Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krensky" data-source="post: 5595274" data-attributes="member: 30936">Because a cornucopia machine needs input. A realistic form needs the molecules or elements. A magic form needs matter. Both need power. Both also need more of both then they output, even if only by a little bit. Even if those are functionally non-concerns, prioritizing the distribution of it may well be.The most plausible form of post scarcity economy (that isn't a market or planned economy exploiting 'free' energy and automated manufacturing) is a reputation based gift economy. If you sit at home and do nothing and interact with nobody, you have no reputation, no social capital, no Whuffie, etc. You can only rely on whatever the bare minimum society has decided will be available. Now, from our perspective, that might well be unimaginable luxury. However, poverty in the G8 may well look luxurious to people from a developing world heckhole. It certainly would to some one in 1511. No matter how good that bare minimum point is to us, it will be poverty in the society it exists in and undesirable.Various cultures have practiced senilicide, invalidicide, and infanticide. (You forgot the kids. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />) Typically ones in harsh environments in desperate circumstances. The thing is, both those conditions have a certain measure of subjectivity to them. There's strong evidence that a certain amount of non-productivity by typical standards is good for society as a whole and results in the entire society being more productive both collectively and individually. It's a bit like red wine though, a little helps, a lot drags it all down.It is also extremely likely in a post scarcity economy for things to go really bad, really fast as more and more people would would tragically die from lack of access to food, shelter, or medical care don't. Fortunately humanity seems to have some sort of limit or fertility or mating behavior that causes birthrates to drop as standard of living rises.Unrelated to the topic at hand though. People with those tendencies will tend to kill themselves in a post scarcity economy.And they live in isolated poverty because no one wants to associate with them. No one will do them any favors. The won't have any priority for the mass/energy distribution system. They may well find themselves the target of do-gooders looking to rehabilitate them.Basically, they're the post scarcity equivalent to the habitually homeless.However you say it does.Zero Point Energy is the lowest possible energy level of a system. Due to quantum uncertainty it is never zero. Schemes to use it rely on taking energy out of a system at it's zero point and hoping that the universe will replace it somehow so the laws of thermodynamics aren't splattered all over the room.In science fiction it's really just a modern form handwave for free, unlimited, more or less consequentless energy.</blockquote>

Verification