I have two issues with this video: 1. It's called survival, not adventure. 2. Your video on post-scarcity minecraft has blocked me entirely from viewing articles on the scarcity of items in minecraft through google, and now I can't properly price my music discs. Shame on you and your unintentional result-trolling ways.
Makerbots are based on another project called reprap (short for "replicating rapid-prototyping machine") which was started with the goal of creating a machine that can reproduce itself. The current model can manufacture about 50 % of its parts, requiring human acquisition, construction, and Assembly of those other parts. This is a really interesting project who's rapid advancement is due in part to the sudden popularity of 3d printing. There is a wiki, simply google "RepRap".
okay consider this. I send you a spoon over the internet. you print it in the maker bot. then you get bored with it. so you design a spork. melt the spoon and use that to print the spork. doesnt look like I'm wasting resources here. right? Post scarcity economy is possible in the real world if we recycle. but not just simply recycle no. We need ultimate recycling. a machine that will digest any material into its elemental particles segregate them into containers that then can be put into the printer.
Unpronouncable Well, energy is a resource... after a fashion. Regardless of that, however, energy can be part of a post-scarcity system as well. Things don't need to be infinite for us to be post-scarcity. They just have to be greater than our ability to consume them. Energy may not be infinite, but there is certainly more of it out there in the universe than we can consume in a human-conceivable time frame. And if we are going to suppose something that can reduce goods into their individual particles with no waste, we might as well assume we will be able to harness that energy.
Matt Johnson That is actually very good point. If we were able to solve the power issue we would be few steps closer to that post-scarcity economy. I imagine tall towers with with copper cables spread in the cloud layer collecting energy from storm clouds (not lightning imagine discharging a capacitor befor it reaches critical charge that makes it explode) or solarfarms that use nanotechnology to boost their effectiveness spread across deserts. effectively putting these empty spaces to beneficial and eco friently use. when you thing about it there is so much more power eco tech then can ever be in fossil fuels.
Unpronouncable, isn't both matter and energy infinite.The law of conservation of mass & energy implies that mass, as well as energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space.
Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It's all about a futuristic world where Matter Compilers are as common as microwave ovens and anyone can make almost anything with the press of a button, including diamonds (hence the title "Diamond Age.") The book takes an interesting look at an Earth that is at the threshold of the post-scarcity economy Mike has described. Oh, and the book was published in 1995. :P Neal Stephenson has a creepy nack for predicting future tech and it's effects on culture. Read it!
The problem with a post scarcity economy is physics. Specifically, the law of conservation of matter and energy. You will never get around that. The best you could hope to do is to reduce scarcity to such a degree, though accumulation of energy, that its effects were not readily felt. That would be a 'virtual post-scarcity economy', but still not a true post scarcity economy. And if consumption of energy were to rise in response to its increased abundance, or if that supply were to fail or be strained, scarcity would rear its ugly head and show that it never went away, it was just sleeping.
"Piracy" is post-scarcity economics in action, within the context of media. There is almost no cost associated with the replication of a media file. In a traditional economic sense, they have no monetary value. If you want to make money on media, sell tangible merchandise. Allow the media to act as advertising for your brand. Sort of like Star Wars, without all the lawsuits.
This is the same intellectually folly as the RBE. There will always be something of scarcity, and whatever it is, it will matter to us. In most first world countries starvation is ERADICATED. Think about that for a moment. Yes we still have hunger, but nearly no one dies from lack of available food. You'd think we might be singing the praises of having eliminated the #1 killer of humans over our entire collective history. But nope. Now we laud people who are thin/fit, because in the US, then tend to be less scarce than people who aren't. The real death knell for the RBE is to look at any group of hyper rich people. They essentially have no scarcity and abundance of anything they want. Are they all perfectly happy? Nope. It's just like how "poor" is a relative saying. What we call "poor" now is fantastically wealthy compared to even 200 years ago. You'll never "eliminate" poor, it's relative. So even if we can craft anything, scarcity will be those thing we don't have designs for that people keep secret. Or any idea, material or thing that isn't as common as anything else. And we'll be just as disappointed about not having that "thing" as we are now when we can't afford some other doodad.
***** Starvation (death) caused simply by lack of available food. Not by someone locked up forcibly, or a medical condition is virtually non existent in the USA. And this is DURING these rather tough times. Bathtubs currently kill more people yearly. And considering that during 99.9% of human existence, that was by far the #1 killer of humans. That's nothing short of amazing. Hunger still exists, malnutrition (mostly by poor choice) very much exists, but death caused ONLY from lack of available food is pretty much eradicated in the USA.
Am I the only one who thinks "software" when talking about post-scarcity economy? And it has pretty much changed how we monetize games, for instance. Think F2P games, that's exactly what is happening now.
In Warhammer 40k, there is an ancient civilization that has reached a post-scarcity state - they can conjure matter and shape it through music, much like a rhythmic 3D printer (oh yeah). Thing is, without the need for labour, these "Eldar" turned to art and sexual excess, which lead to civil war, which lead to the fall of their civilization. I can see any civilization going down that route when resources are not a thing anymore.
To avoid this we can fill the void of "need for labour" with "need for responsible education". After the essential ABCs and 123s, I imagine these 3 subjects will be the most important for any society with a post-scarcity economy: - *Engineering:* To understand how robotics and material printing works - *Philosophy:* Both because we'll have the time for it and as a deeper version of History Class to impart each new generation with a meaningful understanding of past choices and be equipped to make their own. - *Politics:* So all of us who do not work may participate in political discussion in the idealistic ways we cannot afford to now, lest we drive each other mad and start WW3. Thus, there would always still be 4 major forms of labour that will never die: *Teaching, Maintenance/Supervision, Writing, and Government work* as these are all aspects of humanity so essential to the security of the human experience, we cannot, should not, or WILL not relinquish responsibility over to robotics. Too many self-defeating prophecy stories (from your Warhammer 40k story to the self-sufficient spaceship in Wall-E) tell us that *it will be essential for everyone to maintain an educated understanding and ability to handle future technologies AS WELL AS mandatory self-imposed duty to be involved in our own governance* to maintain the glorious predicted post-scarcity paradise. Ideally, everyone will be required to perform Maintenance and Government duties regularly; Teach occasionally if qualified to; be rewarded for indirect teaching or nurturing through popular Writing. Everything else will be hobbies, with the most popular developments shared by the internet as they are now.
We could do the 'work if you're feelin it" thing. Also, there are tons and tons of hobbies and extracurricular activities to do, so I think we'd be okay.
Newb Challenger Having a job is more than just the responsibility, the routine itself promotes healthy mental congition allowing individuals to converge on the same values. That is why even the elderly are encouraged to have some form of hobbies, such as gardening or painting - To keep their mind from dulling. The lack of routine and daily commuting with others is a constant within dystopian fiction and self-defeating prophecies regarding seemingly-perfect societies. So, no. A "work if you're feelin it" system would not suffice.
***** Pop culture and game design? Not academically though. lol I soak a lot of human behaviour and video game related content like Invisibilia and Extra Credits.
In my virtual reality class, we had a homework assignment to “steal a work of art.” It involved going to the art museum, taking enough photos of a sculpture to generate a 3D model out of it (a process called photogrammetry) then generating said model and then 3D printing it. The whole thing blew my mind a little bit. That said, I would recommend learning some basic 3D CG manipulation if any of this sounds cool to you. Blender is free and there are lots of tutorials on RUclips. The first time that I ever modeled something, it was like a switch had been flipped in my brain. Just think-you can make anything that you can imagine. Literally anything. Then, if you go a step further and use a game engine like Unreal (which is also free btw) you can then hold the thing you made in your hand and mess with it. So now I build, rig and fly spaceships in my spare time, all with a priceless stolen 13th century wooden statue by my side. The future was yesterday.
That's part of the point. Creative mode is post scarcity yet people still play in it. They still find worthwhile things to do. It shows that competition for scarce resources may not be the only thing that can drive us to accomplish things or create meaning in our life.
No. The Survival mode has been introduced in the Survival Test version (minecraft.gamepedia.com/Survival_Test) and the Adventure mode is pretty recent because it has been introduced in the 1.3.1 version (minecraft.gamepedia.com/Version_history#1.3), which has been released on August, 2012, one month after the video was posted.
Other than getting Survival mode confused with Adventure mode (Adventure mode is actually the ultimate scarcity economy, because you cannot gather most resources or practically change the landscape), this was very interesting.
Don't know if anyone has answered yet but the answer is not yet, maker bot isn't specifically aimed that direction though it's the logical conclusion. There are projects like the RepRap which are specifically designed to eventually be printed entirely by a copy of itself. There are some issues with things like the gears and components like motors and circuits currently aren't printable. (Also structural pieces iirc are usually not printed as they need rigidity that plastics don't really have).
As you noted, MakerBot still needs plastic and parts, and I'm fairly sure can't print edible food (not without putting in foodstuff in the first place, anyway), or resources such as petroleum, or electricity. The important part of the post-scarcity economy is A: automating production so people don't have to work* and B: Having either plentiful resources or using only renewable resources. MakerBot just turns resources into different forms. *Also ensuring everyone equal access to production.
This post-scarcity idea is extremely fascinating to me. I've thought about it a lot before seeing this video and I think we're very close to achieving it, in a way. I'm thinking we just have to improve the efficiency of solar panels a little bit. Then we can make enough of them to have no scarcity in electricity. And because electricity can be transformed into lots of different forms of energy (heat, pressure, light, etc.) lots of things will become free. Like driving and creating diamonds!
Some time ago, me and my friends came to the conclussion that you can get anything from the internet except from food. Once we heard about this printing machines we realized that then, it will be basically possible to get anything from the internet. Along comes the idea that then, manufactured goods will not be as expensive as thy're now, then the information that describes them will be the important part of the system, along comes the pirate bay, and sharing information, so... yes, mindblowing!
First mode is survival mode. Creative mode can have monsters, but they leave you alone unless you hit them. So much fun to get the monsters to fight each other. Also fun to make mine cart tracks and send monsters riding mine carts into lava.
Theoretically yes, though the maker bot isn't designed for it, there are some other 3D-printers which are a little more DIY which have been designed so that they can be 3D printed :) I'm thinking of making one myself
I definitely think Minecraft is an amazing game in the way it can relate to the real world at times. I was in a server in survival and when it first started people went their own ways and built to survive, people became friends and they built towns together. As people gathered stuff others wanted they began to trade and an economy was quickly created, then people began to steal and attack others this then brought in law and government. Those that would break the laws were banned from the server
In a world where something like this exists, ALL manufacturers are rendered obsolete, because everyone can create ANYTHING. Granted, we still need materials to build things from the Makerbot (or would we...?), but we basically have unlimited product. But, if we go into a full post-scarcity economy, I believe that creativity will really become the new money. In a world where we don't have to worry about waste or finite resources, our creations can only evolve due to great minds of inventors.
Way too late in the game to be sharing this, but this video gets me totally pumped for post-scarcity whereas I previously thought the whole thing was just a high-brow fairy tale. Kudos.
If you're interested in the way realistic (ish?) scifi settings treat post-scarcity economies, check out Eclipse Phase :) It's a roleplaying system with insane worldbuilding and setting work, where some planets and factions of humanity have reputation-based economies, since physical resources are largely available. Super interesting!!
That is actually a lot like adventure/survival mode in minecraft. There are machines you can build to get resources. For instance, you find a skeleton spawner and set up around it to kill skeletons, to get bone, to make bone meal with a crafting table, to instantly grow a tree; or get flowers for dye. You can even make a machine to create new cobblestone, which is used to make a furnace, heated by wood (or charcoal from wood) to turn cobblestone to stone. The game is all about reaching a point where your multiple factories and machines give you whatever you want, especially on worlds with Volts.
Related reading: The 'ware series. The last book is a really great description of an economy where anyone can create anything they like, instantly. Rather than things, IDEAS are traded, in detail, so that you can replicate the idea. A really, really great book.
In creative mode, not only do I not feel the need to work for resources, I also don't feel motivated to make anything. In survival it's much more rewarding to build from the materials you worked so hard to get. You can't assume that in a post-scarcity economy everyone is going to get up and do cool things because it's free...
I got the oppurtunity to use a 3D printer, much like the Maker Bot. I made a robot I had designed and a tiny version of the Enterprise from Star Trek. It was the best experience of my life.
Even in Minecraft, there's some meta-resources which are limited; bandwidth and bits come to mind. Ultimately, they're limited to how many cables, satellites and servers we can build, so Minecraft is not unlimited. If left to grow indefinitely, as people build stuff we eventually would reach the limit, one way or the other.
There will always be scarcity, and in my opinion the most scarce resource of all will always be time. Even if given endless possibilities and riches, there will never be enough to accomplish in this finite lifetime (unless we somehow manage to transcend death), and we can't possible do or learn everything. Which is good, in my opinion. Because this "finite-ness" allows us to treasure whatever we do or create even more.
Well Minecraft is used for more than having fun and playing a game, it is actually used for building real life buildings. At minecon, one of the admins at mojang was talking about how some people used Minecraft to build a exact replica of something in real life. If we keep all of this up, the world could be a more intelligent and amazing place.
To put what acrylia said in more specific terms, a Post-Scarcity economy doesn't mean "to make something out nothing" but rather, " to make something without the loss of resources". this could be accomplished in any number of ways, like how energy never ceases to exist but converts into another form of energy(of equal value) that cannot be used in the method needed.So, if they could find a way to convert one form of matter into another form of equal value, then a PS economy is quite rational
Forget 3D printing, certain industries have already achieved a post-scarcity economic state. Take the music industry for example. When I buy a song off iTunes, it isn't like there is now one less song for someone else to buy. That data can be copied any number of times. The supply of that song, once recorded, is literally infinite.
With cool free programs you can save any area of your Minecraft game save as a 3d object that can be printed out in 3d in color. That way you can build something amazing and have a plastic color model of it. The 3d model you save can also be used in 3d animation programs.
The thing about a post scar ritzy economy is that after a while, we would have solved everything. An awesome hung about minecraft is its ability to have a scarce envourment which is ALOT more fun due to its chalange than Creative for its lack of chalange example: Poof diamonds no effort no trying
I don't rule out space exploration for all time, but think it's FAR wiser to put the huge majority of those resources towards reducing human suffering and regenerating life (on this planet).
The makerbot does not play a role. As you stated from the minecraft reference, a post-scarcity economy would allow ones' self to conjure stuff at will with no work. To many, waiting is work. We don't want to sit around for a minute waiting for something. A post-scarcity would allow us to just, like in minecraft, build to our heart's content without any worry of loss in resources. Just for the record, time can also be considered a resource.
Space may be a resource, but it could be a renewable one. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was given to Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Reiss "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe", meaning that we are constantly getting more and more 'space'. Even better, we are getting more and more faster and faster! The only problem is using the space, which is a colossal problem that we may or may not conquer.
That explosion = my mind. So, I never heard of Makerbot or Post-Scarcity before. There are a lot of things that can go right but a lot of things that can go wrong with that theory, and I think it deserves more contemplation. Especially with why does the idea of having something that can appear out of thin air chill me? Can energy be created or is it only transformed?
I'd think the post-scarcity economy would revolve around things such as creativity and scientific aptitude. With the people who are the best painters, the smartest scientists, or the greatest musicians being the people who are wealthy, because they possess the only limited commodity. I can't wait.
In the end it's all about atoms. There are only so many in the universe. The quantity may have alot of zeros behind it, but new ones are not being made with others being destroyed or changed. Therefore a post scarcity economy is still a pipe dream.
There once was a story about a post-scarcity economy world where there were so many goods, social status was granted based on how many goods you, as a consumer, went through. Those who managed to burn through their monthly quota were lauded and given fewer things to consume, while those who could not meet their quotas became stuck in an hoarder vicious cycle. I'd love to tell you what the title was, but I don't remember. Anyway, minecraft makerbot post scarcity apocalypse!
When he was like "i could literally, email you, a spoon." Was the funniest damn part... Mostly because he knew how hilarious and amazing it is, and couldn't keep himself from laughing.
A post scarcity economy could change or remove the need for capital itself, since "why do i need to buy a car... I can just make one by using this blueprint". And i for one welcome such system, no more needy, no more hunger... A better world.
It's arguable that the laws of physics would prevent the kind of free limitless energy that would allow such a society to exist, but you never know. I'm most interested in the way such a society would act, especially, towards other non-scarcity societies. When you think about it, the Prime Directive prevented the Enterprise from ending poverty and illness at its every destination. I recommend the Culture novels of Ian Banks for an fascinating looking at another such society.
I work with people with developmental disabilities, and one of the problems we face when working with them is we tend to do everything for them, and they live kind of void lives. They don't need to do anything so they just consume. They have no motivation because they don't get that satisfaction that you get when you do something difficult and get to eat the fruits of your labor. If this was extrapolated to all of society, I don't see how it would be much different.
It's called hemp. It grows in bushels and can produce plastic, paper, fats, ethanol, and even plastic! Henry Ford originally wanted all his cars to be dependent on hemp products before they were abolished. They were abolished because the fossil fuel industry leaders were in competition with ethanol. The monetary-slave society we live in will not out grow the scarcity problem until all the central banks are gone. Only a resource based economy will bring about an abundance of goods fastest.
Matter is data; the distinction between the two is an illusion, but one that's difficult for us to dispel. Give us a few decades and the idea will be as widely-accepted as "one plus one equals two".
While I doubt we will hit post scarcity anytime soon we will see a drastic drop in cost of living if technology delivers on promises. Cheap efficient solar, fusion, 3d printing and medical advances will make us far more self sufficient than we are now. Just have to hope those currently at the top don't flip over the gameboard in a fit of rage over no longer 'winning' and ruin things for everyone else.
I always hoped that a post-scarcity economy wouldn't be an economy. Everyone just gets anything they want. That way, when designing or building or inventing, money is never an issue. Video gaming would become amazing, because people wouldn't worry about sales, they'd do it because they want to do it. Actors would be passionate about what they do, because it's what they want to do. Art, and everything else, would be revolutionized. The only problem would be getting people to adapt to it.
It depends if humanity can find a way to 'atomise' matter and then reform it? Once speed of light travel is possible, I guess it would be possible to consume planets as a means of resource. Although planets are a finite resource, they are huge and plenty, it would seem that they are 'infinite'. Well that's for future us to worry about, haha.
Hah, I remember when I would double-take every sighting of "The Venus Project" or "The Zeitgeist Movement" within the RUclips Comments section, and now, I'd dare say it's slowly advancing towards the mainstream media =) Interesting, most interesting!
There's almost an unlimited amount of it though! The only way to really have high limit on resources is to go to other planets and use those too, at which point we can build in space if we want to. And maybe make a dyson sphere, so near-unlimited energy. Even energy compression into matter!
Where does second life come to this? A higher detail than mine-craft where you can print objects directly from the game? A very simple and clear description of post scarcity economics. Would like to hear about quantitative easing and the end of poverty in relation to the transference from post-modern economics to post-scarcity
The problem with the creation of a post scarcity society is that our scarcity based society is entirely capable of artificially making things scarce. Example: books. There is an infinite quantity of ebooks that can be made for free once it is written, but copyright laws and companies publishing charge for each download. I personally greatly prefer the physical objects, but books could be post scarcity through the internet. The question is if they should be.
Unless plastic can become both biodegradable and non-petroleum-based, this post-scarcity economy would probably create more problems than it solves. In fact, I would argue that most of the problems of civilization come not from the scarcity of resources itself, but from acting as though we can permanently live beyond our planet's resource limits.
Yes but you could design individual parts in a way that would let them be printed off, and assemble them after. So if you had enough material to make it you could build the entire thing, getting it to run is a different story.
Actually, the first mode in Minecraft is Survival mode... Adventure mode is for maps where people want to restrict you from breaking blocks with your fist. You can't access adventure mode without using creative commands or something else like a mod.
What about the scarcity of space? The thing is that as technology advances and we move towards a post-scarcity economy it also gives us the ability to support a larger population, while places to put that population remains a finite resource. Even if we have all the other resources to make the Enterprise, we wouldn't have the space. Maybe that would be the new thing people have to work to attain somehow?
Contour crafting and printing houses in 24 hours. using much less material than regular construction methods and able to make, 1: any shape formed by your imagination that can be used in a 3D modeling program, 2: solid construction that doesn't burn and can be very resistant to the elements (ie screw leaky roofs).
I have two issues with this video:
1. It's called survival, not adventure.
2. Your video on post-scarcity minecraft has blocked me entirely from viewing articles on the scarcity of items in minecraft through google, and now I can't properly price my music discs. Shame on you and your unintentional result-trolling ways.
Makerbots are based on another project called reprap (short for "replicating rapid-prototyping machine") which was started with the goal of creating a machine that can reproduce itself. The current model can manufacture about 50 % of its parts, requiring human acquisition, construction, and Assembly of those other parts. This is a really interesting project who's rapid advancement is due in part to the sudden popularity of 3d printing. There is a wiki, simply google "RepRap".
Need an endlessly renewable resource to replace plastic for the maker bot?
Why not hemp?
That fanfic your talking about, watch Knights of Cydonia.
Horses, guitars, mustaches, musicians, romance and a bit of comedy.
okay consider this. I send you a spoon over the internet. you print it in the maker bot. then you get bored with it. so you design a spork. melt the spoon and use that to print the spork. doesnt look like I'm wasting resources here. right? Post scarcity economy is possible in the real world if we recycle. but not just simply recycle no. We need ultimate recycling. a machine that will digest any material into its elemental particles segregate them into containers that then can be put into the printer.
That sounds complicated, but very doable.
Joseph garcia
We are not talking about infinite energy. We are talking about infinite resources.
Unpronouncable Well, energy is a resource... after a fashion. Regardless of that, however, energy can be part of a post-scarcity system as well. Things don't need to be infinite for us to be post-scarcity. They just have to be greater than our ability to consume them. Energy may not be infinite, but there is certainly more of it out there in the universe than we can consume in a human-conceivable time frame. And if we are going to suppose something that can reduce goods into their individual particles with no waste, we might as well assume we will be able to harness that energy.
Matt Johnson
That is actually very good point. If we were able to solve the power issue we would be few steps closer to that post-scarcity economy. I imagine tall towers with with copper cables spread in the cloud layer collecting energy from storm clouds (not lightning imagine discharging a capacitor befor it reaches critical charge that makes it explode) or solarfarms that use nanotechnology to boost their effectiveness spread across deserts. effectively putting these empty spaces to beneficial and eco friently use. when you thing about it there is so much more power eco tech then can ever be in fossil fuels.
Unpronouncable, isn't both matter and energy infinite.The law of conservation of mass & energy implies that mass, as well as energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space.
Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It's all about a futuristic world where Matter Compilers are as common as microwave ovens and anyone can make almost anything with the press of a button, including diamonds (hence the title "Diamond Age.") The book takes an interesting look at an Earth that is at the threshold of the post-scarcity economy Mike has described. Oh, and the book was published in 1995. :P Neal Stephenson has a creepy nack for predicting future tech and it's effects on culture. Read it!
The problem with a post scarcity economy is physics. Specifically, the law of conservation of matter and energy. You will never get around that. The best you could hope to do is to reduce scarcity to such a degree, though accumulation of energy, that its effects were not readily felt. That would be a 'virtual post-scarcity economy', but still not a true post scarcity economy. And if consumption of energy were to rise in response to its increased abundance, or if that supply were to fail or be strained, scarcity would rear its ugly head and show that it never went away, it was just sleeping.
"Piracy" is post-scarcity economics in action, within the context of media. There is almost no cost associated with the replication of a media file. In a traditional economic sense, they have no monetary value. If you want to make money on media, sell tangible merchandise. Allow the media to act as advertising for your brand. Sort of like Star Wars, without all the lawsuits.
This is the same intellectually folly as the RBE. There will always be something of scarcity, and whatever it is, it will matter to us. In most first world countries starvation is ERADICATED. Think about that for a moment. Yes we still have hunger, but nearly no one dies from lack of available food.
You'd think we might be singing the praises of having eliminated the #1 killer of humans over our entire collective history. But nope. Now we laud people who are thin/fit, because in the US, then tend to be less scarce than people who aren't.
The real death knell for the RBE is to look at any group of hyper rich people. They essentially have no scarcity and abundance of anything they want. Are they all perfectly happy? Nope. It's just like how "poor" is a relative saying. What we call "poor" now is fantastically wealthy compared to even 200 years ago. You'll never "eliminate" poor, it's relative.
So even if we can craft anything, scarcity will be those thing we don't have designs for that people keep secret. Or any idea, material or thing that isn't as common as anything else. And we'll be just as disappointed about not having that "thing" as we are now when we can't afford some other doodad.
Sirellyn Y you seem to be implying that the US does not have starvation, which is untrue.
***** Starvation (death) caused simply by lack of available food. Not by someone locked up forcibly, or a medical condition is virtually non existent in the USA. And this is DURING these rather tough times.
Bathtubs currently kill more people yearly.
And considering that during 99.9% of human existence, that was by far the #1 killer of humans. That's nothing short of amazing.
Hunger still exists, malnutrition (mostly by poor choice) very much exists, but death caused ONLY from lack of available food is pretty much eradicated in the USA.
0:22 I actually stopped the video and found a copy and played it. WORTH IT!!
"You wouldn't download a car?"
So glad I'm not the only person who has read that book. Also thanks to the 10 questions I'm binging on your videos, it's wonderful.
Am I the only one who thinks "software" when talking about post-scarcity economy? And it has pretty much changed how we monetize games, for instance. Think F2P games, that's exactly what is happening now.
My dad has all of the machines mentioned in this video in his workshop and they're pretty awesome to work with!
In Warhammer 40k, there is an ancient civilization that has reached a post-scarcity state - they can conjure matter and shape it through music, much like a rhythmic 3D printer (oh yeah). Thing is, without the need for labour, these "Eldar" turned to art and sexual excess, which lead to civil war, which lead to the fall of their civilization.
I can see any civilization going down that route when resources are not a thing anymore.
To avoid this we can fill the void of "need for labour" with "need for responsible education". After the essential ABCs and 123s, I imagine these 3 subjects will be the most important for any society with a post-scarcity economy:
- *Engineering:* To understand how robotics and material printing works
- *Philosophy:* Both because we'll have the time for it and as a deeper version of History Class to impart each new generation with a meaningful understanding of past choices and be equipped to make their own.
- *Politics:* So all of us who do not work may participate in political discussion in the idealistic ways we cannot afford to now, lest we drive each other mad and start WW3.
Thus, there would always still be 4 major forms of labour that will never die:
*Teaching, Maintenance/Supervision, Writing, and Government work* as these are all aspects of humanity so essential to the security of the human experience, we cannot, should not, or WILL not relinquish responsibility over to robotics.
Too many self-defeating prophecy stories (from your Warhammer 40k story to the self-sufficient spaceship in Wall-E) tell us that *it will be essential for everyone to maintain an educated understanding and ability to handle future technologies AS WELL AS mandatory self-imposed duty to be involved in our own governance* to maintain the glorious predicted post-scarcity paradise.
Ideally, everyone will be required to perform Maintenance and Government duties regularly; Teach occasionally if qualified to; be rewarded for indirect teaching or nurturing through popular Writing.
Everything else will be hobbies, with the most popular developments shared by the internet as they are now.
We could do the 'work if you're feelin it" thing. Also, there are tons and tons of hobbies and extracurricular activities to do, so I think we'd be okay.
Newb Challenger Having a job is more than just the responsibility, the routine itself promotes healthy mental congition allowing individuals to converge on the same values.
That is why even the elderly are encouraged to have some form of hobbies, such as gardening or painting - To keep their mind from dulling.
The lack of routine and daily commuting with others is a constant within dystopian fiction and self-defeating prophecies regarding seemingly-perfect societies.
So, no. A "work if you're feelin it" system would not suffice.
mega17 Very thoughtful. Did you come up with this yourself? What did you study?
***** Pop culture and game design? Not academically though. lol
I soak a lot of human behaviour and video game related content like Invisibilia and Extra Credits.
In my virtual reality class, we had a homework assignment to “steal a work of art.” It involved going to the art museum, taking enough photos of a sculpture to generate a 3D model out of it (a process called photogrammetry) then generating said model and then 3D printing it. The whole thing blew my mind a little bit.
That said, I would recommend learning some basic 3D CG manipulation if any of this sounds cool to you. Blender is free and there are lots of tutorials on RUclips. The first time that I ever modeled something, it was like a switch had been flipped in my brain. Just think-you can make anything that you can imagine. Literally anything. Then, if you go a step further and use a game engine like Unreal (which is also free btw) you can then hold the thing you made in your hand and mess with it.
So now I build, rig and fly spaceships in my spare time, all with a priceless stolen 13th century wooden statue by my side. The future was yesterday.
I am so e-mailing a spoon to everyone I know the first second I can.
+Inidentificado You can right now, actually.
My computer was broken at the moment. Already sent spoons to everyone.
This. This is why I love things like PBS and NPR. Keep up the great work.
Wow, the incorrectness in the description of Minecraft amazes me.
i no rite
Keep in mind this was made in 2012.
I KNOW
in what way? Lol
That's part of the point. Creative mode is post scarcity yet people still play in it. They still find worthwhile things to do. It shows that competition for scarce resources may not be the only thing that can drive us to accomplish things or create meaning in our life.
minecraft has 3 modes
There is a goal
There was 2 at the time the video was released and there is no real goal.
SuperChiantos no there always was 3
Survival which he calls adventure
Adventure
Creative
No. The Survival mode has been introduced in the Survival Test version (minecraft.gamepedia.com/Survival_Test) and the Adventure mode is pretty recent because it has been introduced in the 1.3.1 version (minecraft.gamepedia.com/Version_history#1.3), which has been released on August, 2012, one month after the video was posted.
SuperChiantos but after 1.0 there already was hardcore mode added.
Which i totally didnt think of.
then its 4
Slender Mane Either way, you're right on the point that there is a final goal to the game in the defeat of the Ender Dragon.
Other than getting Survival mode confused with Adventure mode (Adventure mode is actually the ultimate scarcity economy, because you cannot gather most resources or practically change the landscape), this was very interesting.
I love this channel and the fact that you asked people to go play Dwarf Fortress
Don't know if anyone has answered yet but the answer is not yet, maker bot isn't specifically aimed that direction though it's the logical conclusion. There are projects like the RepRap which are specifically designed to eventually be printed entirely by a copy of itself. There are some issues with things like the gears and components like motors and circuits currently aren't printable. (Also structural pieces iirc are usually not printed as they need rigidity that plastics don't really have).
When you mentioned the 3D printer I instantly thought of the 'would you download a car?' picture.
Oh, I would if I could.
As you noted, MakerBot still needs plastic and parts, and I'm fairly sure can't print edible food (not without putting in foodstuff in the first place, anyway), or resources such as petroleum, or electricity. The important part of the post-scarcity economy is A: automating production so people don't have to work* and B: Having either plentiful resources or using only renewable resources. MakerBot just turns resources into different forms.
*Also ensuring everyone equal access to production.
This channel has given me more things to ponder yay!
This post-scarcity idea is extremely fascinating to me. I've thought about it a lot before seeing this video and I think we're very close to achieving it, in a way.
I'm thinking we just have to improve the efficiency of solar panels a little bit. Then we can make enough of them to have no scarcity in electricity. And because electricity can be transformed into lots of different forms of energy (heat, pressure, light, etc.) lots of things will become free. Like driving and creating diamonds!
this was just posted last year......... I love how far 3d printing has come in such a short time
Some time ago, me and my friends came to the conclussion that you can get anything from the internet except from food. Once we heard about this printing machines we realized that then, it will be basically possible to get anything from the internet. Along comes the idea that then, manufactured goods will not be as expensive as thy're now, then the information that describes them will be the important part of the system, along comes the pirate bay, and sharing information, so... yes, mindblowing!
I just read Doctorow's book recently and was thinking of it before you mentioned it!
SHAZAM!
"I can email you a spoon." MIND BLOWN!
First mode is survival mode.
Creative mode can have monsters, but they leave you alone unless you hit them.
So much fun to get the monsters to fight each other.
Also fun to make mine cart tracks and send monsters riding mine carts into lava.
I just want to tell you how glad I am that you love Dwarf Fortress. I didn't think I could like you more than I did.
Theoretically yes, though the maker bot isn't designed for it, there are some other 3D-printers which are a little more DIY which have been designed so that they can be 3D printed :) I'm thinking of making one myself
its 4:00am where i live, and i still can't sleep cause of this brilliant info
1:44 I LOVE this monitor! :D
I definitely think Minecraft is an amazing game in the way it can relate to the real world at times. I was in a server in survival and when it first started people went their own ways and built to survive, people became friends and they built towns together. As people gathered stuff others wanted they began to trade and an economy was quickly created, then people began to steal and attack others this then brought in law and government. Those that would break the laws were banned from the server
In a world where something like this exists, ALL manufacturers are rendered obsolete, because everyone can create ANYTHING. Granted, we still need materials to build things from the Makerbot (or would we...?), but we basically have unlimited product. But, if we go into a full post-scarcity economy, I believe that creativity will really become the new money. In a world where we don't have to worry about waste or finite resources, our creations can only evolve due to great minds of inventors.
still waiting for that spoon in my e-mail, mike!
Still waiting!
Way too late in the game to be sharing this, but this video gets me totally pumped for post-scarcity whereas I previously thought the whole thing was just a high-brow fairy tale. Kudos.
If you're interested in the way realistic (ish?) scifi settings treat post-scarcity economies, check out Eclipse Phase :) It's a roleplaying system with insane worldbuilding and setting work, where some planets and factions of humanity have reputation-based economies, since physical resources are largely available. Super interesting!!
Holy shit it's Shannon! This channel is amazzing!!
That is actually a lot like adventure/survival mode in minecraft. There are machines you can build to get resources. For instance, you find a skeleton spawner and set up around it to kill skeletons, to get bone, to make bone meal with a crafting table, to instantly grow a tree; or get flowers for dye. You can even make a machine to create new cobblestone, which is used to make a furnace, heated by wood (or charcoal from wood) to turn cobblestone to stone. The game is all about reaching a point where your multiple factories and machines give you whatever you want, especially on worlds with Volts.
Related reading: The 'ware series. The last book is a really great description of an economy where anyone can create anything they like, instantly. Rather than things, IDEAS are traded, in detail, so that you can replicate the idea. A really, really great book.
In creative mode, not only do I not feel the need to work for resources, I also don't feel motivated to make anything. In survival it's much more rewarding to build from the materials you worked so hard to get. You can't assume that in a post-scarcity economy everyone is going to get up and do cool things because it's free...
I got the oppurtunity to use a 3D printer, much like the Maker Bot.
I made a robot I had designed and a tiny version of the Enterprise from Star Trek.
It was the best experience of my life.
Even in Minecraft, there's some meta-resources which are limited; bandwidth and bits come to mind. Ultimately, they're limited to how many cables, satellites and servers we can build, so Minecraft is not unlimited. If left to grow indefinitely, as people build stuff we eventually would reach the limit, one way or the other.
There will always be scarcity, and in my opinion the most scarce resource of all will always be time. Even if given endless possibilities and riches, there will never be enough to accomplish in this finite lifetime (unless we somehow manage to transcend death), and we can't possible do or learn everything.
Which is good, in my opinion. Because this "finite-ness" allows us to treasure whatever we do or create even more.
"as long as moore's law is true" good one
Went through pages and pages of comments to find this conversation bwn you two. (Is mentioned in the next video) Nice job
Well Minecraft is used for more than having fun and playing a game, it is actually used for building real life buildings. At minecon, one of the admins at mojang was talking about how some people used Minecraft to build a exact replica of something in real life. If we keep all of this up, the world could be a more intelligent and amazing place.
Hey! Cory Doctorow wrote Little Brother too! Aweeesoomme~
True, that's where creativity and innovation come in though.
To put what acrylia said in more specific terms, a Post-Scarcity economy doesn't mean "to make something out nothing" but rather, " to make something without the loss of resources". this could be accomplished in any number of ways, like how energy never ceases to exist but converts into another form of energy(of equal value) that cannot be used in the method needed.So, if they could find a way to convert one form of matter into another form of equal value, then a PS economy is quite rational
Forget 3D printing, certain industries have already achieved a post-scarcity economic state. Take the music industry for example. When I buy a song off iTunes, it isn't like there is now one less song for someone else to buy. That data can be copied any number of times. The supply of that song, once recorded, is literally infinite.
With cool free programs you can save any area of your Minecraft game save as a 3d object that can be printed out in 3d in color. That way you can build something amazing and have a plastic color model of it. The 3d model you save can also be used in 3d animation programs.
You mean Survival Mode bro. Adventure mode is for pre-built adventure maps, you cannot break blocks without the tools. Great Video though :D
I love dwarf fortress. I love it when I find people who love it on youtube.
The thing about a post scar ritzy economy is that after a while, we would have solved everything. An awesome hung about minecraft is its ability to have a scarce envourment which is ALOT more fun due to its chalange than Creative for its lack of chalange example: Poof diamonds no effort no trying
I don't rule out space exploration for all time, but think it's FAR wiser to put the huge majority of those resources towards reducing human suffering and regenerating life (on this planet).
The makerbot does not play a role.
As you stated from the minecraft reference, a post-scarcity economy would allow ones' self to conjure stuff at will with no work. To many, waiting is work. We don't want to sit around for a minute waiting for something. A post-scarcity would allow us to just, like in minecraft, build to our heart's content without any worry of loss in resources.
Just for the record, time can also be considered a resource.
Space may be a resource, but it could be a renewable one. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was given to Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Reiss "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe", meaning that we are constantly getting more and more 'space'. Even better, we are getting more and more faster and faster! The only problem is using the space, which is a colossal problem that we may or may not conquer.
this is the best channel ever.
YES!! Well...mostly. Most of the parts (besides the motors and wires) can be printed!
They have a 'maker bot' (3D prototyper) In my Engineering Class. Fun to watch.
Fascinating---you just got yourself a subscriber...
That explosion = my mind. So, I never heard of Makerbot or Post-Scarcity before. There are a lot of things that can go right but a lot of things that can go wrong with that theory, and I think it deserves more contemplation. Especially with why does the idea of having something that can appear out of thin air chill me? Can energy be created or is it only transformed?
I'd think the post-scarcity economy would revolve around things such as creativity and scientific aptitude. With the people who are the best painters, the smartest scientists, or the greatest musicians being the people who are wealthy, because they possess the only limited commodity.
I can't wait.
In the end it's all about atoms. There are only so many in the universe. The quantity may have alot of zeros behind it, but new ones are not being made with others being destroyed or changed. Therefore a post scarcity economy is still a pipe dream.
Me too! I saw the Homestuck video on the homepage and INSTA SUBBED. I love this guy now~~!
There once was a story about a post-scarcity economy world where there were so many goods, social status was granted based on how many goods you, as a consumer, went through. Those who managed to burn through their monthly quota were lauded and given fewer things to consume, while those who could not meet their quotas became stuck in an hoarder vicious cycle. I'd love to tell you what the title was, but I don't remember. Anyway, minecraft makerbot post scarcity apocalypse!
Well honestly that would be amazing and especially because i've heard of it and it may be coming out sooner than most people think.
When he was like "i could literally, email you, a spoon." Was the funniest damn part... Mostly because he knew how hilarious and amazing it is, and couldn't keep himself from laughing.
A post scarcity economy could change or remove the need for capital itself, since "why do i need to buy a car... I can just make one by using this blueprint". And i for one welcome such system, no more needy, no more hunger... A better world.
ive always loved pbs
It's arguable that the laws of physics would prevent the kind of free limitless energy that would allow such a society to exist, but you never know. I'm most interested in the way such a society would act, especially, towards other non-scarcity societies. When you think about it, the Prime Directive prevented the Enterprise from ending poverty and illness at its every destination.
I recommend the Culture novels of Ian Banks for an fascinating looking at another such society.
I work with people with developmental disabilities, and one of the problems we face when working with them is we tend to do everything for them, and they live kind of void lives. They don't need to do anything so they just consume. They have no motivation because they don't get that satisfaction that you get when you do something difficult and get to eat the fruits of your labor. If this was extrapolated to all of society, I don't see how it would be much different.
It's called hemp. It grows in bushels and can produce plastic, paper, fats, ethanol, and even plastic! Henry Ford originally wanted all his cars to be dependent on hemp products before they were abolished. They were abolished because the fossil fuel industry leaders were in competition with ethanol. The monetary-slave society we live in will not out grow the scarcity problem until all the central banks are gone. Only a resource based economy will bring about an abundance of goods fastest.
Matter is data; the distinction between the two is an illusion, but one that's difficult for us to dispel.
Give us a few decades and the idea will be as widely-accepted as "one plus one equals two".
While I doubt we will hit post scarcity anytime soon we will see a drastic drop in cost of living if technology delivers on promises. Cheap efficient solar, fusion, 3d printing and medical advances will make us far more self sufficient than we are now. Just have to hope those currently at the top don't flip over the gameboard in a fit of rage over no longer 'winning' and ruin things for everyone else.
I always hoped that a post-scarcity economy wouldn't be an economy. Everyone just gets anything they want. That way, when designing or building or inventing, money is never an issue. Video gaming would become amazing, because people wouldn't worry about sales, they'd do it because they want to do it. Actors would be passionate about what they do, because it's what they want to do. Art, and everything else, would be revolutionized. The only problem would be getting people to adapt to it.
It depends if humanity can find a way to 'atomise' matter and then reform it? Once speed of light travel is possible, I guess it would be possible to consume planets as a means of resource. Although planets are a finite resource, they are huge and plenty, it would seem that they are 'infinite'. Well that's for future us to worry about, haha.
MIND. BLOWN.
Hah, I remember when I would double-take every sighting of "The Venus Project" or "The Zeitgeist Movement" within the RUclips Comments section, and now, I'd dare say it's slowly advancing towards the mainstream media =) Interesting, most interesting!
There's almost an unlimited amount of it though! The only way to really have high limit on resources is to go to other planets and use those too, at which point we can build in space if we want to. And maybe make a dyson sphere, so near-unlimited energy. Even energy compression into matter!
Now that's a great idea!
Where does second life come to this? A higher detail than mine-craft where you can print objects directly from the game? A very simple and clear description of post scarcity economics. Would like to hear about quantitative easing and the end of poverty in relation to the transference from post-modern economics to post-scarcity
i was totally following where you were going there, until the end
The problem with the creation of a post scarcity society is that our scarcity based society is entirely capable of artificially making things scarce. Example: books. There is an infinite quantity of ebooks that can be made for free once it is written, but copyright laws and companies publishing charge for each download. I personally greatly prefer the physical objects, but books could be post scarcity through the internet. The question is if they should be.
"if you never played dwarf fortress, go play it now, and then come back"
you'll never come back...NEVER.
YAY! ANOES REFERENCE!
Unless plastic can become both biodegradable and non-petroleum-based, this post-scarcity economy would probably create more problems than it solves. In fact, I would argue that most of the problems of civilization come not from the scarcity of resources itself, but from acting as though we can permanently live beyond our planet's resource limits.
Yes but you could design individual parts in a way that would let them be printed off, and assemble them after.
So if you had enough material to make it you could build the entire thing, getting it to run is a different story.
gives a whole new meaning to spam-mail! :P
Thanks, that comment really added something to the conversation.
Polylactic acid PLA is a thermoplastic that can be easily made from plants at home then used for 3d printing.
Actually, the first mode in Minecraft is Survival mode... Adventure mode is for maps where people want to restrict you from breaking blocks with your fist. You can't access adventure mode without using creative commands or something else like a mod.
What about the scarcity of space? The thing is that as technology advances and we move towards a post-scarcity economy it also gives us the ability to support a larger population, while places to put that population remains a finite resource. Even if we have all the other resources to make the Enterprise, we wouldn't have the space. Maybe that would be the new thing people have to work to attain somehow?
Contour crafting and printing houses in 24 hours. using much less material than regular construction methods and able to make, 1: any shape formed by your imagination that can be used in a 3D modeling program, 2: solid construction that doesn't burn and can be very resistant to the elements (ie screw leaky roofs).