Humans do not live in perfect harmony with each other.
Rather, again and again conflicts arise between them.
And the source of these conflicts is always the same: the scarcity of goods.
I want to do X with a given good G, and you want to do simultaneously Y with the very same good.
Because it is impossible for you and me to do simultaneously X and Y with G, you and I must clash.
If a superabundance of goods existed (i.e., for instance, G were available in unlimited supply) our conflict could be avoided.
We could both simultaneously do ‘our thing’ with G.
But most goods do not exist in superabundance.
Ever since mankind left the Garden of Eden, there has been and always will be scarcity all around us.
Absent a perfect harmony of all human interests and given the permanent human condition of scarcity, then, interpersonal conflicts are an inescapable part of human life and a constant threat to peace.
Confronted with conflicts concerning scarce goods, but also endowed with reason or more precisely with the ability to communicate, to discuss and to argue with one another, as the very manifestation of human reason, then, mankind has been and forever will be faced with the question of how to possibly avoid such conflicts and how to peacefully resolve them should they occur.
But again, then, how would real, rational, peace seeking people have solved the problem of social conflict?
And let me emphasize the word “real” here.
The people I have in mind, deliberating on this question, are not zombies.
They do not sit behind a “veil of ignorance” a la Rawls, unconstrained by scarcity and time.
They stand in the middle of life, so to speak, when they begin their deliberations.
They are only too familiar with the inescapable fact of scarcity and of time constraints.
They already work and produce.
They interact with other workers and producers, and they have already many goods appropriated and put under their physical control, i.e., taken into possession.[1]
Take A Deep Breath
I’ve been reading a lot about space exploration and AI lately.
When I read about this stuff, and the future, I can’t help but think about it in economic terms.
And that inevitably turns my mind to the economies of the future; then trying to figure out what a multiplanetary system could look like.
We have thousands of deep tech space companies working on technologies that can help humans expand beyond Earth, but how do we colonize another planet and not bring the problems we have on Earth there?
Sure, the science and technology to get us there are definitely important, but it will be economics that will help the new civilizations thrive.
So, when I think about the civilizations of the future, I can’t help but view them from an economic perspective and consider how the economies of the future may need to develop different theories to solve for (and that will be based on) the new constraints, objectives, trade-offs, etcetera that may arise.
And this inevitably turns my mind to the branch of economics the nerds call “post-scarcity economics.”
Note: This paper is titled “Invisible Economics” to describe two distinct cohorts of reason and thought. The first group consists of people who do not understand economics as it exists in the present, economics to them is simply an illusion. This group represents approximately 99 percent of people in the world. The second group is made up of those who understand modern economics (less than 1 percent of the population) but struggle with many concepts and cannot foresee the economics of the future.
Note: The title ‘Invisible Economics’ should not be confused with the “Invisible Hand“, which is a metaphor introduced by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. Invisible Economics is not a standard term in economic literature, it’s a term I made up to describe the scenario set above.
For the uninitiated: Post-scarcity economics is a theoretical economic system in which goods, services, and resources can be produced in great abundance with minimal to zero human labor needed. These goods, services, and resources are freely accessible to all members of society, eliminating the need for traditional economic mechanisms such as prices, money, and competition. This concept is often written about in utopian literature and science fiction, where the authors envision a world where technological advancements and efficient resource management can overcome the limitations of scarcity.
For the purposes of this paper, let us assume that “post-scarcity” is economically and technologically attainable.
From there, we will develop a framework to determine (1) how we can get there; and (2) if we can get there, what does that look like.
Since post-scarcity economics is technically not real economics, but rather, wishful theory, let us also approach this as a fun thought experiment, and not as a useless political exercise.
In my opinion, post-scarcity economics sounds like a lot of fun, after all, who wouldn’t want a dream life where your main objective each day is to just jerk around and do whatever the hell you want.
But then again, life has taught me that when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Sure enough, the more I study post-scarcity theory, the holes in the argument keep getting bigger and bigger.
From what I have seen in my studies, a lot of it is speculation and wishful thinking, and there are methodological issues in the assumptions (we will get to those later).
From where I sit, reaching post-scarcity seems like a scientific impossibility.
Does this mean we shouldn’t be optimistic about the future?
Absolutely not.
We should definitely be optimistic about the future and constantly working to make the future better.
However, before we do anything I think we do need to take a step back here and remind ourselves that we are living in an insane anomaly.
Hear me out:
For over 200,000 years the human species has moved forward together, from the moment we stood upright until today’s modern tech era, we have been thrust into a perpetual war against nature, disease, predators, and perhaps the most dangerous enemy of all, ourselves.
From mass extinctions and Ice Ages to plagues and wars that could have ended our journey before it began, our cleverness and grit helped us overcome the odds using creativity, exploration, and technology.
Somehow, through a pure stroke of birth luck, you and I find ourselves at the start of what many are calling “The Space Age” or The Final Frontier.
And now, we sit on the precipice of what could be a very promising future (or a total collapse into possible extinction) if we are not careful.
You may not realize it yet, but you are currently holding the survival baton that has been passed through the hands of 10,000 generations of ancestors before us.
This is not a task that any of us should take lightly, and each one of us has a role to play in humanity’s next chapter.
The survival of our species has always depended on the contributions of many people, and 200,000 years of human hard work before us would be wasted if we fumbled at the goal line now.
For thousands of years, we have been forced to defy the odds to survive and propel ourselves into the future.
Today, we are turning the page to a brand new, very mysterious chapter.
And with the rise of the machines—and if any such exponential technological leap gives our species increasingly godlike power—the stakes right now are astronomical—too high to continue humanity’s historical pattern of learning through catastrophe.
So, with that in mind, I believe we do have all the tools we need to succeed. The problem is, we have gotten arrogant and sloppy, and it’s costing us dearly (more on this later).
My point is, we have the technology and the textbooks to guide us.
We have economics, which is the foundational “first rule” that tells you “no don’t do that” so you can avoid getting into trouble when human desire outpaces resources and rules.
And that, my friend, is where we will start—with the thing that humans hate the most.
The Constraints
As humans living on planet Earth, we are subjected to a natural order and forced to live with certain constraints.
Our nature is to dislike these constraints and creatively find ways to work around them and eliminate them.
Our economic models are one of the major constraints we have.
We have capitalism (a scarcity-based system) which is designed to address the allocation of scarce resources to meet the unlimited wants and needs of individuals and society.
Capitalism uses market mechanisms, price signals, and competition to address the fundamental economic problem of allocating limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants.
Then we have the centrally planned systems of Marxism and Communism, which don’t work very well, as it turns out.
We also have mixed systems (e.g., socialist capitalism in Europe) which is still scarcity-based capitalism, only with higher taxes, more government/regulation, low incentive for innovation, and many of the same inefficiencies you typically see in both central planning and capitalism.
There are tradeoffs with each system, but most countries today utilize a form of capitalism, and it’s the most dominant economic system globally at the time of this writing.
History has shown (many times over the past few hundred years) that capitalism is the best system of them all (so far) so that’s what we will work off of to build our hypothesis and framework.
Note: resources (land, labor, capital, etc.) are limited, while human desires and needs are limitless. Solving for this scarcity and allocating resources efficiently can be a challenge.
The First Rule
There will be a decent amount of people who will read what I’m about to tell you and disagree.
The dissenters will mostly come from the ranks of the normies and the hucksters—this is not something that is rare or unusual.
In fact, this is perfectly normal, because these groups are often comprised of intellectual mind slaves of fantastic delusions (more on this later).
It’s worth noting that the reason they disagree is not because they aren’t smart people, but rather, because they are working to overcome the constraints (and informing theory) using personal belief as a framework.
And if you tell them that their ideas are in fact delusions, it can get you into trouble and sucked into useless and often circular arguments.
When you do listen to their arguments (which are quite often eloquent and well-crafted) you will often see a deeply biased presentation of self-interested nonsense that shows a blatant disregard for economic theory.
This lack of academic discipline has become all-too prevalent in today’s modern tech world.
It’s a framework in which the individual, disregarding constraints and trade-offs, single-mindedly pursues an idealistic and “fantastic” outcome at any cost.
And strains of this ‘techno-utopian brain rot’ have recently filtered into the Silicon Valley mindset (even though few executives there actually run their companies like this).
Before you say, “that won’t happen to me, I’m smarter than that”, I’m here to tell you that it can definitely happen to you.
It can happen to anyone.
Brain rot is a disease that is not very well studied or understood.
But we do know that it can take hold of anyone at any time and cause delusions of the mind.
There is no cure, and the origin is currently unknown.
The only “ounce of prevention” that I am aware of is to always work towards truth.
Even when the truth reveals outcomes you do not like.
Afterall, people can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and mostly blatantly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.[2]
Our tendency to cherry pick data or information that confirms our existing beliefs about certain things is called Confirmation Bias.
That said, if you forget everything you read here today, remember this: the first rule of economics is scarcity, and the first rule of politics is to disregard the first rule of economics.
This has perhaps never been more true than it is today.
In modern politics, scarcity—and economics in general—seems to be blatantly ignored.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and pundits don’t even pretend to acknowledge basic economic principles, but instead, proudly propose policies that defy economic logic.
But perhaps politicians aren’t completely to blame for the total disregard for economics and scarcity.
They have every incentive to do so.
The more benefits they can promise while hiding the “unseen” costs and trade-offs, the better their chances of getting elected and gaining influence.
This is expected behavior and at the root of basic human action, where “every action a human takes is intended to benefit the human taking such action, regardless if they are aware of it or not.”
The real issue is how and why they are able to get away with it: the general public doesn’t recognize the impossibility of these promises.
The root of the problem is economic illiteracy.
The politicians are economically illiterate, of course, but so is the general public.
Case in point: politicians are known to make hundreds of unrealistic false promises they know they cannot keep, but they know such things are exactly what the voters want to hear; and normie plebeians will eat it all up like a starving dog eating a bone.
But does the fault here rest solely on the plebs?
Can we really blame them?
I’d estimate that fewer than 1 percent of people in the United States, for example, have studied economics, and less than half of those have a true understanding of it.
In this sense, we only get the politicians we deserve.
Or, in other words, we get the policies we lack the wisdom to reject.
But in a system of fairness where everyone gets a vote (i.e., democracy) our ignorance will not allow us to duck and dodge the harsh consequences of unsustainable and destructive policies.
Whether we understand economics or not, everything has a cost.
Everything has tradeoffs.
Newton’s third law always applies.
I have discussed the limitations of human intelligence in previous papers.
The brain is a powerful computer that’s capable of incredible things, but it’s also full of bugs and extremely prone to error.
The known limitations (e.g., computational power, multi-tasking, reasoning, attentional, etc.) can cloud judgment and impair decision making ability, so predictive irrationality is somewhat built in as a feature.
So, the first step in our decision-making process should be to recognize that we are not smart.
And the second step is having the awareness to recognize that our brains are wired to be tribal, engage in fight or flight, rationalize our biases, and be manipulated by emotions.
This weakness, this feature, allows the human mind to be tricked into false narratives and bad decision-making.
We see this inherent flaw on full display in human voting habits, and it manifests inevitably into hard times and economic collapse.
This weakness is a politician’s favorite food.
They feast on it.
Economic literacy could remedy the problem somewhat and give the common man a fighting chance, but I don’t see econ-lit improving anytime soon.
Why, you ask?
Well, for starters, economic education is absolutely terrible in schools right now.
The subject is mostly taught by hucksters and fraudsters, and it’s presented entirely in the wrong way.
The instructors do not provide students with a real understanding of how the market economy works.
They do not prepare students for the harsh realities of the real world, tradeoffs, and the word “no.”
And not only do the instructors suck, but they are also deeply ideological and boring.
They fail to make the study of economics interesting and useful.
Instead, they turn people away from economics, which is why many people nowadays think economics is a failed science taught by liars.
So now, “real economics” is often ignorantly dismissed for being “ideological” rather than scientific.
But, when done properly, economics is the most non-ideological of the social sciences and the least open for ideology.
God Save The Queen
Economics is by far the hardest science a person can study.
It’s a harder science than physics.
And it’s often called the queen of the social sciences.
Why?
The reason is simple.
Economic theory in its pure form is a deductive exercise, which means it’s logically derived from a starting point assumed to be reasonable or true.
Most economic theory, for example, is derived from abstractions of game theory, which is based on making the best possible move to win.
As a result, it allows minimal room for ideological bias.
Can you cheat the system?
Sure.
You can always add bias to inform theory.
A theory can be ideologically influenced (or wrong) in two primary ways:
- If its initial assumptions are normative or ideologically biased.
- If the logical reasoning is flawed due to an ideological slant.
I was taught that whenever framing theory, the starting point for logical deduction is always the action axiom: the idea that action is purposeful behavior.
This means: actions are always aimed at achieving a personally valued end that the actor believes will improve his situation.
Incentives! Incentives! Incentives!
Human action and incentives are always closely linked in an economic system.
This general “rule” sort of supports my theory: humans are inherently selfish.
And this biological rule (or feature) is the primary driver behind every human action.
As I mentioned earlier: “every action a human takes is intended at its core to benefit the human taking such action, regardless if they are aware of it or not.”
Many such actions can often be perceived as kind or altruistic, but the underlying motivations behind this behavior are usually always driven by some form of self-interest.
Perhaps no one understands this relationship better than politicians. They are able to use exposition and charisma to encourage desired behaviors and outcomes (e.g., your unwavering support and vote).
As a trained theorist, however, it is your job to step outside yourself, overcome your bias, and operate from a purely deductive perspective.
But as much as it pains me to say, mainstream economics is not consistently deductive.
Its theory development is more lax these days, and as a result, is greatly affected by normative judgments.
So, scholars must be especially careful in their scholarship, or they will run the risk of getting their predictions wrong and exposing the field to more unnecessary criticism and suspicion.
Economists need to go back to their roots of deductive reasoning to inform theory.
Modern Econ Has Gotten Sloppy
Over the past one hundred years, economics has gone in the opposite direction of deductive reasoning and adopted a “modern” method of empirical analysis and formalized modeling.
Everything is a big model now with big math and massive complexity.
The theories are unreliable and can only be expressed in ways that the experts can understand.
Many times, the experts do not understand them either.
Modern economics now unfortunately resembles the other sciences, where “scientists” funded by fiat inflation are no longer objectively trying to “do science”; they make up theories and arrive at the conclusions their corporate/government sponsors want.
Deductive reasoning no longer informs theory.
Theory is informed by personal belief, social pressure, and revenue.
These folks are essentially debt slaves in a much larger system—their careers depend entirely on satisfying their sponsor or donor—so there’s no corrective mechanism if they drift into insanity.
In fact, insanity is incentivized.
Then peer-reviewed by other insane people.
And bad results (for you) don’t matter because, unlike sports, it’s not a results-based system where you win or lose based on input/output.
Their primary objective is just to sell you some new bullshit.
Then keep you as a customer for as long as possible in their state-sponsored CLV/churn model.
This type of “science” is riddled with bias and errors, is wrong more often than right, and is nearly useless for the common man.
“In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.” ― George Orwell, 1984
All Hail Megatron
Decepticon intellectuals come in many forms.
But one of their most common tricks is to play the role of the economic expert.
Bold predictions.
Fancy charts.
Long exposition.
Pseudo quant.
Devoid of logic.
Immovably committed to bold positions because it makes you sound smarter than being humbly realistic.
A clever trick to gain erroneous credibility and praise.
Despite the fact that we now have access to massive data sets and can leverage supercomputers to generate highly precise predictions to support or oppose specific policies, modern economists are still wrong all the time.
Is such a thing even possible?
Yes, it is!
And it’s because the stable foundation that modern economics was built on (logical reasoning) is now mostly forgotten.
It’s just garbage in, garbage out.
The Second Rule
In the following, I want to briefly describe an abiogenetic puzzle or riddle that I will then explore and solve in detail.
But before that, it is necessary to make a few brief general theoretical observations:
Chaos is the primary law of nature, the natural state of the universe.
Peace is the dream of man.
It is unnatural.
It is simply chaos in stasis, chaos in a resting state.
It is not sustainable.
Earth is a planet characterized by a high degree of stochastic variability, savagery, and chaos.
Chaos that mankind tries to contain and control.
But chaos is a necessary step in creating beauty out of the void.
This force cannot be contained by mortal man, and going against the natural order of the universe only leads to more chaos.
Humans do not fully understand chaos.
They do not understand its meaning.
But chaos is the first law.
And primordial chaos is the foundation of reality.
There was a time when the ancient masters aimed to reveal the natural order of the world.
These theorists fought to show or prove that beneath the apparent chaos lies an inherent structure.
And that the economy, much like a living entity, had a life of its own—that there was a natural order to it.
We are free to study it as casual observers.
We can learn its intricacies.
But we are not free to manipulate it as we wish.
We cannot force it to work in ways that are not in line with its nature.
It operates according to immutable laws.
The problem with the highly technical and big quant economics of the contemporary mainstream is that it tries to manipulate these laws and use them to gain advantage.
Very often this comes in the form of political advantage for party or personal gain.
So, we have boom and bust economic cycles, rampant inflation, currency devaluation, lower wages, increasing taxes, endless wars, and most problems go unsolved for generations.
Modern Delusion
We will soon enter an era where human, robot, and artificial intelligence will converge.
Virtual worlds will expand our current level of cheap global communication and travel, creating massive new levels of abstraction, shrinking the world even further.
But looking ahead into the future, our descendants (and possibly also our AI “mind children“) will likely venture into space, transforming their minds and bodies in a Cambrian explosion of possibilities and futures.
Assuming they have the freedom and ability to choose their paths, they will forge a tapestry of novel economies and cultures, most likely very different than anything that currently exists today.
And, if given similar freedom and ability in reproduction, most of our distant descendants will probably live near a subsistence level.
Note: if income only doubled every century, it would amount to a factor of 10^3000 in a million years, which seems technically impossible given the 10^78 to 10^82 atoms in our galaxy.
Unrelated, that amounts to between ten quadrillion vigintillion and one-hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms.
But this estimate only accounts for the observable universe (roughly 46 billion light years in any direction) and is based on where the expansion of space has taken the most distant objects observed.
It doesn’t accurately reflect how much matter the universe may truly contain.
I digress.
Per-capita wealth has risen over the past 10 years because income has grown faster than population, but this trend is reaching an inflection point as wages are dropping and population is now in flux.
Contrarian groups (e.g., Amish, Hutterites, Hmong, Mormons, Old Order Mennonites, etc.) are growing fast, but richer nations are seeing drops in fertility.
Over long timescales, and without strong central controls, such groups will inevitably outpace economic growth, reducing per-person income to near subsistence. Despite this, I think they will still find contentment in such a world.
I imagine by this time (1,000+ years in the future) our distant descendants will have diminishing returns in terms of technological gains, but perhaps everything worth knowing will be known so new discoveries will be quite rare.
Immortality and/or living for 300 or more years may be available for the few who can afford it.
Wild nature will be scarce, and it will be difficult to achieve cooperation across planets and universes.
As a result, it will also be more difficult to cause widespread chaos and destruction.
What will our distant descendants be like?
How will they think and behave?
What kind of economy and culture will they have?
I think our distant descendants will see a lot of parallels with our ancient hunting ancestors, who also lived at subsistence levels in a vast, fragmented world with slow growth and rare slow contact with strange distant cultures.
While our ancient ancestors knew little about their world and were surrounded by wild nature instead of a lot of people, their behaviors were well-adapted to their environment.
On the other hand, our distant descendants will probably understand their new worlds quite well, but nature will be scarce, and they will not be well-adapted to their environment.
Both groups will suffer from delusions and illusions, but they will both be typically adaptive.
Will our distant descendants be similar to us?
Unlike the similarities to our hunter-gather ancestors, the differences between humans now and our distant relatives will be much greater.
Our culture and era of rapid technological growth, scientific discovery, and global communications will probably seem alien and weird to them.
But these differences will pale in comparison to one significant contrast: our lives are heavily influenced by consequential delusions—wildly false beliefs and non-adaptive values that matter.
While our descendants may explore delusion-dominated virtual realities, they’ll understand that such experiences are not real and don’t significantly impact history.
On the other hand, we are now living in the brief but pivotal “dreamtime” where delusions will shape history.
Our descendants will see our era as the time when humanity’s capacity to sincerely believe and act on non-adaptive, crazy things was at its peak.
Note: The Aboriginals believe in [a] “dreamtime,” a realm believed to be more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime creates the laws, values, and symbols of Aboriginal society. The “dreamtime” encompasses an individual’s or group’s set of beliefs or spirituality. It’s a complex network of knowledge, faith, and practices rooted from stories of creation. (More)
Why is our era so delusional?
- Our ability to scale intelligence and acquire knowledge has been accelerating rapidly, bringing rapid and radical changes, perhaps faster than the human brain can process—that make us see anything as possible—making it difficult to label anything as delusion.
- Wealthy individuals (most of the west) have large financial cushions that allow them to live well and be happy despite acting on irrational beliefs. There are minimal consequences for bad choices and actions.
- We imagine ourselves to be incredibly technologically sophisticated and more advanced than our ancestors. Each generation (seemingly) imagines itself to be more intelligent than the generation before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. This delusion of generational superiority can lead to complacency, overconfidence in technology, intergenerational conflict, neglect of systemic issues, short-sighted decisions, loss of culture, and catastrophic failure.
- Humans have evolved to send signals to each other through delusions, but these delusions, once harmless, now hurt us in our rapidly changing world. For example, do we vote because we want to help our country, or instead, are we sending a signal of our loyalty, morality, and character? When comparing our modern delusion to those of our ancestors, the key difference is, that our ancestor’s delusions were well adapted to their situations, so their delusions didn’t hurt them very much. On the other hand, these same delusions are poorly adapted to our rapidly changing world, where our signaling-induced delusions cause us significantly more harm.
- Humans appear to have evolved to emphasize signaling more during good times than in bad times. We suffer from affluenza, yet physical investments are temporary and unsustainable. As such, we have learned that it is better to invest in reputation and allies, especially during good times. So, we spend a lot of time and energy on leisure, morals, calories, distraction, and patriotism, marking our era as a prolonged good time. A stark contrast to our ancestor’s world, which was mostly a bad time, with savagery, disease, and nomadic wandering, although their leisure caused them a lot less harm.
- Long periods of peace without suffering and chaos favor certain mental delusions. Among them is the assumption that the invulnerability of the home and state is founded upon a constitution and safeguarded by it.
- Humans are susceptible to believing things that we know to be untrue, and then, when we are eventually proved wrong, we have a tendency to twist the facts to make it seem like we were right all along. Intellectually, we can sustain this self-deception indefinitely. However, sooner or later, this process is invariably checked by a harsh encounter with solid reality, usually on the battlefield or in a time of crisis. In such a situation, the contract between belief and reality becomes impossible to ignore, forcing a reckoning with the truth that often shatters the delusion, often brought about by physical pain or injury.
- Our minds, designed for practical reasoning up close and abstract reasoning from afar, now rely more on abstract reasoning, which is much more susceptible to and tolerant of beautiful delusions.
- Technology exposes us to potent “super-stimuli” from drugs and arts, which our ancestors only encountered and used rarely (e.g., around the campfire dancing or listening to stories). Since such contexts are relatively safe spaces, drug and art appreciation mode is relatively tolerant of delusions. Art is everywhere, we can listen to music anytime/anywhere, and drugs are cheap and readily available. Most of our day is spent on our phones, video games, and TV, making us more susceptible to severe delusional beliefs.
- We were designed to be influenced by the rhetoric and storytelling of skilled experts and the eloquence and repetition of arguments, logic notwithstanding. Perhaps this helped the ancestors align with stronger tribes to survive and thrive. We were also designed to show our beliefs and values via the stories we like and the tales we tell, and we love well-crafted stories. But today, we are exposed to stories and arguments from individuals who are far more knowledgeable than our ancient ancestors. Given our natural inclination to be quite awed and convinced by such displays, our beliefs and ideals are significantly shaped by storytellers and writers. These storytellers often tell us what we want to hear, or what their sponsors want us to hear, which are often detached from reality.
These factors converge to make our era the most delusional and un-adaptive of all time.
And our era, marked by unprecedented and consistent delusion and maladaptation, will baffle our distant descendants.
They will not understand our demographic transition, where we underutilized the reproductive opportunities our wealth provided.
They will not understand how or why we wasted our money on shitty products that we saw in ads marketed through aspirational advertising.
They will not understand our obsession with dopamine and super-stimuli that hijacked our evolved heuristics, providing pleasure without substance, and taste without nutrition.
They will not understand why we spent tons of money on things that didn’t actually help us, such as medicine that didn’t make us healthier, or education that didn’t make us smarter or more productive.
They will note our strange mating patterns, extreme gender roles, and the fierce warriors of our military industrial complex will perplex them.
Our adherence to bizarre religious, political, and social beliefs, along with our preference for democracy, will be confusing to them. All these elements are cleverly designed to amplify the fleeting delusions of the average voter over the informed opinions of intellectuals and experts.
Perhaps most importantly, our distant descendants will study how our civilization hung on by a precarious thread due to a few critical choices made possible (to achieve) by our high-tech rapidly changing world, and the strange delusions that influenced these choices.
These choices might have involved AI, rampaging robots, bioterrorism, nuclear weapons, pandemics, economic collapse, food chain collapse, or a runaway greenhouse effect like on Venus.
Our delusions may have led to wonderful or catastrophic outcomes, permanently shaping the options available to future generations.
And the legacy we will leave our descendants in the future will be a legendary and rapidly expanding “dreamtime”, born from a mix of adaptive behavior and mostly harmless delusions that gradually transformed into strange and powerful delusions influencing un-adaptive behavior.
Adaptation will not have had a chance to properly reassert itself, leaving a blurred line between delusion and reality.
Our “dreamtime” will become legendary, a popular backdrop for grand fiction, where low-delusion heroes and strange rich clowns around them will have significantly altered the course of history.
Perhaps the most dramatic tales will be the tragedies of those who could foresee the future and were horrified by the impending slow stable adaptive eras, and fought passionately, yet unsuccessfully, to prevent them.
Invisible Economics
It’s worth noting: delusion is not scarce, delusion is in abundance.
Echoing Orwell, the existing social order is a swindle and its cherished beliefs mostly delusions.
And when delusional schemes fail, as they inevitably do, our attention is immediately drawn away from the destruction they have caused by the “super-stimuli” from drugs and arts mentioned earlier.
Drugs, TV, and social media will command you not to focus on the people and groups whose lives were destroyed, but rather, on the “good intentions” behind the schemes.
They meant well.
That’s all that matters.
It’s “good intentions” that override disastrous results, they claim.
This is a top modern delusion.
This delusion plays well to both sides of the political divide, especially here in America.
A prime example of this is our national debt crisis.
The things we need to do as a country to fix the national debt are considered political suicide by both parties.
It’s a political iron cage, they say.
But the politicians all boldly talk about how they will “fight for you” and courageously tackle the problem.
What they don’t tell you is that the consequences of actually doing this will be a disaster for both parties and that they have no intention of actually working on it.
So, they cook up some well-intentioned schemes.
Unfortunately for us, these schemes always override their commitment to actually solving the problem.
Why, you ask?
Because they know that if they fail, and fail they shall, we will overlook it and forgive them in light of their good intentions.
Meanwhile, the national debt is spinning out of control and towards national disaster.
Politicians have long perfected the art of adding two and two and getting five.
But perhaps economists are much worse.
And yet—here is the puzzle—the rate of change is accelerating, and a convergence of threats (population, consumption, resource depletion, land & water scarcity, pandemics, disability, geopolitical instability, fake science, inflation, etc.) is increasing the risk of chaos, illness, Malthusian trap, and kinetic military action.
When you factor modern delusion into the equation, it does not paint a pretty picture of the future.
The chessboard exhibits perfectly predictable suboptimality.
Making sense of it all has become nearly impossible.
But to understand what is ahead, you must first understand the past.
So, before we launch Starship and head off for Mars to create the first multiplanetary colony, we should first study the immutable “laws” that economists have identified and studied over the past three hundred years.
It will be these “laws” that will help us establish the first sustainable and functional off-planet economy that can survive and thrive without (maybe) the forces of Earth acting upon it.
So, how do we do this?
For the purposes of this paper, we will discuss and compare two economic systems.
One traditional and real, and the other, futuristic and theoretical.
Here is a general breakdown of the two systems:
Traditional economics: focuses on the efficient allocation of inherently scarce resources. It deals with how individuals, businesses, and governments make choices about the use of limited resources to satisfy various needs and wants, optimizing the distribution and utilization of these resources to maximize overall welfare.
while
Post-scarcity economics: focuses on how economies function when essential materials like food, energy, and shelter are no longer scarce. It explores the evolution of economic principles and societal structures in a context where technological advancements have largely eradicated material scarcity.
In real life (e.g., traditional economics), scarcity is the primary law. It’s a feature that is (seemingly) hardcoded into nature as an unbreakable rule.
In theoretical “futuristic” (e.g., post-scarcity) economics, humans have overcome the fundamental constraint of scarcity.
Many post-scarcity theorists believe we can overcome the traditional “rules” and constraints of real economics and decouple labor from reward.
They also believe that the inherent dynamism of competitive markets is driving costs so far down that many goods and services are almost becoming free, abundant, and are no longer subject to market forces.
Something you should understand at the very beginning: to say that something is “no longer subject to market forces” is to say that the good in question is non-scarce, or free.
This means that every (or almost every) factor used in producing that good is also non-scarce, and that the total cost to the consumer using the good is also zero.
This is an absurd contention.
It’s make believe.
It’s delusion.
While it’s true that the advent of low marginal costs has revolutionized retailing, economic progress has always done that.
We have seen this with Wal-Mart taking huge chunks of market share from older, less cutting-edge retailers like Sears, J.C. Penny, and K-Mart due to their more advanced distribution and retail strategy, enabling it to be a much lower-cost producer of goods.
Did the markets disappear?
No, the markets still exist, they are still relevant, they have just evolved.
Now Wal-Mart finds itself under pressure from ecommerce giants like Amazon.
Markets still prevail, only in different forms.
A lot of economists make this critical error.
They mistakenly believe that the value of a good comes from its costs of production.
But the real value comes from the value of the final product—and the value of that product comes from the profitability that good brings to the humans who created it.
In other words, the value comes from the final product’s profitability, not just production costs.
But alas, some economists are enticed to sip from the cup of rational delusion.
Where many of them go wrong is: falling into the delusion that zero or near-zero marginal costs mean zero or near-zero costs of production, which would mean the goods are being made basically for free.
This is not entirely true.
Marginal costs are the costs of producing one additional unit—which means each new unit is very inexpensive to produce—which also indicates a high volume of goods being made.
When supporting this flawed theory, many economists go on to make another critical error: on one hand they acknowledge that high fixed costs are needed to start the production process, but they fail to understand their significance.
Low marginal costs do not mean goods are free.
The profitability of the businesses making these goods depends on volume (created and sold) and significant capital investments.
Capital investments are not free.
Labor and other resources are also not free.
They are scarce and costly.
Another classic example of “zero marginal cost” delusion comes in the energy sector with wind farms.
Here is the trap many untrained theorists often fall into: they make the assumption that since the fixed costs of solar and wind technology are expensive, the cost of capturing each unit of energy beyond that will be low. Then (using the same rationalization) they assume that by using 3-D printers and/or various recyclables, people will be able to manufacture clean energy products at near zero marginal cost.
Here is the reality: Yes, the marginal costs of producing electricity via wind farms are very low, but these massive hardware monstrosities can only be profitable if (and only if) each kilowatt of electricity produced is priced a lot higher than conventional electricity (e.g., oil, coal, natural gas).
Assuming that 3D printers and recyclable materials will enable near-zero marginal cost production is an overly simplistic rationalization.
While it is true that solar and wind technologies have low marginal costs after installation, this overlooks other “un-sexy costs” such as ongoing operational and maintenance expenses.
So, while wind farms can reduce costs (in theory), they still incur significant material, energy, and processing expenses.
Wind farms are nothing more than tax credit farms.
In order to stay in business and keep the lights on (no pun) these farms need government subsidies and favors.
In layman’s terms, yes, wind power is “zero marginal cost” but it is still high-cost electricity.
This means that in a free market, consumers will probably not choose it, because it is so costly.
So, the government must force consumers to purchase wind power (at a higher price), making said consumers poorer, not wealthier.
Additionally, the 3-D printers and “ingredients” needed to make the copies are not free.
This means you’re going to need capital investment, and you’re still stuck in the scarce factors of production constraint.
These things do not just magically appear.
Nobody has ever run a successful business doing voodoo economics.
But there is also one more critical piece missing from the original thesis: you, the creator, the entrepreneur.
And this point takes me back to incentives.
It’s very difficult (if not impossible) to replace profits and capitalism with non-profits and “sharing-ism.”
Production and creation do not occur spontaneously—they usually arise due to incentives set by competition and law.
Institutional frameworks also play a critical role here.
Regardless of what some mainstream theorists tell you, the Law of Scarcity is undefeated.
Modern production, while great and highly advanced, cannot negate this law, no matter how badly some people want it to.
Now that we have discussed the fundamentals and identified the constraints, we can now delve into the economics of fantasy and delusion.
Post-Scarcity, Scarcity
No economic system, no system of government, no empire, and no currency lasts forever, yet almost everyone is surprised when they fail.
Case in point: modern theorists spend most of their careers looking at a time series of historic stuff.
They sit around prattling and analyzing ancient people with chariots and bows and arrows and camels and elephants—fighting in wars 3,000 years ago—and how the battlefield may have looked if my army (for example) showed up with explosives and aircraft.
Then they try to back test their models and figure out how explosives and aircraft impact the way the ancients organize their elephants.
And you know what?
These models, no matter how advanced, don’t really make sense anymore.
If you understand real economics, you realize very quickly that you have to throw them all away.
When an unforeseen superweapon of destruction enters the equation, all your models become worthless.
And in the end, all your models will be destroyed.
Your mathematical models, your political models, your risk models, your economic models—everything humans have learned over the past 10,000 years.
It will all be burnt to ash.
So naturally, I am always thinking if and how the economics that I know today will eventually be replaced by a better, more advanced system.
I have seen quite a few theoretical frameworks on how we can leap from traditional economics to a post-scarcity economy, but none of them have strong legs to stand on.
They are all fundamentally flawed, and I’m not quite sure we can solve for total scarcity.
Some things will become more abundant in some places, while other things will still be scarce or will become more rare.
Regardless, we are nowhere close to achieving a post-scarcity utopia.
It will be a long and complicated journey, but it’s a fun exercise to explore.
Afterall, if the space economy is able to hit their goal (putting humans on other planets) it’s wise for us to start thinking about this stuff sooner rather than later.
So is post-scarcity a common modern delusion?
We are living in the most technologically advanced era of Earthtime ever.
So, it would seem, that with the rise of machines, advances in artificial intelligence, materials science, biotech, and energy, that we could be in the beginning stages of a futuristic version of capitalism.
What that will look like is anyone’s guess.
But we do have a surplus (in terms of food) here in the United States, so food is (technically) not scarce.
But there is scarcity in terms of how those foods are produced.
And there is scarcity in terms of how those foods are supplied.
Recent estimates show around 735 million people worldwide are currently facing hunger, and about 2.4 billion people (30% of humans on Earth) lack consistent access to enough food.
But let’s imagine that one day, technology reaches a point where a small percentage of humans—say, 10 million (or 0.125% of the current global population)—can produce all the food, energy, and shelter that the human race needs.
We aren’t anywhere close to this techno-utopia yet, but it may be a possibility in 50-100 years based on the rapid rate of technological change.
With all the recent advances in materials, robotics, energy, and agriculture—the probability of it happening isn’t statistically zero.
Sure, it may be wishful thinking—but it definitely isn’t insane.
I’m not saying that it WILL happen, but rather, that it COULD.
So, what then, of labor?
In mainstream economics, a healthy economy is one that is at near full employment—just about everyone has a job.
There is also solid growth, stable inflation, productivity, balanced trade, financial stability, bla bla bla.
This is all pretty basic stuff.
But let us dive in further.
Let’s indulge the mind.
Let’s go on a journey of fantastic delusion and adventure.
In our exercise of fantastic delusion and adventure, let’s pretend jobs are not related to a healthy economy.
They have decoupled from the system.
Poof.
Gone.
We are going to wade into the murky waters of fringe economics here, but let us ask ourselves: is it a concrete law of nature that people need to work and have full employment, to reach full satisfaction of needs?
If everyone is fed and housed, will we have to throw the old rules out the window?
Will there be billions of people who will no longer need to work?
I have seen this question asked before—on the blogs and in the forums—and I do not think it’s much of a law at all.
In fact, I’d like to point out that in real economics, there is a big emphasis placed on individual choice, subjective value, and the value of entrepreneurship.
There is no requisite of full employment for economic satisfaction.
I don’t want to go too far down a rabbit hole here, but these key principles apply:
- Subjective Value Theory: The value of goods and services is subjective and varies from person to person.
- Methodological Individualism: Economic analysis should start from the actions and decisions of individuals.
- Spontaneous Order: Markets naturally self-organize and create order out of chaos, without central direction or planning.
- Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurs play a crucial role in discovering and responding to consumer preferences and market conditions.
So, it would seem, near full (or full) employment is not a necessary condition for overall economic well-being or the satisfaction of needs.
Instead, individuals should be free to pursue their interests in the marketplace, and resources should be allocated through voluntary exchanges.
One hurdle cleared.
Now we must clear another, slightly bigger hurdle.
And that is the hurdle of unabated consumerism.
The waters get a lot murkier down here.
Here in the United States, it is generally believed that we have a surplus.
And we do, in many ways, but we don’t in other ways.
You may have seen people say this on social media, and even in mainstream news: “we have a surplus in the west, while millions of other people in the world are starving. We have the capacity to feed everyone, we just don’t have the will. It’s not a matter of scarcity, it’s a matter of the organization of labor and capital.”
Note: The United States does have a surplus of certain foods and agricultural goods, and its agriculture sector consistently produces more food than is consumed domestically, resulting in substantial exports.
In 2021, for example, the U.S. led the world in agricultural exports, sending $177 billion worth of agricultural products abroad, including top exports like soybeans, corn, and beef.[3]
In 2021, the U.S. was able to export over 20% of what it produced, far outpacing the amount of exports of the world’s top agricultural producers China and India, whose agricultural goods are focused more on addressing domestic needs.[4]
Additionally, the U.S. generates a significant amount of surplus food that goes unsold or uneaten.
Using the same data (2021), about 91 million tons of food, equivalent to 38% of the total food supply, was categorized as surplus.
This surplus includes a wide variety of products, ranging from fruits and vegetables to dairy and meat.
Some of this surplus food is redistributed through programs like The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which distributes surplus commodities such as almonds, apples, pork, and fish to those in need.[5]
So, yes, the United States does have a surplus when it comes to food.
Yet, despite this surplus, a shitload of food still goes to waste.
Sure, some individuals and organizations are making efforts to reduce food waste and optimize surplus food through recycling and donations, but the problem may be too big to remedy at this point.
On the other hand:
If we fast forward to the present day (2024), the U.S. goods and services trade deficit increased in April 2024 according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The deficit increased from $68.6 billion in March (revised) to $74.6 billion in April, as imports increased more than exports.
The goods deficit increased $5.9 billion in April to $99.2 billion.
And the services surplus decreased $0.1 billion in April to $24.7 billion.[6]
At the end of the day, we have a surplus of food and a deficit in goods and services.
We are strong in food, but may be weak in manufacturing, possibly suggesting a broader economic dependency on imports.
And despite having a surplus in food, there is still scarcity.
Land scarcity drives a food surplus due to abundant agricultural resources and advanced technology.
And hidden scarcities such as knowledge and information, entrepreneurial initiative, capital investment, and efficient resource allocation exist as well.
Here is my two cents:
Knowledge and information play important roles in any economy.
While there may be a surplus of food, the distribution of that food requires precise knowledge of where it is needed, how to transport it efficiently, and how to store and preserve it.
Decentralized knowledge is critical for efficient allocation, and the general lack of localized information on food needs and distribution logistics can create significant barriers to getting everyone fed, even in a surplus environment.
Governments have shown us time and again that they are unable to allocate resources efficiently, so it’s up to entrepreneurs to recognize and act on opportunities to alleviate scarcities.
If an economy lacks entrepreneurial initiative or entrepreneurial efforts are stymied due to regulatory barriers, lack of incentives, or political constraints, the distribution of food will be suboptimal.
Entrepreneurs are essential for innovating distribution methods, creating efficient supply chains, and overcoming logistical challenges, but their scarcity can hinder these processes.
Even with a food surplus, if an economy lacks capital investment in infrastructure (e.g., storage facilities, transportation, refrigeration) it will reduce the probability that food will reach those in need.
Inefficiencies in food distribution can also be caused by the misallocation of resources due to unnecessary government interventions, subsidies, and price controls.
These institutional and regulatory barriers can create hidden scarcities by imposing constraints on the free market.[7]
Sure, we want to make sure the food is good and safe, but government overreach and bureaucratic hurdles can limit the flow of food from surplus regions to areas in need, and these unnecessary interventions often lead to unintended consequences that exacerbate scarcities.
For example, even the best, most virtuous, well-intentioned regulations can increase costs and delay the delivery of food aid, thus preventing timely access to food for those in need.
We need healthy, properly functioning markets to allocate resources efficiently and make sure the food reaches those who need it most, and get it to them fast.
Lastly (and we are back to our point from above), but it often comes down to incentives.
Without proper incentive structures for producers, distributors, and governments, all roads lead to inefficiencies and delays.
For example, let’s say you wanted to help save the world and founded a food distribution company.
Assuming you are not rich and are funding operations with your own money, if you do not have proper profit motives or adequate compensation, you may not engage in the large-scale, risky ventures that are required to transport and distribute food globally.
But, alas, perhaps if a proper incentive structure was set (through market mechanisms) it would encourage a more efficient allocation of capital and labor to address the food scarcity issue you were trying so very hard to solve.
And I won’t bore you to death with conspicuous consumption or accursed share theory, but the fact remains: producing more than they need—and then wasting it—is an inevitability of modern economies.
Intangible Scarcities
With the recent successes of sci-fi TV shows and movies like Star Trek, Star Wars, Foundation, and The Expanse, human fascination with futurism and advanced technology only continues to grow.
These beautiful and unusual, fictional worlds often depict a “post-scarcity” society where technology meets all basic needs, eliminating scarcity.
Many researchers (and hobbyists) these days look to these Hollywood examples as an indication of what life might be like if and when technology can provide for all our basic needs, a condition the nerds have labeled as “post-scarcity.”
Personally, I don’t believe that an economic system that is able to achieve an egalitarian distribution of goods would be able to be called an absolute “post-scarcity society” unless the production of goods was automated to the point that labor was no longer a requirement.
I have to assume (in this case) that voluntary creative labor would still be in abundance (e.g., writing a book, making a film, or writing code) and there would be various scarcities associated with each of these.
Despite the fact that material resources may be plentiful and basic needs are abundantly met, intangible scarcities would still drive the dynamics of voluntary creative labor.
These scarcities would likely stem from intelligence, creativity, time, and capabilities.
For the examples listed above (writing, filming, coding) these intangible scarcities could include:
- Audience attention and engagement: The attention span and engagement of audiences would be limited, and creators would need to compete for the attention of their audience.
- Time: Individuals have a limited amount of time to create and consume creative work.
- Talent: Exceptional talent and unique creative skills would remain scarce as genetic fairness will never be at equilibrium. The best writers, filmmakers, and coders would still be in higher demand.
- Originality and novel ideas: Truly original and innovative ideas would be limited. Producing unique and impactful works becomes more difficult as time goes on.
- Creation resources: While basic needs may be met, advanced tools/environments to gain competitive creative advantage might still be limited.
- Influence: The ability to go ‘viral’ and have a great impact on culture and society will be rare.
- Recognition: As technology enables more individuals to engage in creative work, gaining recognition from one’s contributions will become more competitive.
- Emotional capacity: Creative work requires a significant emotional/psychological investment, which can be exhausting and limited. Each creator will not possess the equal emotional/psychological capacity to create.
- Reach: With increased creation, it will be difficult for creators to cut through the increased noise to reach and engage with their desired audience.
- Social capital: As individuals strive to build and maintain their reputations through quality work, the competition for trust, influence, and credibility within the community will increase, with only a select few able to attain it.
These are just a few examples, but the possibilities and paths here could be limitless. I expect many intangible scarcities to exist in perpetuity forever.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as these intangibles would drive innovation and entrepreneurial action.
However, this would inevitably lead to competition and capital markets, as individuals and organizations would seek out ways to satisfy diverse and evolving human desires to gain advantage.
This competition, and the pursuit of subjective value and entrepreneurial gain, is the one driving force many techno-utopists seek to destroy.
Although this is also the mechanism that fuels technological progress and economic activity.
Quite the conundrum.
Perhaps they assume (mistakenly) that technological progress will reach apogee in 50 to 100 years and the same mechanisms that drove us to technological sophistication will no longer be needed to continuously push humanity forward.
I digress.
This is a different topic for a different paper.
If we pivot back to the blatantly obvious new scarcities that will be created in such a world, however, most visions of post-scarcity economies and societies are based on the assumption that new technologies will make it easy to produce nearly all goods in great abundance.
Most notably, raw materials and energy.
We have the legendary sci-fi (speculative) forms of technology (e.g., molecular assemblers and nanofactories), which can manipulate and construct materials at the atomic or molecular scale to create complex structures and products.
These types of technologies would give humans the ability to automatically manufacture just about anything, provided the machine was given the correct instructions and the raw materials and energy it needs.
But before a nanofactory level of technology can be achieved, perhaps our star children will use some form of advanced industrial automation instead, which may be able to produce physical goods with a minimal amount of human labor required… although it would be much slower and less specialized.
But even with such advanced technologies we still have scarcity, because where will we get the raw materials and energy needed as input for these automated production systems?
Bear with me because we are getting into some fringe areas of physics and engineering here, but PERHAPS the required inputs could come from self-replicating automated mining plants.
Maybe we could set these loose in the asteroid belt or other areas of space.
In theory, this would lead to a significant increase in the supply of raw materials, causing prices to drop.
And while there would probably be significant disruption to existing industries, my guess is the overall long-term effect will be positive, possibly driving innovation and new economic growth through both entrepreneurial discovery and market-driven resource allocation.
And maybe (just maybe) there may be ways to do the same thing for energy, especially if it can be automated and high-powered at a super low cost.
Of course, such technologies are fun to fantasize about, but none of this stuff exists yet.
That said, if you made it this far, I have no doubt that you have a top-tier mind—perhaps you’re even a genius—so you should be able to put this all into context as a thought experiment, which is kind of fun.
But it seems that getting from point A—where we are right now—to point B—a post-scarcity utopia—is going to be a long, complicated journey.
Even if humanity does one day reach a point of near “post-scarcity”, I would imagine some things will become more abundant in some areas, while other things will become rare.
For example, there is a practical limit to the number of people who can live in any specific locale.
If an apartment building can only hold 100 people, there will be scarcity if 101 people need housing as scarcity arises when there is one more person than the available apartment spaces, leading to competition for the limited resource.
To solve this problem, you can always build more housing, but the materials required for these projects all have relative scarcities.
Let’s use Iridium as another practical example.
Iridium is one of the rarest metals on Earth—its abundance is estimated to be about 0.001 parts per million (ppm), making it one of the least abundant elements.
Its scarcity is a result of its geological rarity, difficult extraction process, high demand, limited recycling capabilities, and geopolitical constraints.
Now, let’s assume we are living on a Mars colony.
Iridium, like other platinum-group metals, is expected to exist on Mars, but its abundance and distribution are not well known.
So, we will assume that Iridium is even more rare on Mars than it is on Earth.
If we are a new colony on Mars, mining Iridium may help us accomplish: (1) generating energy (e.g., nuclear power systems, hydrogen production and fuel cells) to power the colony; and (2) exploring deeper space (e.g., Iridium has the ability to withstand high temperatures and corrosive environments making it an ideal material for re-entry heat shields, thrusters, and rockets).
Assuming we won’t have the ability to make synthetic Iridium in a lab—its scarcity will drive up its price—and that price and scarcity will inevitably drive competition, innovation, entrepreneurship, etcetera.
So, it would seem, we find ourselves back in the same situation (material scarcity) we had on Earth.
However, hypothetical technologies like the replicator from Star Trek are envisioned as being able to produce any real-world raw material or artefact, no matter how rare, and some theorists even envision the physical creation of new living space (e.g., orbitals[8] or ringworlds[9]) to reduce this scarcity.
If we are able to develop these technologies (a big if here) it would likely reduce (but not fully abolish) the value of an original artifact or raw material, specific to where it is normally found in nature.
However, as noted earlier, population growth, if it continues long enough, may also lead to unavoidable scarcity.
If the human population experiences exponential growth, this could (in theory) overwhelm any finite supply of resources, even the entire known universe, in a remarkably short amount of time.
For example, if the human population continues to grow indefinitely at its rate today in 2024 (1%), in 3,300 years the mass of the human population would equal the mass of Earth, and in about 9,500 years the mass of the human population would equal the estimated mass of the observable universe.
Here are the variables, you can crunch the numbers yourself if you think it’s bullshit:
- Starting Population (2024): Approximately 8 billion
- Growth Rate: 1.0% per year
- Average Human Mass: We assume an average human mass of 70 kg
- Mass of Earth: Approximately 5.97×10^24 kilograms
- Mass of the Observable Universe: Approximately 10^53 kilograms.
Of course, with our current technology, indefinite exponential growth is impossible because we are constrained by the physical limits imposed by natural resources and space.
And faster-than-light travel would be necessary for humanity to spread throughout the universe at the same rate as population growth.
But even slower growth rates would eventually lead to the same levels within conceivable timeframes.
So, it’s challenging to imagine a credible post-scarcity scenario that does not also require zero or very low population growth.
Will Humanity Reach Utopia?
To properly answer this, first we must begin by asking the right questions.
First, we should ask, what is a utopia?
Well, utopia is relative.
To our ancient ancestors, today would be utopia.
We no longer have to shit in the woods or bathe in the river.
We have modern plumbing, electricity + automatic heating and cooling in our homes.
We don’t have to wander around for hundreds of miles looking for food (while starving).
We don’t have to risk our lives hunting wild savage beasts to eat.
We can walk into a safe, well-organized structure and grab any food item we want, any time we want (restaurants/grocery stores).
We can also have food delivered at the push of a button (uber eats/doordash) using a magic signaling device (iphone/internet).
The availability of food and clean water (and rapid delivery technology) would be seen as incredible luxuries compared to the hardships and scarcity they faced.
We have luxury resorts in the desert, bottled water, medicine in vending machines, robots that can perform life-saving surgeries.
We can communicate with anyone in the world instantly.
We can fly in the air from point-a to point-b at hundreds of miles per hour.
We have floating science labs in the sky.
We have robots on distant planets.
Our understanding of the universe, science, and technology would seem almost magical to them.
These are all things that would blow our ancestors’ minds.
The present-day would be utopia to them.
But the present-day is not utopia for us.
The things we have today we consider very basic and normal, maybe even a bit boring.
But what would utopia look like for us?
In 1,000 years? In 10,000 years?
The nature of utopia is dynamic.
A utopian future for now will be the norm in the future.
What seems utopian to us will be the baseline for future generations.
Resources are limited, while human desires and needs are limitless, pushing everything forward into an unreachable dreamstate.
In that sense, utopia is not a fixed endpoint but a dynamic state that constantly evolves with human desires and capabilities.
It’s just an infinite feedback loop of abstraction.
And each achieved vision leads to new, more refined abstractions.
And the pursuit of said utopia is a never-ending process, driven by abstraction and the desire for improvement.
In this context, it’s reasonable to infer that our Earthbound limitations and constraints will also be the limitations and constraints of our future descendants. Whether they colonize space or not, they will simply be presented in a different form.
And they will, like us, strive to overcome these limitations and constraints through competition, incentives, innovation, and the persistent reality of scarcity.
Lastly, while I do believe certain aspects of a post-scarcity society are achievable, getting there will be difficult as significant constraints and challenges make the journey difficult.
Right now, the probability of achieving true post-scarcity is low, but not zero.
A partial post-scarcity is very possible (perhaps even in the next 50 years) but a true post-scarcity is unlikely to be fully realized in a utopian sense due to inherent economic and social complexities.
We can work towards achieving some form of post-scarcity but reaching the final stages of this low-probability outcome hinges on several key factors:
Avant-garde technological innovation (particularly in automation and AI) must rapidly improve to reduce production costs and increase resource efficiency.
Technologies such as renewable energy, 3D printing, IoT, blockchain, synthetic biology, advanced robotics, quantum computing, DAOs, and nanotechnology will also play crucial roles.
But resource constraints and centralized decision-making will make things difficult.
And while decentralized market mechanisms are likely to be more effective than central planning in addressing these issues, the inherent complexities of human action and the dispersed nature of knowledge make a fully realized post-scarcity utopia improbable (at least in our lifetimes).
Bitcoin is an interesting wildcard, however. This variable should be closely studied as we move forward.
Sure, Bitcoin does have volatility and regulatory uncertainties, but it can provide a stable store of value and it has a decentralized, inflation-resistant nature, which will be critical in the days ahead.
Plus, DeFi and ICOs help incentivize innovation and entrepreneurship, which will be essential if we want to scale up our energy and compute, which we will definitely want to do.
At the end of the day, countless possible futures lie ahead, each with its own uncertainties.
But one thing here is certain: there is an infinite game ahead in the pursuit of knowledge and scaling of the Kardashev scale.
We should be accelerating towards that infinity.
To sum up:
- Scarcity, a core economic assumption, means societies must balance human needs and desires against limited resources.
- Post-scarcity economics is a theoretical economic system where resources and goods are so abundant that scarcity and economic limitations no longer exist.
- Fundamental laws of economics are often claimed to have changed, but such claims should be viewed skeptically.
- Post-scarcity theory suggests technological advances will make some traditional economic assumptions obsolete.
- Recently, terms like “post-scarcity economics” and “economics of abundance” are gaining more popularity in technology circles.
- The term “post-scarcity” was originally discussed and popularized by Marxian anarchist Murray Bookchin.
- Abbie Hoffman later linked the term to computer technology.
- Years later, free software was connected to a post-scarcity world in Richard Stallman’s 1985 GNU Manifesto.
- Post-scarcity theorists argue that humans will eventually experience a radical shift from scarcity to self-expression, driven by new technology.
- They also argue that markets and trade will be obsolete in a post-scarcity world.
- Post-scarcity theory is largely based on the assumption that two of the main scarcity functions (the marginal costs of manufacturing and distribution) will trend to near zero due to the tech-revolution.
- The late ’90s saw similar claims about the internet altering economic rules, where many theorists wrongly contended that marginal costs were trending to zero in long tail markets of digital goods, where bits could be copied and transmitted at almost no cost at all, leading to no scarcity. But the 2000 market bust dispelled many of these notions.
- A commonly used post-scarcity example is found in Star Trek, where a 24th-century society has supposedly eliminated hunger, want, and the need for possessions.
- The show illustrates a theoretical transition from capitalism to socialism, facilitated by advanced speculative technology providing material needs.
- Scarcity is still present in the Star Trek universe, as well as self-ownership and private property, as demonstrated by conflicts with the Romulans over limited resources.
- In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Romulans, have invaded Federation space, suggesting space is apparently ownable. The Romulan and Federation outposts are also scarce and owned.
- Manu Saadia’s book, Trekonomics, suggests preparing for post-scarcity conditions by taking sci-fi seriously.
- Post-scarcity theorists argue that advanced automation will produce abundant goods and services at minimal to zero cost, effectively ending scarcity.
- Advanced technology and automation are likely to displace many jobs, but many post-scarcity theorists believe these technologies will eliminate the need to work.
- Despite technological abundance, people will still desire goods made by human hands or specific production methods or goods that are naturally rare.
- Some post-scarcity theorists advocate for government interventions to ensure a living wage when automation replaces traditional jobs, believing this will overturn current economic systems.
- Techno-utopians have claimed digitization reduces scarcity in many markets, citing Amazon and Netflix as examples, although modern outcomes show numerous flaws in the theory.
- The cost of creating digital goods, such as books, music, and movies, involves scarce talent.
- Scarcity and non-scarcity will most likely coexist, with many goods becoming less scarce and other rare goods being discovered over the years as technology improves.
- The recent economic rise of China and India cannot simply be attributed to their “abundant labor,” which they have possessed for centuries.
- Scarcity and abundance continue to coexist globally.
- It seems unlikely that countries with large populations will achieve “post-scarcity,” as a quick revisit to Malthus will confirm.
- Post-scarcity in the future will likely mean an increased abundance, not the end of scarcity.
- True post-scarcity is difficult to comprehend at this moment in time because a universe without conflict or limited resources would seemingly lack narrative interest.
- So far, scarcity appears to be fundamental to the universe, requiring unhampered markets, private property, and prices for resource allocation.
- Humans will likely always make choices about scarce resources, even if basic needs are met by technology.
- Even if their core biological needs are satisfied, human desires are still limitless, making scarcity unavoidable.
- At this point in spacetime, it is impossible to know all possible futures due to the vast complexity and unpredictability of variables at play.
- The number of possible futures is essentially infinite, as every moment, decision, and event branches into countless potential outcomes.
- As exponential technological progress grants humanity increasingly godlike power, it will create a rapidly expanding decision tree, with each advancement branching into new paths of discovery.
- No economic system, no government, no empire, or currency lasts forever; similarly, human attitudes, cultures, styles, and technology will also inevitably change over the next thousand years, we just aren’t sure how, or to what extent.
- The economics of the future will be fundamentally different from today’s, with new paradigms and structures emerging to replace our current models. What these models will look like is anyone’s guess.
- Scarcity appears to be an inevitability due to infinite human wants in a finite universe.
“A lot of people search for meaning in things that have no meaning—some actors are simply designed to create chaos.” —Jamin Thompson
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References
[1] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline, Mises Institute (2015) [2] Orwell, G. (1950). 1984. Signet Classics. [3] U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. (2022). 2021 Export Overview. [4] U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2022). American Agricultural Exports Shattered Records in 2021. [5] U.S. Department of Agriculture. “TEFAP: Availability of Foods for FY 2024.” Food and Nutrition Service, 8 Nov. 2023. [6] Bureau of Economic Analysis. “International Trade in Goods and Services.” U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), June 6, 2024, bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/international-trade-goods-and-services. Accessed 25 June 2024. [7] Mises, L. von. (2018). The Free Market and its Enemies. Andesite Press. [8] Banks, Iain M. The Culture (9 book series). Hachette Book Group, 2018. [9] Niven, Larry, et al. The Ringworld Series. Del Rey, 2018.