Post-scarcity

Intro

Many fictional visions of post scarcity involve as yet undeveloped technologies but the reality is that global material abundance can be produced with current technologies. Food is one example, where there is more than enough produced for everyone on the planet ^[1], but politics, economics and logistics prevent fair distribution. The bottom line is that in the fundamental resources of this planet there exists many orders of magnitude more energy, raw material and biological resources than humanity requires, it is a matter of developing systems that use and distribute them more efficiently.

By employing open collaborative design, digital manufacturing and advanced automation in combination, everything we need should be trivial to fabricate and distribute — from the basics like clean water, good quality food, medicine and suitable housing, to increasingly essential material goods such as vehicles, computers and mobile phones – all the way up to purely luxury items. Decentralizing production of these things will also allow more equal access to them and sidestep many of the issues involved in distributing them. These methods could overcome nearly all significant scarcity that persists due to the economic framework we have inherited from previous eras. This isn't to say what is proposed here will happen, but that it could happen – it is feasible from a physical and technological viewpoint. It is a matter of spreading the knowledge that these things are possible and enough people choosing to work towards it.

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The means for a post-scarcity society

Do we really have the resources for this kind of society?

Civilisation boils down to four fundamentals: material, energy, information and intelligence – none of which are in short supply. It is the current inefficient methods of use (and re-use) and perceived economic restrictions that make it appear that there are significant limitations to these resources.

Specifically, using currently existing technology...

• We can provide abundant clean water for everyone on Earth.
• We can produce enough food to feed at least 80 billion people without harming the environment
• We can meet our energy needs at least ten times over using clean, renewable energy
• We can build cheap, high-quality houses in a day or two, providing shelter for the billion people currently living in slums
• We can build technology of any complexity from free open-source designs and digitally fabricate them for the price of raw materials. (And these raw materials are themselves extremely abundant.) With every year that goes by, the methods of fabrication become more decentralized (see: Fab Labs) and the open-source designs become better, making this a more attractive option.
• We can spread cheap, mobile Internet access to everyone on Earth, allowing them to connect to the world's informational and educational resources. Through open collaboration, this can network vast amounts of human intelligence, which can greatly accelerate scientific and technological progress.
• We can make free educational materials available on the Internet, providing free education of unprecedented quality to everyone on Earth
• We can organize the World's medical knowledge, so that people have access to the highest-quality medical information and advice at all times.

How do we create an infrastructure advanced enough to provide all of this? See the open collaborative design and advanced automation pages.

How do we get from here to there?

In a sentence: by increasing the amount and quality of physical goods and information available openly until it makes no sense for anyone to rely on anything else.

Imagine a world where you can grow all your own food in a small greenhouse, in a largely automated system. Your water falls freely from the sky or wells up from the earth and is filtered and cleaned automatically. Any time you want a new gizmo, you can find a design online and make it without difficulty. The kids have access to the best education ever conceived, for free. You have abundant free energy from the sky. What need have to you engage with the monetary economy?

The situation sketched above is not a vision of the future at all; it is possible now. All these things are already available for free, but few people are aware of it, fewer are doing it and it takes too much work and requires too many compromises. Right now, open-source hardware is, in some cases, of lower quality than commercial hardware, but is is early days. Manufacturing currently is too costly, labour-intensive and inflexible as well as requiring too much complex machinery and expertise. Wonderful open educational resources are out there, but are not properly organized into a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate curriculum. And you can grow all your own food, but it's tough work. Easier, then, to work for a living and perpetuate the money-system that synthesizes scarcity.

The way to bring about a global post-scarcity economy and to make it the only game in town is simply to add to the commonly-held resources of mankind until they become indisputably better than, or as good as, commercial resources. Learn how to grow your own food and give the seeds and the exact method of growing away for free on the Internet. Contribute to open-source educational materials. If you can program, contribute to open-source software projects. If you have any idea about engineering, contribute to open-source hardware projects. Use open resources yourself, note whatever problems you have with them, and correct them or else bring them to the attention of an expert who can correct them. Bring open projects to the attention of architects, researchers, engineers and programmers. Print fliers about an open-source project like Fab Labs and RepLab and drop them in university engineering lecture halls. Get involved in open-source robotics  and very practical hands-on projects like those being developed by the Open Source Ecology team. If you know about a lot about chemistry or Egyptian history or flamingoes, improve Wikipedia or open educational material. If you can sew and make clothes, post sewing patterns online. Focus on quality. You don't have to do all the contribution yourself; get your friends to help. Even get your acquaintances to help. Connect those with design skill to those with design projects. Study whatever you're passionate about and think how you can use it to add value to all mankind.

By adding to this pool of resources, you make it easier for people to build their own abundance. And the easier it becomes to live a life of abundance and leisure without any need for the monetary economy, the more people will do it. Thousands of people have dropped out of the monetary economy onto organic farms, but that simple, pastoral lifestyle is not to everyone's taste. Post-scarcity will not come about until it is possible to live a life of abundance and leisure outside of the economic system without making sacrifices in their quality of life.

Lead by example. Use the information available to you to find a solution to your needs of water and energy and food and shelter. Once you have solved your basic needs without reliance on the monetary system, move it up a notch and solve your wants of clothes and furniture and electronics without reliance on the monetary system. And always contribute, contribute. Of course, like some strange tribe, you will need to come to an agreement to trade with the civilized men around you and co-exist with them. You will need money at first, but as you work things out you will become more and more independent, more and more resilient. And keep contributing, contributing, making it easier for others to follow your trail. Don't do all this alone; do it with your friends. It's much more fun that way.

Social change doesn't come by decree from the politicians' halls. It always comes from the bottom up, from the young vibrant minds who see clearly and say, "I can see a better way to do things". That is how post-scarcity must come about: from the kids. What if a million or ten million kids around the world dropped out of the monetary system and started living their own lives, able to make for themselves all the things to fulfil their usual needs, and passing around, among a global network, the things to fulfil their unusual needs. And what if the kids still in the monetary system started to see that the drop-outs were better-educated, healthier, had all this leisure and free time and abundant food, water, energy, healthcare, and entertainment and were having so much more fun than anyone could in a rat-race scene?

Many grass-roots and open-source type projects are making a real difference in the world right now, so join an existing one or inspire others and start your own.

We can note three ways of creating value outside of the conventional economic system —

1. Local production, or what Gandhi called swadeshi. When people produce their own goods locally they have no need to participate in the economic system. This is already happening on a significant scale for food, but as digital manufacturing devices improve and miniaturize, it will happen more and more for hi-tech goods as well. When these devices become fully self-replicating, they will be able to multiply like rabbits around the world, creating exponentially-growing amounts of wealth without money. Ecovillages (like those that the Open Source Ecology network are empowering) are an example of swadeshi; nearly all things of value that people consume are produced on-site without money ever entering the equation.
2. Alternative exchange systems, such as local alternative currencies , swap shops, freecycling, gifting and barter
3. The universal commons, being the store of information freely available on the Internet. Information is becoming more and more important — information-management is now the key determinant of success in food production and medical care — and digital manufacturing will make information the only non-trivial ingredient in physical goods. This trend towards information-rich activities is important because information is so often free and is agalmic, meaning that I can give it to you without diminishing my own supply. If information determines the production of other resources, and information is free, then all resources become free. In this way planetary abundance can come about. The key enabling factors are an effective means of turning Virtual designs into physical objects and universal access to information — and both of these are expected to improve by several orders of magnitude over the course of the next few decades.

What does this mean for people and society?

It could provide the resources for bringing a high quality of life to those that are not currently fortunate enough to have the amenities and services of 'developed' nations. Worthy projects that really ought to happen, can happen – and in fact this applies just as much to advanced nations where there is still plenty of inequality and missed opportunities. It will not only provide everyone with the basic necessities for a decent life but give maximum opportunity for people and societies to live and prosper how they might like to.

This means different things to different people. For some it enables a life enhanced by advanced technology, able to do new things they have never been able to before, and for others it means almost the exact opposite - allowing them to lead a more basic rural life perhaps with a smallholding , more in touch with nature and older ways of living. But they can they can do this without worrying about a bad year in terms of yield from the land or medical care because of the advanced infrastructure in the background that they can call upon if required.

Post-scarcity almost by definition implies 'post-economic' as economics is based on scarcity. A post-scarcity society means that the basic necessities of living (and plenty more) will be available for everyone who requires it. There may well still be markets for certain items that have purposefully not been made publicly available or are rare, but for many people this will be irrelevant. It will be a choice and not a necessity to enter that market. The important point here is that for the first time the general population will be able to live comfortably without having to owe anyone else their time.

People will not have to suffer drudgery and what amounts to wage slavery during the best years of their lives. Unfortunately a large proportion of people today in both white and blue collar jobs would really rather be doing something else than the jobs they are employed to do. They feel perhaps that what they are doing is not directly relevant to their lives or is not particularly interesting and feel they are simply a cog with little control in a larger machine. Currently they have to do it to afford food, shelter and goods. A post-scarcity society enables them to have the time and space to work on things that are important to them, and to learn the skills needed to reach their goals and have room to be more creative.

One scarce resource today for people is time. In a post-scarcity culture, not having to spend the best part of the day working for a living also frees people up to spend more time with each other - something that is vital for a proper community. Both for friendship and mentoring the next generation.

However some people feel that increasing automation is a threat. A threat to their livelihoods, a threat to humanity's pride even. The reality is that automation is likely to provide in scenarios where people would prefer not to do that job. It leaves people free to be creative and industrious in activities that they want to be part of and allows for greater variety than the average working life offers today. Open design will enable people to be involved in the creation or customisation of the goods they want in a way not seen before and reverses the trend of people simply being passive consumers. Creativity is something that can give huge satisfaction to people but if not fulfilled can cause great frustration and dissatisfaction. It enables an individual to have more control over their environment and life.

Population

There is widespread concern about an 'overpopulation problem'. Let us be clear about what is meant by 'overpopulation'. It is not a problem for a lot of people to be alive. It is a problem if there are too many people for given resources to go around. So the important question is, "Is the human population likely to outstrip available resources?"

According to the US Census Bureau^[2], the world population as of September 14th 2010 is 6,868,683,892. This number is growing; the UN's upper prediction is 10.6 billion for 2050^[3]. After that, the UN expects the population to begin to fall.

Let us assume population continues to rise beyond 2050 and reaches 40 billion, well beyond any UN estimate. Would we be overpopulated then, in relation to available resources? —

• Food. Without expanding farmland, we could grow enough food for 80 billion people using low-tech permaculture techniques only.
• Water. Our planet has about 1260 quintillion liters of water. This means that 40 billion people using 200 liters a day each would use, over the course of a year, less than 0.00025% of the world's water.
• Energy. The world used 15 terawatts of energy in 2008. If rising population and increasing technology increased this 100-fold to 1500 terawatts, we would still only need to convert less than 0.9% of the sunlight that falls on Earth. It is highly likely that we will have fusion reactors and space-based solar panels before our energy needs come anywhere near this level.
• Land. The planet's surface (including oceans) is about 510 million square kilometers. According to Wikipedia, one-eighth of this, 63,750,000km², is habitable land. For a population of 40 billion people, this is 1593.75m² habitable land per person, equivalent to a average population density of 628 people per km². This is comparable to a fairly densely populated country like Taiwan.

Doing more with less

100 years ago, 8000 square meters of land was needed to grow food for a person. It can now be done on a few hundred square meters. Why? Because human intelligence has figured out how to extract more resources from a fixed amount of material. The effect of human intelligence is always to enable us to do more with less : better solar cells can make more electricity from less sunlight, we can make a more powerful computer chip using less material than a few years ago, and more efficient vehicles can travel the same journeys with much less petrol.

Human intelligence is the key that unlocks all other resources. As Robert Anton Wilson has said, "You can starve in the middle of a field of wheat if your mind hasn't identified wheat as edible." The greater the population, the greater the store of human intelligence. A large population that is well networked and educated will concoct and communicate all kinds of technological solutions that enable us to do more with the resources we have. And so, paradoxically, an increased population can mean that we have more resources to go around.

Space colonisation

There is ultimately an upper limit on the amount of people this planet can accomodate (though, as we have shown, the limit is not very limiting). Colonising space can be thought of as the ultimate solution to any question of overpopulation. Gerard K. O'Neill wrote a classic essay called The Colonization of Space in 1974. In it, he considers the ability of a series of space habitats orbiting the Earth and the Sun to absorb population increase. These colonies could be built from materials available in the asteroid belt and the Moon using the technology available in 1974. O'Neill's calculations show that they could house 20,000 times the world population at the time he wrote the essay - no less than 80 trillion people!

More post-scarcity thinking

These links point to more post-scarcity thinking that may be interesting or useful, however please note this does not mean that AdCiv advocates all things said by any of these individuals!

• Buckminster Fuller  - Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI.org). Visionary designer and engineer. The Buckminster Fuller Institute runs the Buckminster Fuller challenge, an annual contest to find a practical idea to change the world for the better using good design. A $100,000 grant is given to the winner. The Index of entries is a fascinating testament to human ingenuity and altruism.

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival.”

• Jacque Fresco  - The Venus Project. Visionary designer and futurist. See also his book The Best That Money Can't Buy and the documentary film about Jacque, Future by Design. He advocates a 'Resource-based economy'.

“At the beginning of World War II the U.S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.”

• Eric Drexler  - Author of Engines of Creation (2007 update here) and prophet of molecular nanotechnology. He describes molecular assemblers  as "engines of abundance".
  (Interestingly advanced molecular nanotechnology is not actually required for an advanced post-scarcity society — which can be based on macro-scale technology that exists already. However it would likely provide unprecedented control over matter and currently unobtainable abilities in the fields of engineering, agriculture and medicine to name just three)

• John McCarthy  - Prominent computer scientist. He has some interesting information on his website about the sustainability of human progress.

• Robert Anton Wilson  - Eminent futurist, comedian, novelist and Discordian Pope. He covers the topic of post-scarcity in his essays Right Where You Are Sitting Now and The RICH Economy.

• Julian L. Simon  - A cornucopian  economist who wrote The Ultimate Resource, a book arguing that the power of human intelligence to overcome scarcity far outweighs any seeming scarcity of resources.

  “"We now have in our hands - really, in our libraries — the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years."”

• Marshall Brain  - the 'Australia project' in the story of Manna. Marshall is the founder of HowStuffWorks.com

• Marshall T. Savage - Author of The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in eight easy steps. Many abundance concepts are covered using known technology in this interesting take on the steps required to feasibly colonise space
• Robert Levin  - Agalmics, an essay on the marginalization of scarcity

• Homebrew Industrial Revolution — a savage critique of monetary economics and a roadmap to post-scarcity through distributed manufacturing.

• Post-scarcity Princeton a general essay on post-scarcity by Paul D. Fernhout of Princeton University

Etc.

See also

Internal links

• Existing scarcity

External links

• Post scarcity 
• Gift economy