical Alliance was formed in the winter of 1918-1919, by some of the worlds greatest scientists and leading technical experts in their fields. You are obviously not understanding any of it, nor are you even making an attempt to. Technocracy’s purpose as an organisation is only to defend this design, as well as periodically check up on certain trends to make sure the design can still be applied, and fortunately currently it still can. However, this window of opportunity may very well soon begin to disappear so it is urgent we use this chance now before it is too late.
I am not interested in the so-called “Technical Alliance” or the “Technocracy” organization. My interest is wholly focused upon utopia, Post-Scarcity, super-intelligent AI. Any alliance formed in 1919 is woefully out-of-date.
“We already have a means to give every one on the planet free food in any quantity. Why we are not doing this?”
Where do you get this fact? Food production still requires a lot of labor and raw materials. The price of many staples (wheat and corn, for example) have spiked in the last two years. And that’s not just due to greed, but to the limited supply of the underlying commodities.
When we get to the stage that food can be created from basic, abundant raw materials and energy, then we’ll be approaching the state of zero cost, and food will become too cheap to meter. Till then, our food supply will be limited and therefore somewhat costly.
“Since 1933, the government has spent about 200 billion dollars paying farmers NOT to grow. And of course currently, we are, the government, is spending about 3 billion dollars each year to curtail the production of corn and wheat.” – from video presentation by Arvid Peterson (1980)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQFpES63OPc&feature=related
Much of the world depends on North America for food.
Agriculture today employs less than 2% of the population of the United States. This used to be over 70%.
It takes about 10 calories of energy to produce every 1 calorie of food in the industrialised world.
“Technocracy’s design gives us the freedom to protect and enhance America’s number one resource, the land, by engineering with nature so as to restore dynamic equilibrium between cropland, forest, water flow and the underground water table” – from Technocracy article ‘Free Enterprise vs. Free Technology’
There are a lot of thoughtful comments on this topic already. For now, I’ll just ask some questions (think of it as a little survey). How far in the future do you expect the following events to occur?
1. A machine passes the Turing test.
2. Automated cars are ubiquitous in the US.
3. Fossil fuels are no longer needed as energy sources.
4. The first human lands on Mars.
5. A team of soccer-playing robots beats the human World Cup champions.
6. Life expectancy increases faster than one year per year.
As you can see, these events are things that will probably occur in the near (pre-Singularity) future. What are your predictions?
The thread is about post scarcity and the singularity.
Probably better not to introduce whatever it is your doing now and stick to the topic?
Ok?
If it’s not obvious to you, Johnny, all the events I listed are precursors to the Singularity and a post-scarcity future. For example, having machines capable of playing soccer or having a human-level conversation will be necessary if robots are to take on roles in service and manufacturing.
I think 2045 is a conservative estimate. We’ll have all these things (and a whole lot more) before 2030.
Before the invention of the double-acting steam engine by James Watt in 1782, all through recorded history, the principal engine for converting energy to do work was the human being (98% human, 2% extraneous). Today that proportion has inversed (2% human, 98% extraneous). Many different types of technologies exist already and many still dont, but what is important to remember is that the design for social operations put forward by the Technical Alliance was possible back then but it will no longer be in the future once we have used our new technological power to unconsciously exploit and waste the last remaining natural resources for a profit.
Logically, post scarcity will come to be. Our production is on an exponential upward curve and at some point will far exceed the needs and wants of even the most greedy. This is already happening. Less workers are creating much more product. If you buy an older home you are appalled by the small amount of closet space. “I can’t fit all my crap in there.” And your kids will wonder how people ever survived with a little 6′ x 10′ closet. Supply is skyrocketing due to technology, follow the trend and you get to the endgame….post scarcity.
Please dont confuse production scarcity with scarcity of resources. We are indeed able to produce well over our able to consume, but this goes at the cost of natural resources.
Consider the following example: in the olden days loggers would cut trees by hand, therefore their production output was limited, but the forest seemed to them to be absolutely without bounds, for they could never cut it all down singlehandedly, therefore there was plenty of room for expansion. The Price System worked moderately well in those days because its two basic requirements were met: production scarcity to establish value, as well as what seemed to be at that time “unlimited resources” to enable continuing growth. However due to the introduction of technological methods the inverse is true today; production scarcity is no longer an issue, but a dwindling resource base and a world on the brink of total collapse and civil war is.
The Price System values only profit, so it provides a lucrative monetary incentive to waste these resources in exchange for debt-tokens, especially those which are rare and more costly. Technocracy’s design provides the only viable alternative in complete technological and intellectual accord with the age in which we live, we hope you might want to investigate it.
With nanoproduction ability we also have nanorecycling ability. Production will increase dramatically, but so will the ability to go back and use the old waste of the past to continue to produce more. Scarcity does cease if recycling can become 100% efficiency. However some products will need to be constantly recycled as they become less important or this still breaks down. Every person on the planet having one of every conceivable product would still strip us of all available raw materials, especially with continued population growth.
We will easily create space-habitats where (in space) there is a whole universe of matter we can use to create unlimited products. Advanced AI will also allow us to use available resources with extreme efficiency therefore it is conceivable that 1 gram of matter (or less) will produce as much product as 100 grams currently produces.
The universe can easily accommodate an expanding population with plenty of resources to spare; and when our universe becomes too small I am sure we will easily create new universes.
In the process of converting energy into use form a small percentage is always lost as waste heat. The purpose of the Technate design and it’s introduction of energy accounting allows for the production of only the optimum quality goods and services for the most efficient energy cost. Money doesn’t do that.
The design is for the North American continent only, for it is the minimum area with the necessary natural resources, installed industrial equipment and trained personnel for a functional distribution of abundance to all citizens in a sustainable contiguous continentalism. With approximately 52% of the worlds resource base and only around 10% of the world’s population, North America is the logical place to start. At the present time however, under the political economic Price System method of organisation, we are obliged to exploit and waste the irreplaceable ressources of other areas of the world because the Price System cannot function without exponential expansion and waste. Globalism will inevitably collapse as resources are limited. http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~educator/globaloney.htm
“High-powered-AI will ensure our available resources are effectively limitless.”
Limitless to the wants an imagination of whom? To me possessing that high powered intelligence? I doubt it. Or to a chimpanzee? I grant that high powered intelligence could create a world where a low powered intelligence would perceive resources virtually limitless. Maybe you’ll choose to remain a low powered intelligence, in order to live in that post scarcity world. Others won’t.
What is scarce may change, but scarcity isn’t going anywhere.
”I grant that high powered intelligence could create a world where a low powered intelligence would perceive resources virtually limitless.”
Funny yeah.
Groups that ignore population to resources and claim the future solves this problem ignore the basic reality of the present.
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dfx7rfr2_70cmz88f&hl=en
I Am The Price System file above.
Hi “buybuydandavis”.
You stated: “What is scarce may change, but scarcity isn’t going anywhere.”
I disagree strongly. The future will be a place of limitlessness for everyone, including the highest powered intelligence you can imagine, and also including those you cannot imagine.
If the contents of our current universe are not adequate for the limitlessness, which I suggested, then we will easily create new universes. Post-Scarcity is inevitable.
Recently I was reading about the possibility of aliens living inside black holes: “A singularity is the region in a black hole when space and time become infinite.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1376070/Could-aliens-living-planets-deep-black-holes.html
Here also is the notion that new universes outside our own exist: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26132/
There are many options regarding how a limitless Post-Scarcity future will be created. Post-Scarcity will be easy to create. I think people underestimate the colossal magnitude of the intelligence explosion. If intelligence millions of times greater than current human intelligence isn’t intelligent enough to create something as simple as Post-Scarcity (for all levels of intelligence) then that super-intelligence would be a very stupid type of intelligence. Super-intelligence will not be stupid therefore Post-Scarcity will be created.
Incidentally it is good to see lots of activity on this Post-Scarcity thread which I started. PS is a very important topic regarding the Singularity and I am glad a wider discussion regarding PS, in relation to the Singularity, is beginning to happen.
”I disagree strongly. The future will be a place of limitlessness for everyone, including the highest powered intelligence you can imagine, and also including those you cannot imagine.”””
Yeah right… what future is that..//? and when? There are over 80 million Egyptians… most under 25… most are not employed so many have lost the ability to consume, except by marginal starvation values.
I am guessing you do not live in a third world country. Probably the water is clean enough to drink where you live. Maybe you have a job.
I think people enraptured with the singularity, Kurzweil, immortality, aliens in black holes… are in the fantasy zone.. and thats fine.
Magic thinking on this subject sounds borderline occult fantasy.
@Johnny
You wrote: “Yeah right… what future is that..//? and when? There are over 80 million Egyptians… most under 25… most are not employed so many have lost the ability to consume, except by marginal starvation values.”
P Swill happen in a “Transhuman-Singularity-future” where people are immortal and Strong-AI has been created; it’s a future where we colonize space and where mind-uploading is possible; it’s a future where Stem Cells can easily allow us to regrow all body tissues/organs; a future where 3D printing and molecular-assembly-nanotechnology and nanobots are commonplace.
You are correct; I don’t live in a 3rd world country but I am on the “breadline” and I don’t expect PS tomorrow; I expect PS by 2045 at the latest, which could mean a wait of around 33 years. A lot can change in 33 years, especially when you consider “accelerating change”.
Like i said there is no doubt that the technologies speculated upon in relation to the singularity are possible, with science we know everything could eventually be possible, but placing an irrational amount of faith in this in order to convince oneself that they will magically be saved can be likened to mystical thinking. Moreover, it does little to advance the probability of such an event ever occurring. Right now the primary concern is for the ‘existencial risks’ brought upon us by the technology we have today. For a real paradigm shift that would truly affect each and every one of us, not to mention ensure our very survival, no need to wait until the year 2045; the plans for a science based social system have already been layed out by Technocracy. It exists virtually unchanged for over a century now, ready to be implemented at any moment as a survival method. There is no other alternative right now. In any case it would be the necessary first step towards whatever the “singularity” is describing. It cannot wait much longer.
Raul Guillet, regarding you comment (“irrational amount of faith “) what leads you to believe the expectation of the technological breakthroughs I mention is irrational? Is there any basis for your allegation or are you merely spouting your irrational bias? There is nothing mystical about looking at the evidence of technological and scientific progress so far and projecting that rate of progress into the future thus based upon the evidential growth of technology progress to date it is highly rational to expect the breakthroughs I suggest, this is not daydreaming or magic anymore than Stem Cell breakthroughs already achieved are magical daydreams. Is AI-Watson a fictional fantasy, a daydream or mysticism? It is extremely ironic that you are suggesting my views are irrational because your comments are actually very irrational.
You say that right now the current focus is “existential risks” from current tech, but I suggest this is your focus. My focus is regarding increasing the level of investment in sci-tech thereby accelerating the rate of progress.
If someone thinks a heart transplant can save them (extend their lives), and they place their faith in a heart transplant, does that make heart transplants a mystical or magical phenomenon? Do expectations of medical science being able to cure disease constitute mysticism? Are antibiotics magic spells? Is the internet a form of Voodoo telepathy?
This Technocracy cult you continue to mention lacks the scientific advancement for the PS benefits I envisage but I agree there are many beneficial changes we could implement today. I don’t suggest waiting until 2045, 2045 is a deadline; I hope to accelerate change via my awareness campaign thereby bringing the date of the Singularity forward.
What im saying is that the fact that these technologies are possible alone does not necessarily ensure the future being friendly. Indeed a lot of the technologies are already here. Our technology and the use of extraneous energy is what explains why we live so well today. There is nothing wrong with people spreading enthusiasm about the wonders of science and technology, nor with concerning oneself with the future, those are very positive things, because science is the only way to solve all problems laid before us, technology is today the only major cause of social change and finally because the future is where we will spend the rest of our lives. But ignoring the fact that technology destroys the Price System and that a serious scientific social design alternative to impending doom exists is useless.
I don’t ignore that technology will destroy the Price System. I am very aware of Post-Scarcity which abolish money; all trade will be abolished because everything will be free.
”My focus is regarding increasing the level of investment in sci-tech thereby accelerating the rate of progress.”
Yeah right. Investing money is a great (haha) way to make ‘progress’.
Singularity Utopia poster…. definition of Utopia… ‘A place that does not exist’.
No doubt it comforts though.
Singularity is worthless in a Price System.
Just a way to control people and make a class/caste system if a contract society money system is used.
Technocracy a cult?
Science based social design.
Singularity dreaming people realistic?
Not so much.
What about all those people with no jobs… think society can come up with something better than a technate design?
I hope this site is just not another content generator for promo of some money thing?
People on the internet are into all kinds of scams.
Maybe the Singularity crowd is a ripe gullible market.
It seems Johnny you are cognitively challenged thus you cannot comprehend the definition of utopia. Utopia is a perfect socio-political system, it is a perfect civilization.
I estimate utopia will exist by year 2045 at the latest.
Ah yes… Sorry I don’t debate clowns.
You lost the debate some time a go.
””’
I estimate utopia will exist by year 2045 at the latest.””””””
As said… One good definition of Utopia… is a ‘place that does not exist’
Debate over.
Better luck next time… start by learning how to debate.
Personal attacks are a poor substitute for knowledge or ideas.
My rule of thumb is never debate a clown.
Sites like this… prey on people like you.. that are content generators… Singularity Price Scam sites that is… ha ha.
Have a nice day… and check out the ads.
Ah the irony. By personal attacks were you referring to when you described my rational views as “borderline occult fantasy” or are your referring to “Magic thinking” or “fantasy zone” which you have previously used to describe my views?
Check out the ads? What ads? I’m using ad-blocking software. Many intelligent people use ad-blocking software. When I said you are cognitively challenged I wasn’t attacking you, it was simply a statement of fact.
You say one definition of utopia is a place that doesn’t exist, really, is that the principle definition of utopia? So in your mind when people refer to dystopia, they are referring to a place that doesn’t exist? But why to people worry about potential dystopias if they are places that don’t exist. Or maybe dsytopia is possible and utopia is also possible. Consider that dystopia arose from the word utopia. The origin of the word utopia stems from a work of fiction but “utopia” is used to describe real life situations or potential situations in real life. This is similar to how “the work of fiction 1984″ has created words and phrases which are applied to real life: “Big Brother”, “thought crime”, and “doublethink”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
I am so glad you have ceased to take part in this debate. Thank you for your cessation.
You do not debate clowns, but the debate with Singularity Utopia is over(according to your own self proclaimed victory). Therefore you two debated and he is not a clown.
“Personal attacks are a poor substitute for knowledge or ideas.” but calling people clowns when they disagree is.
Hopefully the reflection of the holes in your diatribe are of some use to you.
dude the laws of thermodynamics are not up to debate sry…. this is a science/technology site not a political rant forum… everyone knows today there is nothing scientific about political Price System economics, no one will even attempt to deny that, even though many choose to ignore that. however everything must obey the laws of physics wether you like it or not, those are the laws of the universe.. why do you think there is not a single word about political Price System economics in any textbook about physical science..?
Raul, do not infer my comment was aimed at you. It was only to point out some gaps in the rationalization of Johnny.
I am not knowledgeable enough on this topic to adequately debate it, but some debating errors of a forum flamer jump of the page.
Iv’e debated enough on the internet that I know when I or others have to resort to insulting the other persons intelligence we’ve usually ran out of valid topic points.
well this information has been known since 1919.. all government studies confirm this information: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/Technocracy1943.pdf
ignoring it does not make it go away…
political economic Price System libertarian traitor type scam artists who promote ways of separating people from their money and neo-marxist subversive loonies who promote “credit” systems and “income redistribution” for example see in the “singularity” just another feel-good excuse to ignore this information even more. Technocracy on the other hand has always been the most patriotic organisation in North America. Anyways, it has always been said that it does not matter wether Technocracy as an organisation exists at all, the trends we are describing are unidirectional and irreversible.
Raul, you obviously are misunderstanding my point. To be blunt, Johnny is being a forum ass with obvious gaps in logic. That was all. I have not researched the topic enough, or care to at the moment for that matter, to debate the topic. Websites draw traffic by having interesting topics and make money off advertising. Being condescending about that is ridiculous. This site does not overly push ads. I seriously doubt this site makes that much money off their minimal ads.
You’re knee-jerk response with calling some loonies and trying to call some group you agree with as the “most patriotic” comes across as you trying to make it a false polar right and wrong argument. Patriotism, real or self-deluded, is irrelevant to technology. Technology is not nation dependent.
Self-proclaimed patriots, from my experience, are usually trying to justify their extremist or irrational views by wrapping themselves in the flag of their country.
Have a great day =]
“A reasonable man changes to suit his surroundings, an unreasonable man changes his surroundings to suit him, thus all progress in this world has been made by an unreasonable man.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Start doing some magical thinking of your own and it might lead to some magical results. Or travel back in time to 1975 and describe a smartphone to someone. That should give you an idea about what unreasonable men are accomplishing while Egypt wallows in political unrest completely preoccupied with their own inability to get along with one another.
@johnny: “Magic thinking on this subject sounds borderline occult fantasy.”
There is nothing fantastical about science and technology, it is grounded in logic, it is not a “fantasy zone”.
Considering the distinction between science and science fiction I think it will be helpful to educate you via a quote from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, which was made in an April 2010 video tilted “NASA’s New Era of Innovation and Discovery”. Charles Bolden said: “We’re going to turn science fiction into science fact.”
We are making great progress in science and tech therefore uneducated people could mistake rapid progress for fantasy.
In the 1973 mobile phones seemed like magic or occult fantasy, imagine how a smart phone would have seemed in 1973? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1373272/The-day-Martin-Cooper-took-mobile-phone-public-leaving-New-Yorkers-bemused-bewildered.html
Did you know the Earth is not flat?
Really?
Learn how to debate.
Thanks for educating about the earth not being flat after all.
Really appreciate that.
Ha ha.
The current system is robust, even if it’s not the best system, it will do anything to survive. I don’t think a transition to a Technate will happen anytime soon (at least in North America) considering how little support there is for technocracy.
What the Price System is trying to do here is walk on a tightrope, but it is inevitably doomed to total destruction; the Price System destroys itself due to the application of technology and extraneous energy. The way many Technocrats are looking at it, the transition to a Technate will probably never happen, but if it does not, that will certainly mean total destruction. There is no future in the Price System. The Technate design is the default plan for survival. It exists virtually unchanged for almost a century now, ready to be implemented at any moment. We would be alot better off had we done so back then, right now the Price System maniacs are just wasting their time trying in vain to prolong their own suffering. It matters not what the Price System people try and do, the trends shaping our society are unidirectionnal and irreversible. It does not matter either whether or not there is little support for Technocracy. People living in an imaginary Price System fantasy dreamworld will inevitably have to come to terms with the cold and harsh reality of physical science and the physical laws which govern our universe.
Its bullshit to say the current system is robust. The current system destroys itself for the reasons given.
In other words your saying that you don’t think a transition will happen anytime soon… because YOU do not support the idea.
By the way the basic idea is a science based social design and that is all it is.
Your idea of robust is destruction of the resource base to make debt tokens.
Think that has a future…. how about ecology?
What do you mean ‘it will do anything to survive’?
Like kill everyone…. ?
including you for some antique idiot reasons that are based in silly cast and class control … wage slave robots?
Technology destroys the Price System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-GfgNTteE
Singularity … har har… Price System groupies more likely… like your fearless leader… Ray… the economist price system advocate…. as noted in his god awful bullshit writing on economics… and money scamming.
There… put that in your pipe and smoke it singularity…
Yes, the word scarcity refers here to the scarcity of production resulting from the dependence on hand tool methods of toil. This type of scarcity has been abrogated by the advent of technology: machines can now multiply the output and efficiency of production which was once dependant on far more man-hours of work.This type of scarcity is in fact one of the requirements for any Price System, for it is necessary in order to establish value, or price, be it “free”, or “fixed”. However another requirement of the Price System is that in order for it to function it must be allowed infinite expansion, and on a finite world of limited resources supporting many fragile and vital ecosystems, that is simply impossible. That is why the mandate for survival calls for a design for sustainability on a continental scale, called a contiguous continentalism, and the design and operation of this social-industrial mechanism is only possible using scientific measurements, not commodity evaluation, in order to preclude special interest groups and opinionated control.
Yes the Technate would be very powerful. For the first time in 7000 years, the world would emerge into a truly different picture. It would be the first step taken towards the transition to a type 1 civilization. If we acheive this we will be able to conquer immortality and reach towards the stars, but if we choose to stay on the path of our babylonian ancestors despite our tremendous technology until the last natural resources have been used up, the last natural lands contaminated, and the whole world on the brink of civil war then there will be no future for anybody. It shall be Science or Chaos. The transition towards the type of civilization described by Technocracy has been called a “chance, not a choice”.
The plan is all contained in the Technocracy Study Course Unabridged. It has always been said that the transition will occur not because it is desirable, but because it is necessary.
Technocracy Study Course Unabridged:
http://www.archive.org/details/TechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged
Technocracy Article Archive:
https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfx7rfr2_348gjnjp6gp
very poetically put Raul =)
Thank you, but bear im just repeating Technocracy information.
Yes, absolutely, Post-Scarcity would entail space-colonization.
Via personal 3D-printing and nano-assembly the Singularity will allow each individual to print their own spaceship. We will cease to be limited by Earth’s resources but before we become a space-faring species technology will allow the available resources on Earth to be used with extreme efficiency. Arid deserts will be transformed in green pastures or dense forests according to our needs. We will build airborne cities, underwater cities, and cities that float on the sea. Some people may adapt their bodies to live permanently in the sea. The possibilities are endless; we could miniaturize our bodies thus very minimal resources would be required, or we could live our lives in virtual reality (discarding our bodies completely) thus entire virtual worlds could be stored as compressed data within the space of one cubic millimeter once technology evolves to that standard.
There will be absolutely no scarcity. All physical and psychological limitations will be surpassed. There will be limitless intelligence and limitless control of our environment for everyone. The shackles of mental and physical toil will be abolished; there will be total freedom; absolutely everything will be free; there will be no Price System; there will be no money; it will be total Post-Scarcity.
I think we all agree that the kind of technology one has in mind when thinking about ‘the singularity’ is possible. This fact is one of the fundamental premises of scientific work; the idea that science would solve eventually all problems laid before it. Nobel prize winning chemist Jean-Marie Lehn, for example, simply says that the mere fact that we exist by spontaneous arrangement of our molecules is proof that it is possible to intelligently nanoengineer this sort of thing. So wether or not this is possible is no longer subject to debate. A whole lot of things are possible thanks to science; some scientists say they have in their possession the plans to build a time-machine but that in order for it to work they would need more energy than that produced by the sun, or something like that. Some of the incredible technologies commonly predicted by thinkers of the “singularity” already exist despite our inneficient Price System method of organisation, and others are sadly still very far from being materialized today despite any initial proof of concepts we may already have. In any case, the shift towards the type of society described by Technocracy would be the first step towards the type of future envisioned by “singularity” enthusiasts. The problem is of course that we don’t have to make that transition at all; we can very well carry out our Price System method of living without paying attention to the changing realities around us until we face Total Destruction. This is what many popular science thinkers like to call today the “existential risks” which threaten our world today. The function of the Technocracy plan is to avert the probability of anything like that ever happening as well as to provide a solid foundation on which to build our future. Remember, as long as we do not have access to the type of technologies that enable vehicles for immortality, at the end of the game, all the pieces must go back into the box. Science is about determining the next most probable, the scientist founders of Technocracy were the first to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the technological trends shaping society and the conclusions they have reached are today becoming increasingly undeniable and alarming. As to the plan they have proposed, it is, now more than ever, the key to our very survival.
Anybody interested in Technocracy’s design may also check out the link to a facebook group if they wish, remember to check out all the other links made available here as well in order to get as much information as possible, and be sure any questions you may have, the Technocrats will have answers for them: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391&v=wall
I thank everyone for their positive feedback and enthusiasm as well as the other posters for providing the quality links concerning the Technate design.
No one wants every one to one their own spaceship; it would be very lonely.
“miniaturize our bodies” reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywqe7BTrTuI
Anyway, I think you’ll like this: http://episin.blogspot.com/2011/06/interstellar-travel.html
Yes, I think post-scarcity is an importsnt topic. It’s implications seem to be game-changing. I agree that wall street and other powerful interests will see it as a threat (because it is) and there will be interesting legal battles over some of the technologies.
*Stop pirating earl grey tea*
Post-Scarcity isn’t a threat to anyone. The scarcity based-mentality is dependent upon a greed-based social system of civilized-rapine, thus such scarcity-modes-of cognition will fear everything being free but such fears are based upon stupidity, such fears are based on a lack of comprehension regarding the nature of PS.
The irrational fears of the power-elite who have not fully grasped the nature of Post-Scarcity could cause major social turbulence if the power-elite try to suppress PS; but via an early awareness campaign regarding PS we can avert any social-turbulence, which may occur due to lack of awareness.
We can create a situation where everyone realizes the benefit of PS thus there will be no resistance. There is no need to cling to wealth if everything is free thus the power-elite have no need to suppress the coming era of PS. There is no need to protect your money, PS is coming!
I agree totally. However, I do not believe the current elites would agree. I think they rather like feeling much more powerful than the rest of us and would do most anything to stop any leveling of power.
Absolutely should be a larger topic. The Singularity is an event which will permeate across all spheres of our society, and effectively lead a metamorphosis towards something new and unprecedented. Raising awareness on these issues is key, and capitalism is a core tenet of our current world system – often (falsely) considered eternal.
About post-scarcity: I think it’s a very accomplish-able goal, and I think it can happen sooner than we think. If this idea got out to non-profits across the world, maybe they would change their direction and help people out of poverty much faster than they previously thought possible. (As an aside, Post-scarcity is a topic they discuss fairly often on Hive45, and it was mentioned in their last video podcast: http://hive45.com/)
I think a few big steps will be getting cheap 3D printers in the home, finding alternative energy solutions, educating people about the internet and technology, and perfecting genetically modified food.
Post-scarcity is a nice pipe dream, but wall street will never allow it. Greed trumps abundance.
I think this is an important topic; I would love to see more about it, which companies are making this happen, and what we should work on to get there quicker.
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.
I wouldn’t mind if you put it in the spot light more. I think this is an important topic that is often neglected in today’s society. When machines can do 95% of the jobs and produce an abundance thank it kind of defeats the purpose of money and jobs; especially when we hit the singularity and become the machine.
Anyways, that is just my two cents.
Singularity without Technocracy is pointless endeavor.
Maintaining a Price System destroys everything for money.
Technocracy is the default system for survival.
Important to note many have co-opted concepts from Technocracy technate design… and those are NOT connected to that information.
http://www.archive.org/details/WhoIsATechnocrat-WiltonIvie
This is a good explanation above on that.
Here is a singularity a.i. video that is connected with the ideas of Technocracy technate design http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbqX0ECPFk&feature=channel_page
Enjoy.