[Fasces]

This makes no sense: if you're proposing a policy for what to do *after* everything is cheap, it makes no sense to ascribe all that wealth and wonderful benefits of it (like, less crime) to that policy.

Yes, it does - because a system which maintains a market economy with abundant goods is also maintaining these social ills. Take the diamond industry - if the diamond cartel led by De Beers did not exist, the price of diamonds would be much lower. Criminal activity like the recent heist in France would not occur because there would be no financial motive. Technocracy does not occur after everything is cheap, because left alone, capitalist firms would act to maintain their profit margin, whether through collusion or rent-seeking, as this is in their rational self-interest. Technocracy is the reason that everything is cheap by removing the monetary incentive entirely.

[AFAIK]

This makes no sense: if you're proposing a policy for what to do *after* everything is cheap, it makes no sense to ascribe all that wealth and wonderful benefits of it (like, less crime) to that policy.
[....]
In order to make such claims, you'd need a policy for *how* to make stuff cheap quicker, rather than what to do after it's already happened.

Engineering, automation, no intellectual property. Read some articles on technocracy Inc and other sites (free to access ).

Don't think in terms of cheapness. Goods can be cheap in a price system. In a resource based economy their just there like the air you breath or the water that fills the oceans.

[Eran]

While the quantity of goods a single person is able to consume may be limited, the value or cost of those goods isn't.

I can only eat a few meals a day. But I would love each of them to be cooked by a different three-starred chef.
I can only drive one car at a time. But I would love to try a different luxury model depending on the weather.
I can only sleep in one bed at a time. But I would love to have several large houses all over the world.

And that's only physical goods. Many of the luxuries people aspire to are associated with services of other people. Those, by necessity, cannot be made universally abundant.

Having established that no matter what the base level of consumption, people, being human, will desire more, it is only left to discuss which economic system is best suited to provide people with the ever-increasing levels of prosperity they seek.

Technocracy, rather than utopian, is actually a dystopian nightmare in which Big Brother rations out life's "necessities", and, in exchange, stifles freedom, innovation and progress.

[Fasces]

I can only eat a few meals a day. But I would love each of them to be cooked by a different three-starred chef.
I can only drive one car at a time. But I would love to try a different luxury model depending on the weather.
I can only sleep in one bed at a time. But I would love to have several large houses all over the world.

All these concerns have the addressed, the last two explicitly so. You are not reading my posts, evidently.

Many of the luxuries people aspire to are associated with services of other people. Those, by necessity, cannot be made universally abundant.

No, but a person providing a service is distinct from providing material goods. You are shifting the discussion beyond the scope of the question.

In a Technate, a person would provide a service at his or her leisure and it is not expected that they be made available on demand. However, the individual in question is expected to provide freely of his services (and in fact, given that material goods are abundant, would have no incentive to do otherwise. What is the point of money if it cannot buy anything?)

Having established that no matter what the base level of consumption, people, being human, will desire more, it is only left to discuss which economic system is best suited to provide people with the ever-increasing levels of prosperity they seek.

The fact that wants are infinite is not being discussed, and has even been admitted too. The problem is not addressing wants, but rather the physical ability to consume.

A man can try a Porsche on Monday, a Ferrari on Tuesday, and a Lamborgini on Wednesday - precisely because on Monday other people can use the Ferrari and Lamborgini, on Tuesday others can use the Porsche and Lamborgini, and on Wednesday, the Porsche and Ferrari. No human can use all three at the same time - as long as all three can be used whenever you want, abundance exists.

The same applies to sleep - feel free to sleep in Paris on Friday and London on Saturday. When you're not occupying one space, others can.

Technocracy, rather than utopian, is actually a dystopian nightmare in which Big Brother rations out life's "necessities", and, in exchange, stifles freedom, innovation and progress.

It may be so, but your argument in this thread fails to prove it.

[Eran]

Will the Technate provide a private jet on demand? A Yacht? How about Space Tourism? Luxury cabins on cruise-lines? Home-delivered or cooked fine-dining? Caviar for breakfast and Lobster for lunch?

I don't think you addressed my main point which is that while the physical quantity of goods consumed may be limited, their value or cost isn't. Even if I can only drive one luxury car at a time, providing each person on Earth with a luxury car (and, without price constraints, we aren't talking about mere $200,000 Ferrari, but a $4m Lamborghini Veneno.

The cost of providing for people's material wants is unlimited. Scarcity of wants is unavoidable.

It may be so, but your argument in this thread fails to prove it.

I don't know that I can prove my assertion, but I can certainly try to motivate it.

A technate would start with the ambition of providing, free of charge, for people's material wants. Such worthy cause will legitimate, in the public's eye, tight control over all production, central planning of the economy, restrictions on private use of resources, etc.

Very quickly, "wants" will be replaced by "needs", as the cost of providing for every want is obviously going to be too great. Thus the Technate's technocrats will decide on a basket of consumption goods that people are entitled to. Quantities will quickly have to be restricted, to prevent anti-social waste. At the same time, private consumption will be restricted, as the fruits of labour would all have to be directed towards satisfying that nobel goal of providing for every person's every need.

The end will be indistinguishable from that of pre-1989 socialist economies. In theory, your every need would be provided by the state. In practice, long lines will lead to empty shelves, with promises for more in the next "5 year plan".

[Fasces]

Will the Technate provide a private jet on demand? A Yacht? How about Space Tourism? Luxury cabins on cruise-lines? Home-delivered or cooked fine-dining? Caviar for breakfast and Lobster for lunch?

Yes - that is the definition of abundance. When an abundance exists, all material things can be provided. Maybe not the cooked fine dining, as that is a service, not a physical good - but the others, yes.

Even if I can only drive one luxury car at a time, providing each person on Earth with a luxury car (and, without price constraints, we aren't talking about mere $200,000 Ferrari, but a $4m Lamborghini Veneno.

The only process that the Technate accounts for is energy costs of production. Furthermore, as I have tried to tell you, the Technate would not need to make 1 luxury car for each human being, but only sufficient luxury cars to meet demand at any given moment. One luxury Lamborghini Veneno could likely be shared by as many as a dozen different people in a given week.

The cost of providing for people's material wants is unlimited. Scarcity of wants is unavoidable.

You do not provide for people's material wants, for the third time. You provide for their ability to consume. Wants are infinite - ability to consume is not.

The cost is finite because the ability to consume is finite. As long as there is sufficient energy in the universe to meet the material consumption of every human being, of which I have no doubt there currently is, a technocracy is theoretically possible.

Very quickly, "wants" will be replaced by "needs", as the cost of providing for every want is obviously going to be too great.

No - by definition, a technocracy is only possible when net energy output of a society outstrips net energy consumption. The energy cost of providing for the ability of people to consume, and I really do wish you'd stop trying to shift the scope of discussion in every sentence beyond that, must be lower than the total energy output of that society. If this is the case, abundance exists, and capitalism will need to be replaced.

Your criticisms are concerning the implementation of technocracy into an environment with scarce resources that require rationing. Technocracy is not a model for rationing goods. Capitalism is. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Eran, if you want to talk about this topic, by all means, let's talk about it.

However:

Stop shifting the scope of the discussion.

Stop playing with the definitions.

For the last time, the Technate is designed to model how a post-scarcity society would function. Abundance is defined as any excess physical good (not services) beyond the ability of human beings to consume (not want) at one point in time.

[Eran]

You do not provide for people's material wants, for the third time. You provide for their ability to consume. Wants are infinite - ability to consume is not.

Ability to consume is infinite. I am able to consume a fancy car. A jet plane. A spaceship to Mars. There is no limit to the cost to society of a person's ability to consume.

And since physical products always require human effort to produce, the distinction between those and services is illusory. The example is my fine-dining meal. The meal is a physical product which requires hours of human labour to produce. A spaceship to Mars is a physical product that would require unknown millions of hours to produce.

The only process that the Technate accounts for is energy costs of production. Furthermore, as I have tried to tell you, the Technate would not need to make 1 luxury car for each human being, but only sufficient luxury cars to meet demand at any given moment. One luxury Lamborghini Veneno could likely be shared by as many as a dozen different people in a given week.

Raw energy is important, but is only one factor of production. Even if energy was virtually free (say through the invention of a cheap process of cold fusion), many consumer goods would still be very expensive in terms of other resources required for their production.

[Fasces]

Ability to consume is infinite. I am able to consume a fancy car. A jet plane. A spaceship to Mars. There is no limit to the cost to society of a person's ability to consume.

You are ignoring the second part of the definition which I have provided many times - the ability to consume at a specific point in time.

You physically can not drive a fancy car (much less two fancy cars) inside a jet plane flying to Mars.

There is a physical limit in your ability to consume - the size of your stomach, the fact you can only be in one place at a time, the fact you only have four limbs, etc.

I do not believe you are stupid, so I deduce you are being deliberately dishonest. Yes, human wants are infinite. For the fifth time, I will repeat that mantra. Human ability to consume is not.

The meal is a physical product which requires hours of human labour to produce.

The meal is made up of several physical components which have been cooked and arranged in a specific way.

The food itself - the ingredients - are the physical good we are talking about. The cooking and arrangement of these ingredients is the service provided by the cook. We look only to the availability of the former to determine whether abundance exists.

Raw energy is important, but is only one factor of production.

No, it is not. Energy is the only feature that matters. We live in a world where, if we run out of iron, we can literally power up a particle accelerator, and create it out of other atoms. The only physical force in the universe which matters in production, from a scientific perspective, is energy, and Technocrats treat energy in the same way.

[Eran]

Your Libertarian ideal will never ever happen, but if it did a very small minority would blow it away.

You either ignored or misunderstood my post. Sure, you can only use one vehicle at a time. But the cost of the vehicle you choose to use isn't limited. A sports car may cost "only" $4m. But a Mars space-ship may cost $400bn. And once we build some of those, it would be easy to imagine faster, more comfortable and longer-range space-ships.

As mentioned before, the distinction between personal services and physical products is also arbitrary. Where do you draw the line between higher and higher quality food (which is obviously a physical product) and the services of the people required to cook it?

The food itself - the ingredients - are the physical good we are talking about. The cooking and arrangement of these ingredients is the service provided by the cook. We look only to the availability of the former to determine whether abundance exists.

So now members of the Technate have to contend themselves with the components of physical products, and finish the assembly themselves? So I don't get a Ferrari, but only a pile of metal parts that can be made into a Ferrari, and that counts as abundance?

It sounds like, at least on the food front, we are better off today, being able to walk into a restaurant and buy a decent meal, over post-scarcity society in which we each have to cook for ourselves...

No, it is not. Energy is the only feature that matters. We live in a world where, if we run out of iron, we can literally power up a particle accelerator, and create it out of other atoms. The only physical force in the universe which matters in production, from a scientific perspective, is energy, and Technocrats treat energy in the same way.

That is even harder to accept than your previous claims. Energy typically makes up a small fraction of the cost of manufacturing goods. The most important cost component, and of growing significance, is human creativity that goes into inventing, creating and designing products. Software and media content, for example, cost virtually zero energy to produce, yet make up more and more of the value of products we consume.

[Fasces]

You either ignored or misunderstood my post. Sure, you can only use one vehicle at a time. But the cost of the vehicle you choose to use isn't limited. A sports car may cost "only" $4m. But a Mars space-ship may cost $400bn. And once we build some of those, it would be easy to imagine faster, more comfortable and longer-range space-ships.

And? What does this have to do with abundance?

It sounds like, at least on the food front, we are better off today, being able to walk into a restaurant and buy a decent meal, over post-scarcity society in which we each have to cook for ourselves...

After all, the best chefs in the world do it exclusively for the money, and would not practice or invite others to share in their craft absent the motive of profit.

The most important cost component, and of growing significance, is human creativity that goes into inventing, creating and designing products. Software and media content, for example, cost virtually zero energy to produce, yet make up more and more of the value of products we consume.

And? Nothing will stop individuals from pursuing innovation or creative works in a Technate.

[Eran]

And? What does this have to do with abundance?

My point was that there is no upper limit to the value of material goods that people can and want to make use of. If post-scarcity is defined as a society within such goods can be had for free, it is an impossibility.

Even if that was not so, there would still be scarcity in those economic goods that even believers in material post-scarcity admit would never be abundant such as human services and exclusive use of particular, desired geographic locations.

It follows that a post-scarcity society in the sense of a society fundamentally differing from our own by virtue of material abundance, is a human impossibility.

After all, the best chefs in the world do it exclusively for the money, and would not practice or invite others to share in their craft absent the motive of profit.

With the best practice in the world, constructing a fine-dining meal takes hours of human effort. It has an inherent cost that cannot be made to vanish.

And? Nothing will stop individuals from pursuing innovation or creative works in a Technate.

The product of human effort and ingenuity will continue to be scarce, because human effort and ingenuity are inherently scarce. Thus all the features of modern economy will continue, even if the nature of the objects being produced will continue to change - as they have changed for hundreds of years now.

[Fasces]

My point was that there is no upper limit to the value of material goods that people can and want to make use of.

Your point makes no sense. Value is a market term. It is used to measure demand for a scarce good.

Air has no value because it is abundant. In a Technocratic society, goods have no value because they are not scarce. The only measure that is relevant is the absolute cost of producing that good, measured by Technocracy Inc. in terms of energy required.

If post-scarcity is defined as a society within such goods can be had for free, it is an impossibility.

Not as long as the energy/materials/etc produced by a society is greater than the energy/materials/etc that same society can physically consume.

Even if that was not so, there would still be scarcity in those economic goods that even believers in material post-scarcity admit would never be abundant such as human services and exclusive use of particular, desired geographic locations.

Exclusive use cannot exist in a Technocratic society. There is no property. You can only own what you can use and only for as long as you can use it.

Scarcity in services is not relevant to whether abundance can exist.

It follows that a post-scarcity society in the sense of a society fundamentally differing from our own by virtue of material abundance

In the way you are trying to define it, sure. Your definition is far removed from what technocrats mean by abundance, which is certainly possible, if not feasible.

[AFAIK]

I think technocracy is an industrial and farming policy that is concerned with producing an abundance of goods. It attempts to automate as much production as possible to ensure abundant production but it makes no promises to produce any services. Goods are considered to be abundant if demand for their use (not ownership) fails to exceed supply.

I don't think a technate would have to produce an absolute abundance to be viable. If every citizen had an opportunity to drive a Ferrari after placing their name on a one week waiting list then this would represent a higher standard of living than a capitalist society in which a one day Ferrari rental costs 6 months wages for the average citizen.

[lucky]

We live in a world where, if we run out of iron, we can literally power up a particle accelerator, and create it out of other atoms.

LOL. No, it doesn't work like that. You'll get a tiny trickle of iron atoms from your huge accelerator, after spending about 10 orders of magnitude more iron on building and maintaining it. Not the best rate of return.

[Fasces]

So we do live in a world where we can create iron atoms out of other atoms.

[lucky]

So we do live in a world where we can create iron atoms out of other atoms.

It's more efficient to take the accelerator apart and use the iron parts directly. At the same rate, it will last you until the Sun burns out.

[Fasces]

Not necessarily - however, it means elements are not truly scarce as long as sufficient energy and surplus elements exist that can transform the surplus into the scarce element and create sufficient of that element to meet demand.

[lucky]

Not necessarily - however, it means elements are not truly scarce as long as sufficient energy and surplus elements exist that can transform the surplus into the scarce element and create sufficient of that element to meet demand.

You can't just pump energy into an accelerator and get any amount of iron. You'd need to build more accelerators. The whole business plan is ridiculous. If you have "sufficient energy", you can create stars out of it, they produce iron faster than accelerators. A huge amount of energy already exists in the universe, so what? The mass of Earth is a lot of energy. This is not how economics works.

The word "energy" is also misleading in this context, because energy does not get used up, it's a constant. Did you know that the Earth radiates the same amount of energy into space as it receives from the Sun? And yet the Sun is crucial for life on Earth. It's not the amount of energy that matters, it's useful configurations of that energy.

When people talk about the energy market, they are not really talking about energy in physical sense. A pebble is a lot of kWh, and yet its price is low.

[Fasces]

My point was only that creating new materials to replace those which cannot be found is not impossible, and that this concern does not actually challenge the theoretical possibility of abundance - to rephrase, you can't say abundance is impossible because resources are finite because the latter is not even the case today.

[lucky]

you can't say abundance is impossible because resources are finite because the latter is not even the case today.

You're confused about the economics of this. That the amount of something increases over time is very different from saying the supply is infinite. Supply is a function of time.

Resources are indeed finite today.