What If We Never Become Post Scarcity?
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- čas přidán 11. 01. 2023
- A day may come when our technology permits vast prosperity for everyone, with robots and other automation producing plenty, but if that day never comes, what will life be like?
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What If We Never Become Post Scarcity?
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 377, January 12, 2023
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Editors:
Briana Brownell
David McFarlane
Konstantin Sokerin
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator
Markus Junnikkala, "We Roam the Stars", "A Memory of Earth"
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field" - Věda a technologie
This is why i love issac and his channels, it feels good to see a youtuber that not only talk compassion and human progress but actually try to live by those values he presents in his video. Watching issac getting into happy marriage and adopting children and living full filling, progressing life adds to my confidence that humankind might reach age of post scarcity and space colonization as his channel predicts
You should read the Bible as long as we are of this world there will be struggle. You should know this already but I do assume you might not be literate
@Apsoy Pike Booo! You're missing the point! Keep watching and you might not write such useless drivel in the comment section one day. We're optimists on this channel. You're an idiot now but there is hope for you!
@@breadm8101 Your comment reminds me of that Southpark where people's words slowly devolve into shouting "Derp-a-derrrrr". I think you should copy that text and you can just paste it instead of writing anything in the comments for now on. It will have an equally illuminating effect for those who read it. Here it is again so you can copy easily: DERP-A-DERRR
Does he have another channel?
@@breadm8101 First you suggest this person should read a work of fiction, then you insult them by questioning their literacy. You're a piece of work.
Assuming you were actually being serious, then you sound like one of those willfully-ignorant holier-than-thou evangelicals, who insists that one specific translation of the Bible (probably KJV, if you're American) is the only book anyone should ever read, just like in the Dark Ages.
Because this book is your recommended reading material, it's highly likely you've never actually read the bloody thing yourself. If you did, and you dared to investigate the actual history of how the most destructive book in the history of literature was written and evolved and changed over time, you would no longer regard it as anything but the collection of mistranslated & plagiarized fiction, self-contradictions, patent nonsense, hateful rhetoric, and blatant immorality that it actually is. It, and the deeply-flawed deity concocted & existing exclusively within its pages, are only worthy of utter condemnation and contempt.
We who love this channel are futurists and STEM enthusiasts, not Luddites and monks. As society and technology improves, knowledge and education will expand too, and theology and superstition will continue to slowly go extinct; there's nothing any preachy reactionaries can do to stop it. Theology is dying. The future is the age of reason, where we have collectively outgrown such silly superstitions, and look back on that history with shame or bewilderment, and vow our descendants will never slide backward into such magical-thinking and self-delusion.
This video reminded me of having conversations with people that like to state "Space Programs are a waste of money" when I point out how many resources are in space for us to use for energy, production, and rare materials that would help solve a lot of problems on Earth the rebuttal usually is "but that would drive down the value of all those things on Earth!" and my brain hearing Quark saying "Someone took out all the Latinum! There's nothing here but worthless gold!" It's sometimes entertaining how short sighted people are when it comes to the value of money, that they would feel inclined to protect and maintain a limited supply of resources to keep a mediocre stagnated standard of "middle class bliss" funded on credit and debt, over being a transition and founding generation of the next golden age of abundance for all (in reality the all will likely be most but its a step closer to all). The primal fear of change and the unknown manifests in very interesting way in modern living and makes me wonder at what point did those primal instincts start delaying our own progress.
should probably also mention that a lot of modern-day technologies would not have been developed if not for space programs
As a person who was once in extreme poverty for decades....it is often hard for me to wrap my hope and head around the optimism of this channel. That being said, thank you for reminding me that my grand-children or their grand-children might see a fusion powered (post most scarcity) global civilization. Until then I will keep paying the bills and keeping my lights on
The post-scarcity will come very zoom
Soon
I was going to create a post-scarcity society--but then things got really busy at work.
Amazing post, same here LoL, solutions in the back of the mind but busyness intrudes
@@notlessgrossman163 Thank you for understanding. I hope work doesn't getinyour way.
The closest option to post-scarcity in the 21st century is the FIRE movement. But you have to work hard for it
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist is that like Copiosis
Information-wise, we're probably pretty darn close to post-scarcity. With powerful search engines, an online encyclopedia available in most languages, and servers which allow content creators to upload media free of charge and others to access it at rates almost as affordable, we're living in a world full of hope and optimism (I won't say _ONLY_ tho). . . If Adolf Hitler were born in 2000, he might today live as an artist without hurting anyone -- and be happier than he ever was in a position of political power (sorry for godwinizing the thread).
It seems like the biggest threat to post-scarcity seems to be the people in power, who would lose their "special" status in favor of _being "merely" as happy as everybody else_ .
I feel like I need to say this... In my late childhood and teen years, my life was hard. My family didn't have easy access to drinkable water, or much food, or quite enough wood to keep our home warm in winter. But when we got out of that situation, I quickly realized that without a little struggle to meet basic survival needs, I felt like something was missing from my life. It was like fixing some of the bottom tiers on Maslow's hierarchy damaged some of the top tiers. Just a thought.
Set new goals, the hero only exists with a demon king and a quest.
If I remember correctly, Maslow later abandoned the hierarchy of needs for a web of needs (he also added a few new ones as well, such a community-actualization), as there is no reason why you have to achieve each stage in-order.
No, you progressed to higher needs as the model predicts
The issue you have run into is where you get to that point where the needs you were most concerned about are now being met and you're left wondering on what to do now. Because the stress of having to meet those needs, or just the basic uncertainty of those needs being met at any given time was a wonderful way to focus your attention on what is immediately important at the time.
As Femi Mark said, you need to set new goals. Now that you're not worried, or as worried, about basic needs being met, you need to see what new needs of goals you can set for yourself to challenge yourself to meet. This is actually why many billionaries and such are often setting new goals or are still constantly active in doing what made them so wealthy in the first place, because it continues to give them a challenge.
Have the system change every 100 years. Force Millionaires to give half of their wealth to the poor every century!
Billionaires should be illegal!!! Instead, rich people can get perks for helping humanity
Even when addressing a more depressing concept, Isaac manages to uplift my spirits by pointing to facts and reasons to be optimistic. And even he and Sarah are uplifting three new young lives with adoption.
Another wonderful video Isaac.
🎉🎉 what what what!?! @6:15 Congrats! I literally jumped up with excitement for you guys!! 🎉🎉 life’s greatest reward is kids imho. And life’s greatest advantage is being genuinely loved. Giving that to 3 little people is bloody epic man!!
You were my favourite futurist before today. You just graduated to frakin hero status!!
Lol... first thing I thought was "I hope this isn't the last episode we get for a while"
@@Andrew-zq3ip :) I've got numerous episodes waiting around for emergencies anyway.
As the adoptive parent of four children (and biological parent of one child, and step-parent of five children, one of them a year older than myself!), my congratulations, and the best of wishes to you, Isaac.
Isaac, the US Navy figured out a cost effective way to create hydrocarbon based fuel out of raw carbon and hydrogen taken from sea water. They first got a working PoC back in 2014 and have since been researching all the technologies require to scale it up, including cheap long lasting catalysts. The idea was to use the nuclear power plant on Carriers and other nuclear powered ships to power the process to create jet fuel for the fighter jets and diesel for the non-nuclear ships in the fleet. This way the Navy doesn't have to constantly escourt fuel tankers around to refuel ships and planes.
the first 7 minutes reveal so much about Isaac as a person, and he's such a wholesome badass
He's certainly more optimistic than I am lol
Hey Isaac! Have you ever considered making a video on the potential future of language? We're sort of getting to the point where everything is getting translated automatically or allow speech to be translated through an application. Even people doing sign language have the potential of having a glove that translate to speech or the deaf to have glasses with a microphone that translate unto the glass on who is talking and where. Would be interested in seeing it as topic in the future on what you think will occur.
This does sound like an interesting topic. I'm also curious of how the languages themselves might change, but that's notoriously difficult to predict. Writing has also changed drastically over just the most recent years where it's gone from extremely formal to extremely casual very quickly. We've even returned to effectively a form of ideograph, but acting more as metadata than as a part of the main text. (Yes, I'm referring to 😀.)
What a fascinating question, I live in a very multicultural city and so have friends from all over. As a result I find myself throwing the odd foreign words that my friends use. I have also noticed over the years lots of phrases that come from my parents countries of origin enter general parlance. I would imagine this is even more prevalent in schools and with kids
I teach English in China and increasingly the students have an aversion to English and want everything in the world to be in Chinese
I'd imagine you'd create a cyborg society not too dissimilar to the Deus Ex videogame franchise. People augment themselves to get ahead, further gentrifing society, and become more reliant on centralized servers that navigate the petrabytes worth of data.
I mean, it makes more sense to build C3PO than the million dollar man. Do you know how long it takes to pay that off on a government salary!?
As a retiree with adequate pension and substantial assets, I am living the 'post-scarcity' life. Lesson learned: Having a purpose for one's day-to-day occupation is a quality-of-life key success factor (KSF).
- When most goods and services are produced by robots, people will still need the community provided by a purpose-oriented group-activity. I expect that many will take up community gardens and amateur sports.
Plus, not having one or more purposes lends itself to moral decay. As they say, idle hands are the devil's plaything.
Congrats to you both, hope all is going smoothly.
Thanks! I'm not sure 'smoothly' was ever in the cards, but its been going well thus far :)
I think that when people claim to "recognize hardship and challenge as being character building", while sometimes that is true, it is also possible to fall victim to that thought distortion which is something between the Sunk Cost Fallacy and the Heaven's Reward thought distortion: "of course that tragedy must benefitted me in some way! Otherwise, my suffering was for nothing!"
The default state of life is suffering. (Including even animals, not just humans) Ascending beyond that is necessary if you want to be even remotely successful in life.
i wish people would instead talk about how good times, free of strife and full of love / community, build way better character.
@Ninjassassin509 gotta have one to truly appreciate the other, if what you describe is all someone knew then the inevitable presence of strife would absolutely crush them. That aside, you make a great point. I do notice that people are forgetting the finer points of love and positivity for growth. They are 2 sides of the same coin, after all, there is invaluable growth and a wealth of experience one can gain from trusting and loving another and raising or living with family
There is a fine line between accepting that challenges and difficulties in life will often make us stronger, and saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, after losing a limb or an equally devastating loss.
I think you are correct in your observation. Personally, I strive to not look at the glass half full or half empty. There is simply a the glass, whichever way it goes, it goes, no reason to get worked up about it.
@@mechtist agreed
Before watching: The reason why the "Economy" is called that, is because resources are finite and we all must economize at some point. An 8 lane city thoroughfare would seem outlandish and unimaginably capacious to someone from 1800. However, it still can have traffic jams from nothing more than carrying too much traffic at once. The problem with having so many computational resources and efficient markets, is that everyone figures out how to utilize everything to the utmost, VERY quickly. Also, I remember what a prospective immigrant once said, when asked why he wanted to move to the USA in the 80's: "I want to go a place where the poor people are fat and have refrigerators and VCRs!" By many standards of the past, we already live in a utopia.
Many people consider building wide roads for automobiles through urban areas outlandish today, because the same movement of people and goods could often be accomplished far more effectively with a combination of public transit, sidewalks, cycle paths, and a much narrower street, freeing up valuable urban land to be used for productive building housing businesses and people.
It's not the size that's the issue (people in the past have built plenty of big things), it's the horrendously inefficient use of a valuable resource.
Good thing we don't live by standards of the past. They used to let blood to heal them, sometimes killing them. Burn "witches."
@@rileynicholson2322 The sleight of hand here is, "horrendously inefficient." Sure, we could reorganize society so everything's on trains and cycles. Me, I'd rather have the ability to run an errand a few miles away, or take a trip 100 miles away at a moment's notice.
The amount of resources used to make and operate your smartphone and the Internet that makes it so useful might be considered "extravagant" and "wasteful" by standards of the past. I could get the same information by going to a public library, but I would not surrender the ability to look things up on a moment's notice.
Ultimately, it's a desire to regulate everyone else, out of fear of some future consequences. Rather, just try to maximize your own individual accomplishments. This is what really makes the world a better place, not the movements that ask us to wear sackcloth and ashes.
@stcredzero A working train network and local transport would get you where you need to be without the hassle or worry of getting into an accident
Also computers can't compare. Do you want people coding in assembly? That's like using sticks to build a wooden mansion, you can use concrete, sure it's more heavy on resources but it opens up more possibilities in shorter time which is the entire point of coding languages, they have their upsides and downsides, the ups are just more important than the downs.
For roads, there's literally no point to have so many lanes when a single train can transport the same amount, at faster speeds, with less waste, for cheaper prices. Roads were literally lobbied by car manufacturers in the US and they bought up train companies just to close them down, the only reason they exist is to prop the rich up.
Here's another similar example, energy production. Coal is lobbying hard to not go out of favor. Why? Because they have worse energy output, are more expensive than alternatives, and pressure from environmentalists. There is no up side
There's stupid reasons for things existing everywhere, I just demonstrated two.
@@tomikun8057 "the only reason they exist is to prop the rich up." That's just your interpretation of history. As for an interpretation of the present: Roads exist for people who want to drive. Lots of people want to own a car and drive it!
If you want to change things, convince people. And the only real way to convince people is to make something better that they want.
Without fail it is once Again Arthursday! There’s no where I’d rather spend my mornings than here. Super amazing content as always, keep up the great work! Live long and prosper my friends 🖖🏻
"The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed"
-William Gibson
I had kind of checked out of this channel for a while because I felt a lot of the topics were too esoteric or inapplicable, but this episode feels very applicable and useful. Thanks for making the content, even if it isn't always what I am interested in! And congratulations on the adoption - that is a real service to present and future society, and your kids :)
Getting the basics like affordable housing is a big challenge for so many people. I'm optimistic we can do it, just not so clear how. But having basic material needs met will free up humanity for much higher concerns. The higher needs don't matter if you don't have the basics covered for everyone.
You are an absolute role model, Isaac! So proud to be a subscriber since the very early days of the channel.
Many years of health and love for you and your expanding family!!
I don’t know if you will read this text, but Isaac you have always been my hero when it comes to knowledge but now you are also my hero when it comes to heart because you adopted those children. Your knowledge has always given me an indication that you are a man, skilled in gathering and learning knowledge, but knowing that you have adopted gives me an indication that you are a loving and caring man as well. That is beautiful. Thank you for being everything you are from someone who entertains through knowledge to someone who rescues the vulnerable of our species. You’re amazing.
I commend you for being so optimistic, Issac. I tend to see the worst in our species first myself and see signs of inevitable doom everywhere so it’s good to break out of that bubble for me.
Considering human nature: the greatest impediment to humanity overcoming scarcity will always be greed. Whether it be greed for material wealth, or power, ensuring scarcity and maintaining control over scarce resources is the simplest means of satisfying that greed.
Yes! Until Isaac recognizes the real impediments to his imagined future, this cannel should be called Science and FANTASY with Isaac Arthur!
If humans are greedy then how do you explain, charity, how do you explain people sacrificing themselves to save others? How do you explain people who do volunteer work with no pay?
@@calebr7199 it only takes a few greedy people to take control of a resource and hold it over everyone else. Just like it may only take one charitable person to change someone's life. I didn't think I needed to make the point that even a small number of jerks with power can cause problems for everyone else.
@@calebr7199 Isaac thinks we just disagree on what the solutions to our problems should be. The truth is that most people agree on broad topics like lowering emissions, press freedom, bribery and campaign finance reform, mass surveillance, ending wars, regulating Wall St, taxing billionaires. The problem is that Washington also agrees, unanimously across the aisle, on the LACK of solutions to all of those issues... It's not enough to wait, or to rely on technological progress for a bright future. People are more productive and connected than ever, yet living in a new guilded age of inequality! We need to bust up the political duopoly. Get real and do an episode on the corporate capture of Congress!
@@7heHorror
I agree, I just hate when people say greed is human nature. There will always be greedy people but fighting against that greed for a better future is also human nature, but I rarely ever see anyone say that.
Isaac Arthur reminds me of Larry the Cucumber. In one episode, Larry tried to sing the blues, but he never could get it right because it was impossible to crush his optimism.
"I tend to feel our world is already pretty awesome"
that's certainly an interesting take.
i mean, our society is kinda in the best state it’s ever been in
it’s not without its faults and concerns, but i guarantee you would not have lived a better life in the past
@@_apsis Well maybe, though there's some things that were better in the past. We took better care of our disabled people for example. In many places lgbt people were seen as a normal part of society.
And the faults of today are pretty big. There is more than enough food to feed everyone, and still so many people go hungry. We have enough houses for everyone, and still people are homeless. Many people are forced to work too many hours under bad conditions because they can't get a job where they get paid enough. A lot of our comforts are only made possible by the suffering of people in other countries. Heck, we are desroying our planet and the people in power are doing very little to stop it.
I would call this distinctly non-awesome.
I have been enjoying your videos since before that major war started, but now that it did, I find them especially important. The future of humanity and our exploration of spacetime were wonderful and calming topics to contemplate when I was hunkered down in a bomb shelter. Thank you and please keep up your wonderful work.
Slava Ukraini
@@mrfoxycracker4836 Heroyam Slava. Thank you.
Proud of your life choices Sir and you contributions to our understanding of many things.
I like how you snuck in that adoption in the way you did. Congratulations to you all
I guess it would make going instinct seem very desirable. I notice the people who think post scarcity is bad, never really had to deal with scarcity themselves.
Congratulations on your adoptions! I'm in the process of adopting too and my hat is off to you for taking in three kids at once!
Happy Arthursday, I was thinking about this topic the other day and kinda had a small existential crisis, good to see you made a video on it , can't wait to finish
Honestly I've always felt the concept of post-scarcity is a hopeful pipe dream. There will always be scarcity. Be it things we need for survival or just things we want there will either never be enough to go around, or distribution of it is extremely challenging (the later makes sense in a society like that where people are living light-years away from each other.
That's your own bias revealing itself.
I think you meant "what happens when we most definitely never become post-scarcity?"
Post scarcity is really a matter of perspective.
From a perspective of a medieval society we already live in post scarcity, imagine trying to explain to a medieval farmer that main cause of death among poor population will be...obesity.
As soon as we become post-generational wealth, we'll take an enormous step toward post-scarcity. Scarcity is a means if control.
No matter how much we have, the rich will want there to be poor not because they want even more wealth, but because there egos thrive on being more successful then everyone else . ( by rich I mean like top. .1 percent )
Hey I appreciate that you're clarifying what you mean by rich. Someone who make 150k doesn't fit the bill, but someone who makes 100,000,000
I think it’s good to want and need. Reason is it gives us motivation to do something to get what we need.
I think what many miss in the post-scarcity world scenarios, is the "freedom of choice" bit. So many want to limit the choices others have, and that in itself is not post-scarcity let alone freedom. It shouldn't matter if you find something repulsive or not, just respect others that do want something by not going to where they are and pestering them over the stuff you otherwise have no interest in, or not imposing rules on people that don't want you making rules for them. If we can get that simple "mutual respect for others' choices" thing down, we can be well on the way to tackling the upper levels of that post-scarcity hierarchy. Then maybe we can worry about someone that wants to build worlds, considering that billions or trillions or even septillions also want to help build those same worlds.
Great vid Isaac and crew. B)
P.S. I watched this on Nebula before it was on CZcams, so had some time to think about this.
I wonder how much of the human urge to meddle with other people's lives arises from the malevolence of power-mad control-freakery and how much of it is merely presumptousness.
"It shouldn't matter if you find something repulsive or not, just respect others that do want something by not going to where they are and pestering them over the stuff you otherwise have no interest in, or not imposing rules on people that don't want you making rules for them." No
@@MrHellknightimp yes.
Good luck convincing the ccp to agree to this
...and whether, occasionally, once in a while, an elite might truly be endowed with a wisdom that is so much greater than that of the masses that they act with moral rightness to "meddle." Not that I think that is the case here, but to be complete about things I have to acknowledge that, sometimes, maybe the Prime Directive should be disregarded.
One thing you did not really address is the possibility of post scarcity for some but not all. Lots of people feel the rich already have that lack of anxiety about many of these things. But right now there are still many people who do not have ready access to clean drinking water, even if it is a lot better than it used to be for the majority of people.
That potentially in equity of post scarcity is something I would really like to hear you talk more about some time.
An argument could be made that we have already reached post-scarcity, it’s just not utilized because of our current global economic model
"a river my dry-up, a fertile valley might be mismanaged" well, by post-scarcity i consider weather control, large scale desalination (artificial rivers flowing from sea shores inland) irrigation, space shades and mirrors.
Good luck harnessing enough energy or having good enough prediction models to actually achieve what you want not make things worse
@@mitchellcouchman1444 My guess is that irrigating fruit trees will be most economic on water (energy) and will balance local climate....fight droughts, floods, land erosion.
6:10 "sleep, or a lack thereof, is on my mind at the moment as I write this and get ready to go meet the three small children that my wife and I are planning to adopt."
Arturo...you're an absolute mensch.
impressive
I am very grateful for you and your team. I look forward to your videos each week. Thank you
:0 my dad and gf were both adopted so in a way I feel some kinda kinship with y’all in that it takes a mighty big heart to take care of someone else’s kid and guide them to be a good person :3 wish the best for y’all
Walmart was awesome at 3 AM. This is a good episode coming post-peak of human civilisation. I could never afford a supersonic trans-atlantic flight, but I liked living in a world when most people could if it was important enough to them. I also miss when the cost of things had something to do with what it cost to make them, and when jobs paid enough for rent.
Every Friday brings a mental boost upon watching/listening to Isaac Arthur's content.
My own life is a seemingly never ending series of disappointments, hopelessness and utter despair, yet I at least get hope for the future for others from watching these.
Hearing the particular pronunciations that Isaac Arthur use is very encouraging. I often find that I dislike my own voice and hearing others use similar pronunciations is encouraging.
Scarcity is too valuable a tool of control to ever allow post-scarcity.
Yeah, I don't see Capitalism allowing a post scarcity society
@@rommdan2716 any system that involves humans being humans cannot achieve post scarcity.
Artificial scarcity is already incredibly common. Why would anyone serve a master without scarcity. Why would they give up that power over the masses. It's nonsense. If there wasn't scarcity we would invent it. In many ways we have.
@@flamestoyershadowkill6400 That's loser's talk, cheer up nerd!
A hundred years ago scarcity had to be endured and today it must be enforced.
I like the post scarcity version in First contact it's a redit series where we developed nanoforges and all kinds of tec due to war and ongoing conflicts. It doesn't get rid of the need for jobs or struggle and there are even entire sections of humans that reject the concept and live on what are essentially feudal planets.
thank you for these videos isaac, i have some mental issues like depression and it basically causes me to be perpetually pessimistic to the point of delusion, so its nice to hear from you such positive and optimistic things.
Thank you for being the Einstein of youtube by taking difficult topics and concepts and breaking them down for people to understand. I had never considered not reaching post scarcity or how it means different things to different people.
My degree at university was global disease biology (read: Pandemics and how to survive them) and one thing they hammered us on was that the likelihood for pandemics was higher now than at any other time in history due to the confluence of population density, deforestation leading to novel interactions between humans and other animals, and the inter-connectedness from cheap transportation. I graduated about a week before COVID19 hit the news.
I would be incredibly surprised if this was the last major pandemic. Most of my professors seemed to be gearing up for a pandemic free-for-all. A good example of this is Monkey-pox, it hadn't been a problem historically but it's suddenly able to spread outside of the locations where it is endemic. We're going to see more of these pandemics involving known-but-contained infectious agents in addition to wholly new ones.
You forgot to mention the fact the viruses are now being designed in labs.
Given that you and all experts are preparing for it, it shouldn't be too bad, I hope.
@@lawneymalbrough4309 They have been for decades.
I am more worried about the cure than the illness. Society is so tightly controlled by the bad guys that it is apparent who really won the wars last century.
You mean the income generator for the CCP, Gates Foundation, the WEF, and the Pentagon? $camdemic.
We need to reach post scarcity and be a space civilisation if we don't want to go extinct.
This was one of the best I've seen here, and I think I've seen every single one.
Wonderful to watch after morning pt
Congratulations Issac! Those kids are going into a great home!
Word!
There still needs to be a limit on people's consumption because matter, energy and production capacity will always be limited. We might be able to provide everyone with goods and services but not unlimited ones. At a certain point you'd have to reject whatever the person is asking of the system.
For example someone asking for 1 million paperclips is okay. Someone asking for 1 million aircraft carriers is probably going to have to get denied even in a "post scarcity" system. Therefor there can never be "true" post-scarcity as in an unlimited amount of goods and services. Human wants and needs are unlimited. The moment we hit "post-scarcity" as described in this video human wants and needs will just immediately scale up to want unreasonable things just beyond the ability of the production system. That's just how humans are and have always been.
I currently live in a European city center in a building built in the late 1800s. The apartment I'm currently occupying is actually 3 past-apartments that got fused together by breaking walls. Every apartment used to house 8 people on average during the industrial revolution. Meaning me and my wife (with no children) are currently occupying a space that used to be inhabited by 24 people ~150 years ago. My wife is complaining that the apartment is too small for us when we start having children. This is an example of human needs growing without limit and always going beyond the limits of what is currently feasible. I think this is the true reason for why we will never consider ourselves to be post-scarcity even when a snapshot at a point in time will definitely consider the society to be so.
Me in 2023 will probably recognize 2123 as a post scarcity society but me in 2123 wouldn't see it as post scarcity. Just like those people living in the same home I'm writing this comment from 150 years ago would consider my life in 2023 to be post scarce despite me not considering it to be that way.
6:15 Congrats! Oh, wow! Incredible! That’s wonderful. My sister has adopted many children and I’m so blessed to hear you give that gift to others! God bless and guide you! (Kids can conflict with a desire for sleep, unfortunately, but you are prayed for!)
Thank you for your service. Thank you for your optimism, your hope, and insight. These are dark times. Any chances of living in your brain, just to watch you think, I am jumping at.
I guess to some extent, post-scarcity on free time could be achieved by having all other needs at reach, together with "eternal" life with the corresponding psychological/neurological adaptations to be able to handle borderline-eternity. If nothing has any urgency to be done, you'd have all the time in the world to do anything.
I think we are headed towards being post-scarcity by ability, yet artificial scarcity by choice.
Oh were so heading towards artificial scsrcity by edict.
If capitalism continues to exist, scarcity will exist no matter the material conditions. We already make more than enough food to sustain the whole planet and more. People dying of hunger is proof post-scarcity is impossible under capitalism. Capitalism will always create artificial scarcities, it's the nature of the profit motive.
We are there already
Boy I love this channel 💙 I was totally planning on staying up but now I'm just going to wind down
Great video thanks Isaac.
When you talked about all the things a tank doesn't need, I couldn't help but think of the Tachikoma in Ghost in the Shell. They had all those things, but their childlike demeanor caused them to develop a childlike affection for the members of section 9. This eventually made them incredibly loyal and self sacrificing to the Section 9 team. They wanted to please Major Kusanagi and her partner Batou. As useful a defense as that is, it could have backfired, badly.
I like your idea of a post scarcity civilization and how it includes things like senses of purpose. As I get older, I start to care less about material wants and more about experiences and creativity. As I listen to this, i'm spinning silk into yarn and contemplating a partly finished wall hanging on a frame loom nearby and the sticks for a backstrap loom I carved and sanded myself. The actual difficulty of spinning silk btw, is that it snags easily and on everything, even your own fingerprints. Its also difficult to work in as they harvest the fibers in a way that keeps their whole length intact. So a small sheet of prepared silk can actually create a couple hundred yards of silk yarn, but you're likely to get some of that on your clothing or even stuck to the hairs on your skin.
Practically speaking, isn't it better to redesign urban planning so we don't spend all this space and energy on cars in the first place?
Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns fans unite!
This was one of your best videos yet!
9:18 - that hierarchy of needs pyramid: my partner is taking some graduate level classes in the science of education. The professor had just happened to interview several of the researchers who worked on that project, it was never supposed to be a pyramid. More, all were annoyed it was named for one guy, even that guy was annoyed about it.
At least that's what I heard.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, though I'm not sure it changes much about its validity as a basic simplified model :)
Always good value, thank you.
FWIW: One of the central paradoxes of human existence is we all want an easy life but we don't function without hard work and adversity. There is no fulfilment without purpose, no purpose without achievement, and no achievement without struggle - not necessarily true but that is how we are wired.
Easy at home, hard at work 💪🏻. Balanced
Idk, I very much function without hard work and adversity
lol. Hard work and adversity are essential... that's what poor people who work for living tell themselves. Good luck with that.
I think that post-scarecity could go the augmented reality route, making boring things in life fun, filling it with unreal elements like score and achievements for doing stuff like taxes. Technology may help us be productive and entertained at the same time.
A post-scarcity technology without post-scarcity PHILOSOPHY is nothing but technofascism.
I've been a VR developer for the last six years - I used to think that knowing something was a simulation was a big filter/gatekeeper to the brain, in terms of fulfillment. Now I believe it's just another detail, albeit a very important one. Just like you could have an incredible simulation but then the street texture is just a single grey color, the fact that something is "real" is not the lynchpin I thought it was
We're post-scarcity now, the problem is just the distribution. Theres enough resources for everyone, right now, some people just need to stop hoarding. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!!
Seems pretty fundamental and more likely that we will not reach post-scarcity.
Loved this video!
Great episode Isaac.
Isaac, how much of your optimism about the future is based on ever increasing technology compared to an increase in philosophical things such as wisdom and the ethical and moral quality of people?
Hard to say, I deifnietly have some 'science will fix this' biases but its more accurate I think to say 'knowledge and character will fix this'.
The main problem is that we as a species have barely evolved beyond the hunter gatherer stage where "greed" was a positive trait and one that most likely was admired amongst peers. We need to get over that in order to become true post scarcity. Look at food for instance. We are already post scarcity measured in amounts and technology when it comes to that. We produce more food than the whole world could ever eat. Why is there hunger in some places? Because shipping costs money and they do not have a lot.
Even if the technology matures enough to fully automate a shipping infrastructure with minimal human involvement. A infrastructure that could maintain itself and power itself, with greed in the equation, there would still be hunger.
I always find it a little funny when Issac uses terms like force multiplier way out of their normal context xD
So glad your channel exists.
@24:44 ... dude.. the wal-mart being closed is what's making me just give up and move back to my small town middle of nowhere. It's not JUST wal-mart, it's like the whole city just rolls up it's streets at 8-9pm... the biggest bennefit was being able to have a 24hr day, only a few things were closed - nowadays my home town has 2gb fiber internet, I can only get like 250mb here where I'm at currently... sounds like a win-win to me.
Is post-scarcity without egalitarian distribution actually post-scarcity? We already have enough shelter, food, and water for all, but we still have massive homelessness and starvation.
On man I was just thinking I hated living in a world without all night shopping. You are inspiring in your positivity. I wish I could express it the way you do
I love how you constantly talk about self imposed human extinction and the end of the earth. But you have such a positive attitude and general outlook on humanity and our future. Im quite the pessimist but you inspire me to hope a little for those who come after us.
There is no hope for mankind alone. We're in a state where we can't go a single day without doing/thinking/saying something bad. The world was that way almost from the beginning, and it was our choice that got us into that situation. It was Christ, God, who came here, suffered a brutal death on a cross, and rose again. In doing so while being fully human and fully God, He paid the price that we all deserve to pay by default. By being human, His sacrifice counted for mankind. By being God -- a life with infinite worth -- the sacrifice was far more than enough to cover our sin. There will always be conflict in this world and there will always be suffering, because it is a world we brought death into by Adam's choice to eat the 'fruit' of the knowledge of good and evil. He took it upon himself to decide what is good and what is evil, just like everyone does these days. But God loved us enough to send His son to give us another chance.
6:10. That's so sweet. Congratulations to you and Sarah, Isaac!
Wow congratulations on the children!
Thank you!!
Post-scarcity is a fantasy by definition. Glad you addressed that at the start. Meeting low-end common needs of people; feed and clothe them, ensure they are not exposed to the elements... should be possible for most. There will always be people who fail and do not wish to be helped. But we should not forget: food and clothes come from somewhere, made by someone or something. Nothing simply pops into existance.
We also make enough food to feed 10 billion every year and throw out 1/3 of that...
We throw out SO much clothing from "fast fashion" because it goes unsold. Don't believe it's for a lack of resources
@@ZentaBonHave you considered how many resources transporting all that food to everywhere on earth would take?
@@Kapik1081 alot, you're correct, that is why world hunger exist. People still shouldn't waste food though (i have chickens, so i dont waste much)
Capitalism will never solve for post scarcity.
@@honeymojave you're right, nothing will, and if something does, people were tear it down shortly after it's created. People would rather burn everything to the ground than be bored
Im glad youtube recommend this channel!
God bless your new family! Great job at work and at home!!
We could already be living in a post scarcity planet if it weren't for greed. Excess wealth accumulated by individuals is immoral in a world where others go hungry and homeless.
I think unfortunately there is too much stupidity, ignorance (both willful and not) and greed out there in this broken world inhabited by broken people for a post scarcity society to ever happen for everyone. My personal problem with Maslov's hierarchy has always been that it leaves out security. If you cannot secure those things in his list, someone else who does not have them and wants them will come and take them from you.
It doesn’t leave out security tho? It’s literally a basic need second from the bottom. safety and security.
You should be more optimistic. Just because our current society incentivises psychopathy and greed doesn't mean the future will, post profit motive society is on its way but the current paridigm will hold on for its life, you can tell by current political instability, it's getting desperate, won't happen for a good few years though unfortunately 😮💨
Even if we were all ideal people, malthusian cycles would still prevail.
@@GigaMan795 Malthusian cycles are descriptive, not prescriptive. Never forget that.
In a post scarcity society, if someone wants what you have, then they can just go get their own
My god, congratulations on choosing to adopt!!
When a new road is build to reduce the load on existing roads, the usual effect is that the added capacity is quickly filled, bringing you back to clogged roads. Likewise, when getting access to large amount of resources, up to level unknown before, the effect might be we will find ways to expand all those resources quickly (like when discovering steam power, petrol, etc.) . We are currently our worst enemies in that regard.
I've thought this for a long time. We are too greedy and unwilling to deal with short term uncomfortable-ness to achieve any goals.
More to the point, too many people simply cannot survive without problems. this is why they get agitated over things that are genuinely non-problems--such as gas stoves, or grilling in the back yard. This segment of humans will never be happy in any setting because they will simply turn their anger over being inadequate persons on anything they can find to make others unhappy over.
@@CB-vt3mxnobody is taking away gas stoves. Conservatives heard there’s a study linking gas stoves and asthma and they immediately went on the defense for no reason.
I don't agree with that, as modern society exists as a function of giant problems being solved all the time.
@@hithere5553 only a fool would think that isnt an objective. Oil and gas have been demonized ever since it was identified as a vector of control.
@@CB-vt3mx just like we can't use asbestos in new buildings due to harm they won't allow gas stoves in new buildings. None existing will be taken away
I'm over the moon, thinking of you becoming a father.
This is wonderful, Wonderful news, congratulations to you both
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
5:47 i felt while driving long haul trucks across the United States that being well rested is more important than driving. Less mistakes and more attentive.
We already have everything we need to be post-scarcity. The problem is that equitable distribution of resources is impossible when the corrupt and greedy hoard them for themselves.
I basically agree with you, but I also think there is an inequitable distribution of ability to provide value in exchange for resources, resulting in an inequitable distribution of resources.
A false dichotomy.
Post-scarcity truly has the potential to wreck the human spirit, and society. We are naturally builders and tinkerers -- but post-scarcity would be a necessarily high-tech, centralized affair. So instantly, the strengths and interests of large segments of the populace become irrelevant. Immaterial goods will at the same time have questionable market value, due to AI and human-derived oversaturation. The existence of a market isn't just some capitalist ideal, it's also a mechanism to foster excellence and exchange of ideas and other factors.
16:00 the water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen as fuel has remained a compelling idea to me for decades since seeing a cutting torch (tech test:prototype iirc) made of the same.
Energy storage/efficiency remains one of our toughest challenges going forward so households able to generate let’s say a weeks worth of H2+O into hardened\idiot-friendly vine tanks constantly using and refreshing them
with “passive” (renewable) energy feels like something possible
Post scarcity is a social problem. If it were a social priority then we would have it in a lot of sectors and categories of our life today. Movies and books have a literal zero marginal cost for duplication, but instead we placed laws that limit their distribution. This is the simplest example of a social problem getting the way of technological progress. We also see this in the amount of wasted food around the world. If food distribution It was a priority rather than food scarcity as a market driver then a lot more people would be being fed. I'm not so naive to say that we are definitely across boards, but The heaviest lever is not material It is social.
your example of digital media having basically 0 cost to replicate is one I'm interested in. individuals can copy media between storage devices for just the cost of the electricity and the $/GB cost of the storage devices (so basically free in any normal person's mind.) If you want to talk about central distribution then you get into the cost of power and bandwith to run a CDN, or if you want to go p2p then you'd have to calculate the energy cost of running torrent swarms.
even putting all of the infrastructure aside, being able to freely distribute media doesn't intrinsically solve the cost of production. I'll handwave passion projecs and creative commons collaborative stuff as essentially not costing anything (and if you're into post scarcity media definitely look into this stuff, some of is is great) but something like a big-budget movie that people are making as their day jobs comes with the expectation that they get some kickback for going to all the trouble of making it. we have a stopgap solution in the form of ads, but those annoy everyone and just kick the can down the road with the expectation that somebody will buy something at some point. entertainers and accompanying staff could be paid by the state but I don't think that's a good solution regardless of your view of government. my understanding is until we're at some threshold of post scarcity, somebody somewhere has to pay. and even afterwards attention and prestige/reputation will be currencies of a sort
@@xXx_Regulus_xXx
Once you recognize that you can divide the energy and infrastructure costs across the simultaneous use of replication across all media while recognizing that this infrastructure is in place simultaneously supporting arbitrarily complex additional resources and services. The media cost is marginally zero. You can go through the trouble of computing it out, but you would have to subtract the proportional cost of anything not considered book and media duplication (at least in this example).
The second point brought assumes that a post scarcity social political economy would maintain the same (and proportional) rewards mechanisms as we have come to currently embrace. We need to be able to explore different systems that can help us grow out of a scarcity model.
As an exercise, we can see many goods markets as reducible to commons projects and library lending systems. Using strategies outlined by Ostrom's laws and work in commons management we know that commons projects can support a great diversity of resources. Imagine a library for tools in your neighborhood, or furniture, or as already exists books. Ostrom's work was heavily influenced by natural resources and fisheries management as commons projects. Through a culture of repair instead of waste these library and commons projects would effectively grant us a post scarcity in the specific resources that we librarate.
As we move sectors of the economy into post scarcity commons those sectors will effect all their neighboring sectors.
There is a lot to figure out between here and there, but that figuring out is the scientific process of testing hypothesis of a greater tomorrow.
[edit: and its worth noting that libraries can take the form of either centralized resource authority or a federated resource system, mapping to the centralization vs p2p you mentioned respectively]