We may find that, if our baser needs are so easily come by that we have tremendous free time, much of the world is instead pursuing things like the sciences or arts instead of continuing to try to cosplay 20th century capitalism.
Why are we all doing this? By this, I mean, gestures at everything this? About 80% of us will say, so that we don't starve, and can then amuse ourselves however it pleases us in the meantime. 19% will say because they enjoy being impactful or some similar corporate bullshit that will elicit eyerolls. And 1% do it simply because they enjoy holding power over other people and management in the workplace provides a source of that in a semi-legal way.
So the 80% of people will adapt quite well to a post-scarcity world. 19% will require therapy. And 1% will fight tooth and nail to not have us get there.
You don't think that a post scarcity world would provide opportunities to wield power over others? People will always build heirarchy, we're wired for it.
This is something that pisses me off about anti-capitalists. They talk as if money is the most important thing and want us to all be equal with money, but they implicitly want inequality in other even more important areas like social status. Capitalism at least provides an alternative route to social status instead of just politics, making it available to more people, not less.
There are plenty of non-political routes to social status.
Ask how many of your neighbours can name three Supreme Court justices (or hell, their senators and representative) versus who can name three Khardashian sisters?
TBH, I'd hope for the end of "broad" social status. I'd love to see a retreat towards smaller circles where status is earned through displays of talent and respectable deeds, not just by dominating/manufacturing/buying a media presence.
Without the external metric of how much money you make, these will be unquantifiable and subject to political manipulation. Even the definitions of what's talent and respectable can be altered to favor the politically more powerful people. Groups without a clear measure of status find arbitrary ways to define it. Look at how school kids or prisoners do it, for instance. It's nothing like what you'd love to see.
When you find yourself getting mad at strawmen you created in your own mind, it helps to step back and read what the people you're upset at are actually saying.
When you're fighting strawmen you aren't grappling with the actual content of an argument you're purportedly opposed to, but it does serve the ego, as it's nice to tear down something you don't like but can't explain why.
It's from my experience with real people in real life. It's not a strawman. I've known people with high social status locally who wanted equality in money but didn't do anything to reduce their own social status or raise that of others. On the contrary, they sometimes maintained theirs by bullying others.
Where are the equality-wanters who want to isolate popular people from their friends and force them into relationships with people they don't like? I've never heard of that but it's the social equivalent of what communism is for money.
Somehow everyone responding seems to have completely misjudged what I said. I guess you've all been spending too much time on the internet.
I hope there's still some sciencing left we can do better than the AI because I start to lose it after playing games/watching tv/doing nothing productive for >1 week.
We may find that, if our baser needs are so easily come by that we have tremendous free time, much of the world is instead pursuing things like the sciences or arts instead of continuing to try to cosplay 20th century capitalism.
Why are we all doing this? By this, I mean, gestures at everything this? About 80% of us will say, so that we don't starve, and can then amuse ourselves however it pleases us in the meantime. 19% will say because they enjoy being impactful or some similar corporate bullshit that will elicit eyerolls. And 1% do it simply because they enjoy holding power over other people and management in the workplace provides a source of that in a semi-legal way.
So the 80% of people will adapt quite well to a post-scarcity world. 19% will require therapy. And 1% will fight tooth and nail to not have us get there.