from Hacker News

Post-Scarcity Economics (2013)

by hocaoglv on 10/20/17, 10:33 AM with 94 comments

• by baron816 on 10/20/17, 12:42 PM

  The problem we have now is not that there isn’t enough for everyone, it’s that we’re acting like that’s still the case.

• by ddnb on 10/20/17, 1:06 PM

  An incredible article, it seems so clear the way it is stated.

  If demand is the problem, as stated in the article, would a basic-income, providing extra income and arguably more free time for consumers usher in a new "Golden Age" of growth as we have seen post-WWII?

• by francisofascii on 10/20/17, 1:16 PM

  Media seems to be a good example of this. Movies and TV shows continue to be created and preserved increasing the supply, but consuming media does not mean less for others.

• by wyager on 10/20/17, 1:37 PM

  Scarcity is imposed by physics. Energy is conserved, entropy increases. Even if we realized the wildest extropian dreams and moved all intelligent life into efficient simulations, physics still dictates that every non-reversible computation creates entropy.

  A homeless person in the US today has universally better prospects than 99% of the population a thousand years ago; better than all of them in many ways. It’s impossible to starve in a first world country. Even the poorest of the poor are jacked into the global communication network. Necessary survival goods are non-scarce. Are we satisfied? No, we want more. As productive capacity increases, our definition of non-scarcity becomes more and more demanding. I don’t see why this would stop if the only commodity left was mass-energy.

• by kiliantics on 10/20/17, 5:07 PM

  I recommend people interested in alternative social structures for a post-scarcity world to look into Murray Bookchin