Is post-scarcity possible?

Primitivists pls go.

Also your paper does not refute the ECP, but merely suggests that it is possible to solve it.

People do tend to pose this problem in a binary way however. Either we have a complete free market or one in which the Elder Brain sets all prices. I see no reason why some form of decentralized exchange cannot be combined with a board of directors managing the bigger stuff.

Would you like to pose an actual refutation of my argument some time today? Would you rather have a future of iPhones and no free time or a future with only radio but as much free time as the day can handle?

Can we shitpost on leftypol and have as much free time as possible?

It really depends on how much you and the community that maintains the internet love shitposting. Do you have a need for shitposting? Can you convince people with the talent to run the internet that shitposting is an essential need of the community?

What about resource depletion? Can you run your computers without African/Chinese slave labor mining the rare earths for your hardware? And energy? None of these questions are relevant if this civilization falls into an energy trap. Do you think industrial civilization will be able to extract more energy than it consumes during said extraction in the future?

The part where you assert that markets are compatible with communism, the part where you make baseless claims about economic calculation or your claim that we'll be so staved of energy that we won't even be able to have internet?

If we regress to a lower level of technological progress we won't have much free time regardless of how we organise society, and we would lose many of the things that could, in the right social context, serve to free us from work.
If it came down to a choice between your shitty reactionary ideal and capitalism I'd choose fucking capitalism: at least in a our present society I can get decent medical care. Thankfully I'm pretty sure real communism is possible and we won't be stuck having to choose between the pointless makework of modern capitalism or having to spend our days dragging a plow around in a field.

This retarded meme needs to die. You don't need fucking backwards third world labour for mining, even today there exist high tech mines in advanced countries, and much of the work could be automated if we weren't constrained by the law of value (some of it already is).

Go back to revleft you inane idiot.

Post-scarcity != infinite resources.

Post-scarcity means that there is enough resources for a given population to have surplus resources after taking as much as they themselves deem "enough".

I said post scarcity, not communism. Learn to read.

Which part? Is it the part where I pointed out that the paper did not actually provide a solution beyond

Of course you never actually provide a refutation either, so I am not sure where you get your attitude.

This is not a claim. This is a fact, since

a) it is not "just" the internet, but the miles of infrastructure needed to maintain it.

b) renewables are not growing at the rate needed to replace fossil fuels in the future.

c) It is actually impossible to convert entirely to renewables at our level of energy consumption without nuclear. Notice how I did not leave out nuclear in my original post.

>spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

This is bullshit and shows how little reading comprehension you have. I specifically made a distinction between "wasteful" technology and technology that helps us increase our productive capacity and thereby increase our free time.

I did not say that things like the Haber process, combine harvesters, or other labor saving technologies had to go. Quite the opposite. Do your self a favor next time and read the post.

I do not think choosing more efficient technology over wasteful but "newer" technology is reactionary. Is it truly reactionary to be blindly opposed to possible solutions just because they worked in the past? Is it reactionary to want to ride a bike to work instead of driving a Tesla, even though riding a bike is clearly the more resource and energy efficient of the two?

But you see, the only reason your phones are so cheap is because of slave labor. What will happen if you decide to implement your advanced mines? Costs will naturally go up, since the only reason they were not implemented before is because they were more expensive. Therefore your assessment of the productive capacity of society and the amount of labor that can be freed up is wrong. Note how I did not say that it is impossible to reduce labor, only that we need to recalculate what is really possible in society.

All in all, you really should grow up and learn how to read other peoples posts. Instead of being so triggered that I disagreed with you and constructing ridiculous strawmen in your blind rage, perhaps you should put yourself above most leftists for a change.

Not currently, but when Marx was still writing the idea of instant global communication and six-hour transcontinental travel was whimsical nonsense. The logistical problems of socialism that plagued the early/mid 20th century literally do not exist anymore because we can track everything in real time without infringing on privacy.

This is nonsense. How does merely tracking everything translate into resolving supply and demand everywhere? Better yet, where is this "not violating privacy" thing of yours?Furthermore, how does centralizing economic decisions in computers that only a select few know how to operate translate into a stateless, classless society?

Pets kept by humans already live in a post-scarcity world. They have all their needs provided for by largely benevolent gods. Once we build our own benevolent gods then a similar relationship will emerge.

They're probably correct that scarcity will always exist for the most advanced species, but humans won't be the most advanced species for more than a few hundred more years at most. The AIs might be worrying about how to get the resources to build a Dyson Sphere, but the average human will have everything they could ever want.

You're right, we shouldn't use computers for communism because some people don't understand them.
Big colored blocks with numbers on them are the only fair way to run a stateless, classless society.

Because it replaces implicit demands made by a changing market.

Now you're just butthurting for no reason.

I don't know, dipshit, how do farming machines that only a select few number of people know how to operate translate into more efficient food production?

You have not proven this is possible or even theoretically sound.

No, I am serious. Where is the privacy in a world where the NSA has its fingers in everyone's pie (including ours)? It seems you are the one "butthurting" for no reason.

Non sequitur. Skilled machinery is not antithetical to increasing production. No where did I make that claim. Centralizing knowledge and resources however does centralize power, since the few who understand how it all works can leverage that advantage against everybody else in society. Learn to answer the question next time.

Reductio ad absurdum is not an argument. If you or the other posters could actually provide feasible and concrete examples of these algorithms and had a serious discussion on their abilities and limits, then we would be getting somewhere. If you could also explain how running the entire world like the stock exchange is a good idea, then please make your case. Or perhaps you could actually respond to my point with something other than butthurt and explain how taking economic agency away from the individual and entrusting it to a machine will actually result in more individual freedom. Could you even write a paragraph at least?

So your ideal world is a world in which humans are coddled and treated like pets by machine overlords? I thought the slogan was "no gods, no masters", not "good gods and masters."

Also (like everybody else in this thread), you have not shown that such a future is possible but simply assumed it, even though the point of the thread is to discuss what is possible. How would you address the issues of climate change, resource depletion, energy depletion, the renewables question, and economic complexity?

You think any of those are such hard problems that we could never solve them?

Our solar system alone contains plenty of resources to see us through the foreseeable future. We already have the technology to extract most of those resources. The only reason we aren't doing it already is because it's cheaper to get them on Earth. The same is true of Energy. The Sun emits more energy every second than the humans on a million Earths would consume in a year.

Climate change and renewables are already solved. We have the technology. In fact we've had it for decades. Literally the only thing standing in our way is government's unwillingness to allocate the necessary resources to the problem.

Economic complexity is the most interesting problem you mention because it's actually non-trivial. That said, we don't need to perfectly solve it (in the mathematical sense) to eliminate scarcity. As long as we can make sure everyone gets enough food, water, clothing, living space, energy, and other basic necessities we've already dealt with 99% of the scarcity people experience in their everyday lives. That problem really is trivial. We know how much of those things someone needs to live comfortably, so it really just reduces to a problem of taking a census and distributing goods. I have no doubt that the production and distribution of luxuries could also be centrally managed in a near-optimal way by allowing people to tell the central planning computer what sort of things they each want, but that's not really necessary for most definitions of post-scarcity. Once people have their basic needs met they'll have plenty of time to figure out the details of how to produce and distribute luxuries.

Anyway, I'm not really sure why I bothered typing this because it's clear you're a troll who constantly shifts the burden of proof to other people. It takes far less effort to list a bunch of problems than it does to provide satisfactory proof that they can be solved, and you can always just dishonestly assert that the proof given isn't sufficient.

What you said was:
Which seem to imply you think we can mix the two. In any case, we're discussing "post-scarcity" in the context of communism in this thread, so it was fair to assume you were doing the same.

The internet is hardly a wasteful technology, being to instantly transfer large amounts of information anywhere in the world, circumventing the need for the movement of information in a physical medium, frees up a massive amount of labour. It's also almost certainly necessary for accurate economic calculation.

The reason more advanced mines haven't been implemented is because of an abundance of cheap labour, mainly due to the suppression of wages in the third world. Due to the effect the rising organic composition of capital has on the rate of profit, capitalists only implement labour saving technology if they can a) undercut competition and b) they can't depress wages or outsource somewhere cheaper. The result of this is that markets have a bias towards labour intensive production even if it would be more efficient (in terms of concrete labour time) to produce things through automation.
Monetary efficiency != labour efficiency

A lot of the shit we're doing that's the most wasteful and resource-hogging is because capitalists profit from it though.

the fuck are you talking about?
we're way behind that since ages ago
imperialist reality is massive destruction of productive forces and resources of all kinds for artificial market manipulation

you don't need to produce shit in some fancy sci-fi way and have everything without limitation but rather comfortable surplus to get "post-scarcity"

I did not imply. I said it outright. In a post scarcity society, I see no reason why we cannot mix decentralized exchange with a centralized plan. Jamie and Milly exchanging marbles is decentralized exchange. You raking your neighbors lawn for some pies is decentralized exchange. Unless you want some trade Stasi running around preventing these exchanges everywhere, then decentralized exchange will be with us forever.

And my points are not specific to communism, as these hard material limits are something you will have to deal with regardless of your society.

Efficient for what? Transmitting porn and video games? The vast majority of the internet is not used for productive purposes at all.

The labor efficiency is debatable, but it is unquestionably energy inefficient. Which is what I was focused on in my earlier posts.

Once again, I must reiterate that I am not against computers per say. However, they are not the magic bullet to all our problems.

Monetary efficiency != labour efficiency

You completely ignored the cost of the constant capital in your analysis. High tech mines require more machinery, which is merely congealed human labor. Therefore, it does not always follow implementing the machinery will make the labor efficiency increase, as you must spend more labor outside the actual mine to achieve a drop in labor usage within the mine.

It is this shortsighted mindset that allows you to assert that the internet is efficient in the first place. It is also the magical thinking involved behind proponents of replacing all our cars with electric cars. A gain in efficiency in the actual commodity is offset by increases in labor and energy consumption in the production of both the actual commodity and the constant capital put into it.

Did I dispute this? On the contrary, you should read my first post to see that I made exactly this point. But the capitalists engaging in inefficient and wasteful practices does not magically let us off the hook.

I assume you are talking about asteroid mining here. Show me the proof that asteroid mining is viable. Better yet, show me the proof that it will be more efficient then us reverting to a 1950's level lifestyle. Show me that it is more efficient then us dropping the wasteful technology I outlined in my first post.

Did you not read the paper I linked on solar energy? It does not matter the least if the sun radiates all that energy if we do not have the ability to convert it to useful forms.

You talk about this like it were some trifle. But in fact it is just as important to our analysis. For instance, rising energy prices will create REAL political instability, which will make your super technological solutions impossible. Reducing energy consumption by eschewing unproductive technologies while funneling the remaining energy into productive technologies
does not require new research or complexity beyond what we already have.

Is it more efficient to devise a new weight loss pill, or switch to a healthier diet? Technofetishists believe the first one. Reasonable people believe the second.

I actually do not disagree with you here. My original point was that it would be more efficient to manage the production of luxuries if we don't need most of them, and that this was one possible solution to the ECP.

Yes. Everybody who asks for proof is a troll. Clearly we should believe in your magical AI that will manage production despite none existing. Clearly we should believe that CYBERSIN is proof that the ECP is solvable in such a manner, despite it being from decades ago (and seldom discussed on the technical level despite the amount of faith people like you put into it). Clearly we should just take your word that renewables will eventually be viable (despite me linking the paper that proved otherwise). Clearly we should put our faith in ever more complex technology when we have a solution that does not require any new technology on our hands.

If you would notice, I am the only one in this thread who actually provided evidence of my position. So I am truly perplexed why you think I am shifting the burden of proof to you. As anybody can see, you haven't actually provided a shred of proof for your position, implying that these technologies are something I should be familiar with. You are a hypocrite, for you accuse me of shifting the burden of proof while you do the very same thing.Come on now!

Your entire post has nothing to do with the question of whether post-scarcity will ever be possible. It answers the much narrower question of whether post-scarcity is politically and economically viable within the next few decades. If you want to argue about the answer to that question, go and find someone who cares. I don't like to waste time thinking about precisely how inefficient and misguided most human policy-making institutions are.

The fact is, the abolition of scarcity is a goal we could achieve in the future if we got our collective shit together and stopped fucking ourselves over with things like "political instability".

Cool. So the following decades where we will experience climate change, resource depletion, decaying infrastructure, a possible world war(s) and other events will NOT be decisive in determining whether a post scarcity society is possible or not.

Fact: Humanity has gotten much closer to destroying itself in the past century than it has ever been before.
Fact: We still have nukes and ideological instability.
Fact: We will have to contend with these issues for these next few decades.

THEREFORE, one cannot simply remove the next few decades from an analysis of post scarcity like you if one wants post scarcity to be taken seriously as an actual achievable goal to move towards. People who are actually interested in achieving a post scarcity society from the REAL world instead of the imaginary world will find the role of the next few decades and the hard limits/challenges I listed out essential to the discussion.

Fact is, it is you why should find another thread. There are countless threads/blogs/safe spaces on the internet where you can dream about how humanity magically erases political instability and resource limits without actually discussing how that will happen. You are perfectly free to theorize a world in which the most decisive decades of the 21st century are of no consequence to your dream of FALC. Go right on ahead please. Run away from an actual discussion.

And up until now, you were able to ignore the alleged fact that my posts were about

Only now do you see it fit to run away, which obviously means that you have no ability to address your

a) hypocrisy
b) refusal to provide evidence
c) lack of evidence

Nice job!

something confuses me about that first pic. if you threw a ball in their as far as you could would it go farther than normal or shorter than normal?

Litterally lange model.

And i approve.

Yes, but anyclaps think its impossible because they thing that people have infinite needs, which is of course physically impossible due to the nature of the universe, you only have so much time and so much neuron to have needs with.

It is possible to produce enough of everything to satisfy human need.

If we use science efficiently, yes.

being closer to the center of a spinning wheel reduces the amount of outward force you'd feel

It doesn't take many neurons to say "I want my own galaxy".

Exchange implies private ownership. In a communist society everything is held in common and distributed for free. You could "exchange" things you already possess, but that isn't really the same thing as economic exchange.

The production of the machines necessary to automate mining would be increasingly automated as well. This would almost certainly require an initial increase in concrete labour time as such factories are constructed but would decline as routine production is done by the machines. I don't know why you're assuming increasing automation across all industry would result in a net increase of concrete labour time required, when this isn't true even under capitalism. Despite the abundance of third world "slave labour" (as you put it) many manufacturing businesses are still going ahead with automation: sometimes to the point of "lights out manufacturing", where very few workers are actually required on the factory floor itself. In spite of the greatly depressed wages in china, corporations like foxconn are replacing massive chunks of their workforce with machines. Even with workers working for two dollars a fucking hour it is still cheaper for them to replace the workers with machines.

Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots':
bbc.com/news/technology-36376966