Quote from: o on December 10, 2011, 02:48:22 AM

The real problem needed to be solved is the situation with limited resource, but not the situation with abundance resources. Robotics and other technologies does not solve this problem.

For example, after an Earthquake, there are no food, no medcine and no doctors, someone have to die, so what do you do?

For a more realistic situation, if everyone sudden want the same stuffs, then the sharing mechanism break and we need to produce a large number of same stuff. In this sense, advertisement is devils because it creates a huge demands for the same stuff in a short time. Even more, people can change mind in a matter of minutes. Everything produced by robots in the previous minutes are wasted then. So how to solve it?

Suppose now we have technology travelling to and from Mars. But the fact that everyone go to Mars every year can consume more energy that the Earth absorb, so how would you solve the problem. Remember, in the world without money, you are restricting my freedom to move!

I always think that it is more important to change our mind and take some sacrifice. We must deal with the situation that lacking resource. Hoping that we have abundance resources is just bullshit. Hope so is the same situations that governments do nothing in "good economy" period.

It's important that I address this post. When referencing scarcity and abundance, I'm usually talking about the scarcity of products and services that people need to live on this planet. I claim that we have the capability, combined with intelligent use of our resources and moving from ownership to access, to provide enough abundance to give everyone what they need. This is entirely possible.

I have never said we have unlimited resources. One of the main reasons why our current system is so flawed, is that it's based on unsustainable thinking. To think that we can just grow endlessly and consume more and more resources is ridiculous because we have in fact scarce and very limited resources. The price mechanism and innovation can battle this problem to a certain extent but we are closer and closer to a total collapse of our civilization, mainly because of this kind of thinking.

What resource-based economy is about is using our scarce resources in an intelligent way to produce what people need in the most unwasteful and clean way possible. Make sure everyone has access to basic needs and then wants as well. The assumption that people have unlimited wants is a total fallacy. Everything people want is fed to them by the environment. Go ask an Eskimo what he wants if he could have anything he wanted, I bet he doesn't say he wants a Lamborghini.

It is not needed that we somehow find a way to produce gold plated helicopters and 10000 square foot mansions for everyone, which is clearly impossible. Anyone who actually wants something like that is absolutely corrupted. This is a challenge because there are people in the world who think that kind of bling bling lifestyle is something they need and they'll want to keep it. It's one of the many reasons why RBE is a long term project.

And one note related to the Mars mission. I imagine that even in a RBE you would need some kind of democratic decisions to be made when mankind wanted to do a mega-project of some sort. When the scarcity of resources sets a really strong limit you have to just ask people what they want to do, computers can't solve that for you.