/sci/ - Science & Math

A comfortable western lifestyle? Probably not.

A comfortable (not starving) lifestyle? Probably

Technology alone will probably help us solve this. I predict it wont be long before we start getting "robot cheques" (similarly to GST and tax returns) to make up for the unbalanced gain in GDP compared to loss of jobs as a result of being replaced by robots.

>>5495449
[citation needed]

>>5495411

more important question

is there anything we can do to silence the monumental fucktards who continually say that we CANT support today's comfortable western lifestyle for everyone on earth through use of technology.

seriously. its like evolution. only complete fucking retards are still having the discussion.

>>5495451
For the robot cheques? Because I dont think I'll be able to find any.

And I'm not doing the math adding up all the world's capital, fuck that.

>You were born too early to witness post scarcity economy

>>5495454
no.

there will always be a hierarchy. There has always been sufficient resource material and capital to sufficiently care for the full spectrum of humanity, but there has not been sufficient organization to meet that end. There never will be, as these resources i mentioned are fragmented and held in many different hands. There is no god and therefore no power great enough to divy up nature's bounty. What you are asking is if there will ever be a kind of universal communism that unites all people. If we were all unconscious or if we were changed on a fundamental, psychological, genetic level then it may be possible but otherwise the answer is no

>>5495465
>you were born to late to witness the industrial revolution and thus can never be 100% sure that Marx was wrong and Adam Smith was right

>>5495474
When did you last pay for your breathing air?

That's right, never. Because it's free. Why is it free? Because it's abundant.

The only way to provide luxury for everyone, is to make luxury goods pretty much free to produce. Of course, then the "slums" will be living the way we do, while the rich will be living in smart materials, surrounded by nanotech and probably immortal, but who cares?

>>5495465

Incorrect. You were born just in time to shape post-scarcity society.

>>5495498
>The only way to provide luxury for everyone, is to make luxury goods pretty much free to produce.
Even if it were free to produce. The people who have the means to do this won't because then they would be unable to sell them.

>>5495569

Get out of the 'sell them' paradigm. The people who make things would use them. And by 'make things' I mean, tell a machine to make things.

Effort could be applied to keep the means of production out of our hands, but this would not be a stable state, and it would require draconian policing to enforce.

When labour is considered as time spent by an automated system, rather than effort spent by a human being, then you can see that the whole economy would be different. Labour and capital would no longer be separate things at all, but one and the same.

Physical wealth could be measured in how many shares you have in automated systems, but this would be essentially unlimited for practical purposes. Real wealth would be measured in a reputation economy, dealing in those things that require another human to go through some trouble for you.

This is just one idea, we are the generation that will shape post-scarcity, so it really is up to us to think this stuff up.

>>5495569
lrn2economics you moron

start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law

>>5495569
lrn2econ

start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law

Excellent questions. You won't like the answers.

>>5495411
> Is there enough capital in the world for every human to live a comfortable western lifestyle?

Since energy supplies are also capital, then NO. The USA alone uses about 20% of the world's energy production, but has 4.5% of the world's population. Combining Europe and Japan, say, we have about 18% of the world's population consuming maybe 50% of it's energy production. The world would therefore need to produce 278% of current energy production. Considering much of our current energy production comes from high-quality but limited sources like petroleum, natural gas and coal, that's really fucking IMPOSSIBLE.

> Can technology and abundant resources in space help us achieve this?

Technology? NO. Technology doesn't CREATE energy. It only allows us to properly exploit sources that already exist.

Expanding into space would solve the current and projected "limit crisis", but nobody in any position of power is going to allow the investment of tens of trillions of US dollars in equivalent wealth to actually achieve a real space-faring bootstrap civilization. After all, once people leave the Earth's atmosphere, there's really no way of CONTROLLING THEM. How can you tax them? You can't. You'd have to TRUST them to undertake a massive effort on their scales to construct Solar Power Satellites (ref. O'Neill). Why the fuck would they do that?

>>5495644

Consider that solar panel technology improves at almost Moore-like speeds.

They do require rare elements that will become increasingly scarce, but they are abundant in the solar system. The drive for these to support our electronics industry will lead to, first, recycling programs, but as prices continue to climb, asteroid mining will be more and more attractive.

And once you are up there getting stuff from asteroids anyway, you might as well build the solar panels in orbit.

I think we could ratchet our way up to space-faring easily enough.

>>5495681
> I think we could ratchet our way up to space-faring easily enough.

I already told you the truth that there's essentially no economic model that allows that sizable investment to happen.

What you /sci/tizens fail to understand or acknowledge is that the elite will choose genocides every time as a means of controlling overpopulation.

>>5495644
>energy
Teehee.

>>5495716

I think your tens of trillions estimate is a little high. Like, an order of magnitude high.

For the whole space program required to give us a comprehensive, economical, and robust, space infrastructure, sure, tens of trillions. To get the first return on an investment in space infrastructure, though, would happen after only a few billion were spent. The economic conditions to make it viable will occur when we start to hit the limit of Earth's reserves of rare elements.

What you are saying, I think, is that this won't happen, because (downright awful) political considerations will take precedence over (fairly reasonable) economical ones. Pessimistic, but not altogether unrealistic. Compare Europe's seafaring history with China's, to see what can happen when political considerations are all that matters. I worry that the American space program was Zheng He, and it will take someone else to be de Gama or Columbus.

I think people overlook the effect of the diffusion of technology on this board. We're getting to the point where 30yo technology is hitting third-world nations simply because the first-world nations don't want it anymore.

Consider the effect of an explosion of technology (like we're seeing currently) in 20-30 years time. I think the third world will be catching up a lot sooner than people think. Look at China and India, and how quickly they became important on the global scale.

Equal distribution of all items globally won't cause contentment and happiness.

People are wired to emote their way through some stress, some bliss and some dissatisfaction and that is what is going to happen at all arrangements of materials.

>>5495739
> I think your tens of trillions estimate is a little high. Like, an order of magnitude high.

Keep dreaming. What's the ISS cost so far? $100 billion? That's just for a lousy space station in LEO, and it's too low an orbit for long-term use anyway.

10 ISS equivalent structures is just about the infrastructure you'd need to have in Earth orbit and Lunar orbit, including transfer craft. Price tag for that alone: $1 trillion.

A lunar base for manufacturing would be another trillion. Easily a trillion.

And add more infrastructure for asteroid mining and comet mining, the trillions just accumulate, since you have to remember you're building all this stuff at first on Earth.

So my $10 trillion estimate is really right on range. Get a real education. You've totally failed to understand the scope of the effort.

>>5495411

>Can technology and abundant resources in space help us achieve this

>Can ANYTHING help us achieve this...

No.For every human that wants to "share" resources equally there is another human that doesn't give a shit if you die.

Most people on this thread are probably doing "ok" in their lives financially but I doubt you would give up that lifestyle to help your fellow man down the road who drank and smoked his way through life his first 25 years.

>>5495779

You don't need to send a man into space to do any of this. You just need to send a probe to a near earth asteroid, and nudge it so that it goes into LEO. Then use explosive to blow chunks of it off so that they land somewhere uninhabited.

>>5495644
>Why the fuck would they do that?
Well, after we reach that limit crisis, people are going to want to survive and live well. So, evolution mechanics will kick in and people will work together in order to survive (better than those who work apart at least)

>>5495800

>>5495569
the great thing about the free economy
if someone doesn't want to build a cool recycle-bot that can make all goods and makes the economy obsolete (which is a wise business choice) some random upstart who wants a quick buck will do it anyway.

ironically, greed will make post-scarcity inevitable

the transition is going to suck though

>>5495644
ah_shit_5_star_post.jpg
thank you for posting
screen capped for future reference

We will tap out the thermodynamic limits of energy on earth long, long before we get to have any sort of post scarcity society.

I doubt we will ever reach such a stage anyways.

See here for further reading:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index/

Automation, yo.

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna5.htm

>>5495966

I think you overestimate the physical requirements of the human body.

>>5495805
This sounds fucking awesome. Are they actually considering doing it like that?

>>5495805
that's incredibly risky, since the "shit fucked up" condition is an asteroid hitting the earth
orbit around the moon though? a little less risky (but still a problem)

you could strip mine large areas using robotic miners and send the chunks down to precise impact spots on the earth, it's relatively easy to hit a square mile target on the earth. at that point you just strip mine the impact point

>>5495998

I think you underestimate the energy requirements of a modern lifestyle