Opinions on post-scarcity?

submitted by aa1874 from self.debatealtright

Wouldn't post-scarcity lead to the moneyless communist society, and hedonism and the like?

In a fascist/NS society, would such post-scarcity fascist/NS societies be plausible?

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[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Post scarcity is a bad phrase. After the invention of industrial farming we basically already have a semi post scarcity as far as cheap caloric energy is concerned.

Marx was right that the basic means of survival: water, shelter, food are becoming so inexpensive that we have a problem: hording of resources. That's about where I part with Marx though because I think that human nature shows we will always have scarcity even in a very advanced society because humans become dependent and entitled to their living standards. So dependent they are willing to kill for them.

So in a way I think that social Utopia will never be achieved and if it was humans would hate it and destroy it because humans naturally crave inequality, hierarchy, meritocracy, etc. This is the primary misunderstanding of human nature that marx made.

[–]kfn 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If there was truly no scarcity - of land, of mineral resources, of labor... maybe we'd have something close to a socialist utopia. At least it would be possible for it to function in theory. There's still the human element which is always prone to becoming corrupt. One thing that will always be scarce is human good will.

I think the idea of a post-scarcity world ever existing is really far fetched though. Maybe after some mass extinction event when humanity is reduced to the tens of millions but somehow manages to retain most of its technology. Or if we ever master space travel and spread throughout the universe and achieve faster than light travel. Both are pretty much science fiction stories. I don't think 8+ billion people could ever have it, it's already clear that is way too many people to live a first-world lifestyle so half the world's population lives in poverty.

So any socialist utopia on earth would have to have some population control to ensure that renewable resources are not used faster than they can be renewed, and that finite resources are able to be distributed equally or at least in a balanced way without hitting the limit.

[–]Hadzabadza 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's not exactly necessary to have FTL to reach post-scarcity for us (albeit maybe for a short period of time) as our solar system has shittons of resources already, we just need to industrialize them. But yeah, if you wanted a self-sustaining utopia on Earth (-ish, because the Sun will fry it all in about 150 million years if not faster unless something's done about it, which will require space industry anyway), we'd essentially have to return to peasant lifestyles where about 90% of the people grow their own food (compared to about 10% today).

[–]Hristo-Lukov 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Post scarcity would kill the economic right but not nationalism or social conservatism

[–]ChristianSonnenkreuz 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Post scarcity fascism is just people living among their own race and good people, away from fornicators and 3rd worlders

[–]YORAMRWWhite nationalist, eugenicist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Post-scarcity is a nice ideal to strive towards, but it could only ever work with rigorous mandatory eugenics programs in place, which I strongly support anyways.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's almost certainly not going to happen.