These are some thougths on a post-scarcity society
- Everyone has greater than subsistence level access to food, shelter, health care, education/knowledge without working or contributing
- Everyone is free to define their own lives
- No one is subject to violence or coercion
- Everyone is pleasant to "others" and must interact politely with others, even those who lead different lives
- No inheritance other than the genetic and epigenetic legacy naturally given to children
- The least possible restrictions always apply
- Restrictions will be necessary to protect requirements, keep the peace, prevent pollution, and prevent harm
- Workers in the food, shelter, education/knowledge, medical community are paid more than workers in any other economy
- Markets bear all their own costs
- Workers outside the UBI economy can never earn more than workers in the UBI economy
- Knowledge is free and intellectual capital doesn't exist
- Outcomes and metrics determine success
Assumptions
Life is nasty, brutal, and short. Tragedy of the commons. War. All humans can't be trusted to some extent (do you always put your shopping cart away?) and some humans can't be trusted at all and the rest of us need to be protected from them
Unknowns
How do we divide up remaining scarce resources? Who gets to live in the nice house overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge or Central Park or the lake and who doesn't? Who gets to go to the great concert and who doesn't? Who gets to own Picasso?
What do we do about lies and clinging to ignorance?
Barriers to Utopia
Entrenched interests, governments, religion
We haven't automated enough yet to free enough people from work...someone still has to wipe grandma's ass, teach young sociopath Timmy, and clean the sewers.
What happens if we have too many people with nothing to do and no purpose? Given the assumptions, we might end up with fat, drunken louts tossing garbage around.
