[T-LoW]

I'm looking forward to 2015. Imaging how cool it is to go to work with a Hover-Board and being eaten by a virtual white shark and getting brought home by hot female police officers with digital emblems on their head. Oh, and flying cars of course!

[watsisname]

So if food became free, you'd get bored of it and stop eating?

So if your shelter became free, you'd get bored of it and stop using it?

Methinks Starslayer wasn't including basic needs in his example.  Unless jewelry, sports cars, and pens that can write in zero-G are basic needs?

[karajorma]

Food and shelter can both be luxury items depending on which food and which shelter. If all food were free you'd still eat the tastiest. You wouldn't get bored and simply eat the bare minimum amount of nutrients required to keep you alive.

[StarSlayer]

Funny you should mention sex, I'd almost argue that this would go against the biological imperative.  Granted I'll admit my knowledge on the subject is layman's but if you go for the idea that we strive to succeed to ensure we reproduce and pass our genes.  If you remove the ability to achieve and stand apart from your other competition that goes against what's hard wired into your crotch.

But who says we have removed the ability to achieve? I can think of many ways you can achieve in a world where property has no monetary value.

1) Physical beauty - A good looking woman is still a good looking woman in a world without money, people will still value the way she looks. Women who aren't as beautiful will still wish they were as good looking.
2) Physical abilities - This one goes hand in hand with the above. It will be a while before we don't value a good football player or dancer.
3) Artistic ability - You might not pay for their work but that doesn't mean that you don't value the artist whose mp3s you download.

And that's just off the top of my head. The value of something becomes less due to the difficulty in producing it and more down the beauty of the item. In your example of the motorbike what would make your bike valuable is not the cost of the bike but how you riced it up.

Some people are born **** ugly.
Some people don't have a shred of athletic talent
Not many people have artistic ability.

I'd argue all three are tied to skills and attributes you are born with.

Anyone can be appreciated and respected for working hard and doing a good job.  In zero scarcity you eliminated the outlets for a lot of the population to achieve.  I'd figure the portion of the population who's skills would still be useful in a post scarcity society is less then those who can.

[Topgun]

I use linux, I love it, value it over every other OS, yet I paid nothing for it. explain.

[Bobboau]

I think Starslayer's point was you would no longer value them, you would take them for granted, like the air. and that this would be bad because you would no longer have a sense of accomplishment in the things you do, because you don't every think highly of yourself for breathing.

[StarSlayer]

I use linux, I love it, value it over every other OS, yet I paid nothing for it. explain.

Because you understand value.  You know that you would have forked out over a hundred dollars for windows.  

Listen, this isn't saying free stuff is bad.  rather if whatever mercurial want that popped into your noggin could instantly be satisfied without the least effort I don't think humanity could handle it properly.  I think it runs counter to basic human needs to find value in themselves and the things they want.  To me the entire process of gaining something is important not just the end result I think its fundamental to life.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we can all live in ivory towers and be "philosopher kings" freed from the base needs of life.  

[achtung]

Our species has dealt with scarcity through every single step of its evolution. It is surely hard-wired at this point.

Even if we create a society where all basic needs are met in abundance, we will create artificial scarcity for centuries to come.

[StarSlayer]

btw I love this topic.  Isn't it fun to have a philosophical debate on something that everyone does not have a dyed in the wool personal stake in like religion, guns or gov't?

[Sushi]

I think the more interesting question is not "would we be bored?" but "would we still be able to be well-adjusted human beings?" What happens to us psychologically if we have no need to do anything except that we feel like it?

[Topgun]

btw I love this topic.  Isn't it fun to have a philosophical debate on something that everyone does not have a dyed in the wool personal stake in like religion, guns or gov't?

yes, very refreshing.

I think the more interesting question is not "would we be bored?" but "would we still be able to be well-adjusted human beings?" What happens to us psychologically if we have no need to do anything except that we feel like it?

I don't think we can get bored, just because everything is or almost free doesn't mean it won't need to be made. And don't forget about art, science, and philosophy, we will always have those to waste our time with.

[karajorma]

btw I love this topic.  Isn't it fun to have a philosophical debate on something that everyone does not have a dyed in the wool personal stake in like religion, guns or gov't?

Why do you think I posted it? I figured this was an interesting topic that would make people think rather than simply reciting what they actually already believed.


EDIT : Got some time to answer the rest.

Some people are born **** ugly.

And how many of them simply decide to give up on any attempt at making themselves look better?

Some people don't have a shred of athletic talent

And how many of them refuse to ever play any kind of game?

Not many people have artistic ability.

And yet how many attempt to sing or dance?


Working hard is not the only way to rise above your peers. In fact it's a piss poor way to do it, the vast majority will fail. Yet you seem to believe that there is value it trying. So why should that only apply to work? Why not the examples I gave above?

[Mikes]

The list of things i want to do when i have freetime, sadly, keeps growing larger every year.

Well, let me tell you about my totally subjective viewpooint: If all i wanted to do was to earn a lot of money, then i would have gone straight into business after university.
Yet I went the teacher route - which involved quite a bit more studying before earning any money- because that is what I wanted to do. So my situation is the following: I like what i do and i also earn more than enough to get what i fancy...  

Concerning "entertainment"... money is a complete non-issue for me.

... I simply do not care, not one bit, whether a 2-hour movie costs 5 or 40 bucks.
I do not care at all whether a computer game is free or costs 50 bucks.

What i care about is having a blast in my limited freetime.
Just like i care about getting work done efficiently and properly in my worktime.

I really don't care all that much about wasting money... but there's nothing that pisses me off more than wasting time.

... and before someone brings up that notion that "time equals money" ...  you couldn't be more wrong.
That's merely the credo of the workaholic who wastes his time on nothing else but making money.


Now what would really happen if we had not to worry about basic needs and even scarcity of luxury goods anymore?
Scarcity merely shifts into scarcity of time. We only have a limited amount of time on this earth.

The diabolic side of "money" is that it acts as a "wish" multiplier. Money is "need satisfaction" in "indefinite" form.... and therefore, by definition, ... you can never have enough of it. Because you can satisfy any kind of "need" with it... be it basic, cultural, or luxury....  and by definition, "needs" are an unlimited factor, you simply can never have enough money. (Going with mainstream economic theory or rationality.)

Enter the tragedy of the successful businessman who has spent all his life working in an office accumulating Millions of Dollars... only to realize... that in the very end... he did nothing else but waste his precious time.

I don't know about you... but even - or especially rather - in a "post scarcity" environment... the list of things I want to do, would keep growing every day...  and quite some of that time would be spent working/teaching. Why? Because that's what i want to do.

[karajorma]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. If I didn't have to work I know I could find interesting things to fill my time with.

[Dilmah G]

Mikes: What you said, buddy.