Thoughts on Post-Scarcity Economy

[mightyfastpig]

List of things people will want in a post-scarcity world, with effectively limitless goods and energy, and probably some kind of functional immortality (e.g. mind backups)

• Transportation: Some things will still require people to meet face to face, and there were still be places that are more interesting than other places, so people will want to go there. Also, some things will still need to be moved around. 
• Gambling: This is a very deep rooted need in humans, and gambling without the actual possibility of significant loss or gain just isn't the same
• Custom-made things for a specific event or application. The coolness of this item drops rapidly after the event is over and the technical or artistic innovations of the item are copied or reverse-engineered by others.
• Participation in in collaborative projects. One person can write and compose an opera, and even design and make the sets and costumes, but that person will probably need other people to perform it. This can be in the sense of work (cast and crew of an opera) or play (game worlds in which player interaction is part of the experience)
• Security: Bodyguards, safe deposit boxes, etc. This implies that there are objects people want to destroy or steal, and other people want to preserve or keep.
• Violence: sabotage, assassinations, air strikes, theft, hijacking. Intimidation or actual destruction.
• Status Items: things that are artificially rare, such as limited edition items or performance awards (e.g. sports trophies), actually rare (e.g. Faberge eggs) or abstractions like titles/ranks. These will probably matter only to certain subcultures. Status items can confer tangible benefits.
• Status locations: Only so many people can practically visit Mecca or Disneyland. Again, only valuable to certain subcultures. Can be a real or virtual location (e.g. game world)

An additional angle to all of this is if some authority, with the force to back it up, has declared certain things forbidden. That creates an artificial scarcity and opens up smuggling, hidden production, concealment and other services.

Roger Caillois' theory of games said that people have four drives that they try to fulfill, separate from the needs of food, shelter, etc.

• Agon, or competition. People will challenge each other to see who is the best at whatever. That means games (and not everybody can participate in them), and awards. 
• Alea, or randomness. Gambling, in other words. Probably closely tied to agon.
• Mimesis, or imitation. Playing roles. Performing in operas, hacking through MMORPG dungeons,etc.
• Illinx, destruction of perception, or mind-altering experience. Think of roller coasters.

Games, broadly defined, are usually delimited in time and space and participation. Space delimitation means that you have to go somewhere to participate, and perhaps to watch (not necessarily a physical location). Time delimitation means you have to prepare and anticipate, and the alea factor thrives on this.

Certain locations or items will create illinx, because the "destruction of perception" is valued precisely because it is not everywhere or all of the time.

So the industries of post-scarcity: Rennaissance fairs, games, gambling and mind-altering drugs?

So, games might become incredibly important. Players gain status just through qualifying to participate, and spectators get vicarious agon, mimesis

• Teaching. In-person, or at least personalized, teaching, would still be valuable.