Yesterday, I started writing about post-scarcity economics as they appear in Star Trek.  The medium is a sort of socratic exercise good-naturedly carried out with a fellow Star Trek fan on a popular Star Trek Facebook group.  The names have been redacted to protect the innocent and many of the comments altered and combined with others I’ve seen to create an ur-text for this kind of discussion.  Part one of this strange thought experiment can be found here.

ANONYMOUS: YOU HAVE GOOD EXPLANATION FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE, I GUESS, BUT DOESN’T IT ALL STRIKE YOU AS FAINTLY RIDICULOUS?

Oh, yeah.  It’s optimistic as hell.  But if you ask me, Star Trek does present a decent if pollyannaish model for how human society will have to start working.  Because the alternative is too awful to allow.  Automation is effectively already a post-scarcity technology in that it will erode the relationship between value and human labor.  In that sense, you only have two choices: one, a society in which money holds less sway over our lives than it does currently, or two, a society in which the mechanisms of value generation are almost entirely in the hands of a select few.

ANONYMOUS: I THINK WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN REALITY — IF ALL RESOURCES WERE MADE INFINITELY AVAILABLE AT ZERO COST — IS THAT HUMANS WOULD IMMEDIATELY OVER-INDULGE IN ALL ASPECTS OF OUR LIVES, LIKE THE FAT AND MECHANICALLY-INFANTILIZED CREW MEMBERS IN WALL-E.

Me: Well, it’s certainly possible.  I honestly don’t think it’s a scenario you have to put too much worry into, though.  Most people enjoy working more than they enjoy hedonism.  People want to feel like their lives have meaning.  The meeting of their physical needs would do nothing to satiate their curiosity or ambition — any of their higher-order functions.

I do, however, believe turning up the dial on automation and scarcity reduction carries with it substantial existential risks for humanity (and that those risks are closer than we think), I would just disagree about what those risks are.  Regardless, I’m trying to be an optimist and plan for the worst, while hoping for the best.  I like to believe humans usually arrive at the best versions of themselves — or at least better versions than we used to be, even if it means a lot of pain and struggle in the interim.

ANONYMOUS: “MANY PEOPLE ENJOY WORKING MORE THAN THEY ENJOY HEDONISM AND MOST PEOPLE WANT THE FEELING THAT THEIR LIFE HAS MEANING.”  WHAT YOU’RE SAYING HERE DOES NOT MATCH UP WITH WHAT I’VE SEEN OUT IN THE WORLD!

Me: Then look again!  Try to keep in mind that post-scarcity doesn’t happen all at once.  Even in Star Trek, replicators don’t just spring into being over night.  The original series didn’t even have replicators.  And yet they still talked about themselves as having the values of a post-scarcity society.  As human technology increases, the need for human labor decreases (see: The Jetsons).  This is the rule of automation, going all the way back to Henry Ford and the assembly line.  (Unfortunately, while Ford decreased the work week, benefitting workers as a whole, capitalism in general has no incentive to share these gains.)  Still, while the general trend will be one of displacement and unrest, it’s not like people will find themselves with infinite peace and free time over night.  In fact, there will most likely be a long and gradual period of social and cultural realignment that will probably be quite violent.  (See: 2024 and Sisko’s experiences with makeshift ghettos for the unemployed and mentally ill.)

I mean, dude.  Think about it.  Some people work for charity organizations.  Some become teachers, even though it doesn’t pay well.  Scientists and astronauts do not receive comparatively high rewards, either in terms of money or prestige and yet competition for those positions is fierce.  I myself am a writer and I can promise you, even if you gave me all the money in the world, I wouldn’t stop writing. I might change how I worked — take more time with projects, work on things that meant more to me personally.  And none of that would be a bad thing, necessarily.

And that’s the point.  Look at how many people hate their jobs or the way they work, but are forced to continue by circumstance.  Viewing it from the outside, I can see how you’d think those people would rather stay home.  But what if they could pursue the work they wanted, without fear of ending up homeless or hungry or dead?  Look at how many people get depressed or angry on workers comp. or unemployment.

I’m not saying everyone.  There are undoubtedly some people who just want to relax and enjoy their time with friends and family.  And that’s okay.  But I think if you really think about it, it’s pretty far from the majority.  People like to feel useful — they want to feel like their lives have meaning.  The real challenge comes when half or more people are put out of work.  What happens then?  You either manage to shift the culture, in regards to the American puritanical view that your work is equal to your value, or you’re going to have a big problem on your hands.

ANONYMOUS: MAYBE.  BUT DON’T FALL INTO ANY NAIVE OPTIMISM ON HUMANITY’S ACCOUNT — I THINK YOU’D BE MAKING A MISTAKE.

Oh, I completely agree with you.  Look, there are tremendous existential risks in what we’re talking about.  But I think what you have to worry about far more than a lazy, self-indulgent populace leading to the destruction of our culture, is the scenario in which Elon Musk and the Koch Bros. own all the replicators and the public owns none.  (In this case, just think of replicators as a metaphor for hyper-automation to see just how quickly things could go wrong.  That’s when future human society either gets really bad, really violent, or both.)

Oh, and one more thing that’s maybe relevant to your point: I would argue a reduction in scarcity norms and an increase in automation are inevitable.  Some might disagree on the time frame it will take to reach crisis point, but I think it’s reasonable to assume we’re close.  So whether we agree or disagree on what the risks might be, we should all be talking about it.  And not as some bit of far-off science-fiction.  But a problem we’ll be seriously facing in our lifetimes!

And there you have it.  My weird-ass politics laid out in the context of my weird-ass fandom — feel free to keep it coming on those naming ideas.  I’m going to need to call myself something.  (Or maybe I’ll just show people this blog post whenever they ask about my politics.  That’ll send them running away screaming.)

Here’s a picture of Spock with a cat.

IN KEEPING WITH YESTERDAY’S THOUGHTS:

Sometimes, I get into arguments on the internet.  The below is hopefully more of a debate, presented more or less as it took place on a popular Star Trek facebook group. It began — as all arguments do — with a Picard meme.  Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a huge Star Trek fan.  And while the Star Trek franchise is undoubtedly a weird way to engage with such a serious subject, it’s one I’ve found helpful in crystalizing my thinking on post-scarcity social order.

Some of this is definitely based in the esoterica of the franchise, but my feeling is it transcends it enough to be worthwhile in its ideas about post-scarcity as a concept.  My thinking here is influenced by “The Four Futures: Life After Capitalism” by Peter Frase, “Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek” by Manu Saadia and my friend Jackson Lanzing, who used to spend hours with me, late into the night, debating the merits of future economic systems.  Offered for those who would like a sense of the current state of my weird-ass politics — obviously not a complete survey, but it does paint a picture of my current obsessions, both technological and otherwise.

The names have been redacted to protect the innocent and the text altered enough that I can hopefully repost it here without anything particularly identifiable making it through.

ANONYMOUS: I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE THAT HUMANITY WOULD DO AWAY WITH CURRENCY OR AT LEAST SOME MEANS TO “PAY” FOR A RESOURCE (E.G., TRADE).  RESOURCE COMPETITION IS INHERENT IN ALL FORMS OF LIFE.  TO ASSUME  HUMANS COULD SUDDENLY CUT THAT INSTINCT LOOSE, EVEN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A DEVASTATING WAR OR FIRST CONTACT SCENARIO, SEEMS (TO QUOTE EVERYONE’S FAVORITE POINTY-EARED VULCAN) “ILLOGICAL.”

Me: Why would you pay for a thing that is infinite?  Why charge for it when all of your needs are met?

ANONYMOUS: IT’S JUST HUMAN NATURE.

Me: Is it, though?  There are plenty of instinctual behaviors that society has managed to reign in through a combination of technology and social institutions.  You might want to kill or steal, but you wouldn’t.  (Or at least most people wouldn’t, if put in your position.)  That’s because your survival threats are minimized and your social thriving  is contingent on “playing ball” from a social perspective.  There’s no reason to believe we couldn’t max out our pro-social behaviors from the standpoint of resource competition, especially if we had access to post-scarcity tech.

(For more on this, look at Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined” — largely speaking, brutish human impulse has been on the down slope for most of our history, precisely because of our technological development.)

ANONYMOUS: IN BIOLOGY, THERE IS SOMETHING CALLED A “LIMITING RESOURCE.”  THERE IS ALWAYS ONE OR MULTIPLE RESOURCES THAT ARE IN DEMAND IN ANY BIOME OR SOCIAL ORDER.  SO, IF ENERGY IS PLENTIFUL AND REPLICATORS CAN MAKE ANYTHING HUMANS MIGHT NEED, THE NEXT QUESTION IS HOW EFFICIENT ARE REPLICATORS — WHAT DO THEY NEED TO WORK?

Me: I mean, as insane as it might seem, this is made very clear by the cannon: there are no limiting resources.  Or, your limiting resources are so sufficiently minimized that they might as well not exist.  This is not dissimilar to the real world.  If a thing is so cheap that it is effectively free, it is usually given freely, even if there is a fractional cost.  In a society where all limiting resources are thus so infinitesimally small, it is not hard to imagine that there could be no benefit in resource hoarding and exploitation and a huge social cost inclining one against it.  Greed and self-interest do not disappear, but end up channeled into more productive ends.

Star Trek has made much — by implication and outright explanation — of what they call the “reputational economy.”  Essentially, greed and the profit motive are channeled into increasing one’s reputation, instead of accruing wealth.  This isn’t that different from how modern humans function.  Our pursuit of money, after certain survival needs are taken care of, is usually a pursuit of prestige.  But there are all kinds of examples of prestige seeking that aren’t related to money.  On a college campus, prestige might go to the smartest student or the best athlete.  On the internet, it might go to the person with the most views.  Ask any social psychologist and they’ll tell you as much.

The Federation, at least as it’s explained to us by the characters on the shows, simply seems to be a society in which the relationship between social value and prestige seeking is in perfect balance.  I.E, the things that make you famous and increase your social standing are actually the things that benefit your society.  It is an economy of a sort (because competition is an inescapable part of human nature), but one that does not require money, especially as a prerequisite for survival.

ANONYMOUS: I’VE HEARD THIS ARGUMENT BEFORE.  YOU’RE A MARXIST — YOU THINK CURRENCY IS A MODERN INVENTION WITH NO INSTINCTUAL BASIS.

Me: Not quite!  Admittedly, I’m not any kind of a Marxist scholar, so it’s possible I might misunderstand their position, but I think where I get off the train with them is I don’t believe capitalism is inherently evil.  At least no more than monarchy, feudalism, or nationalism.  These things are social technologies that carried us from one stage of social organization to the next.  They are, of course, brutal and ugly in retrospect and as modern humans, we rightly reject many of their core tenants.  But they were the best tech available at the time.  (I would say the same thing about religion, by the way and I think most Star Trek would back me up on that, but many would probably disagree.)  I see currency the same way — it was a very helpful method of social organization, if one that helped a great many people while hurting a great many others.  But it’s fast outpacing its usefulness by any metric.

As for having an instinctual basis, I imagine it does, or we wouldn’t have arrived at it — but there’s probably something I don’t understand here?

I’m doing more than just answering your question now, but in Star Trek, we’re right about at the point where poor people are getting thrown into camps and the world spins off into global conflict.  I think that makes sense.  The end point of automation is either abundance and hierarchy (i.e., neofedualism) or abundance and egalitarianism.  There is no middle ground.  Continuing to cling to capitalism will only guarantee an existential crisis for our social institutions, and human survival generally.  Best to start thinking about this stuff now — while we still have time.

ANONYMOUS: BUT STAR TREK IS FICTION.  IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO PROVIDE A WORKING MODEL FOR HOW SOCIETY COULD FUNCTION.

Me: Fiction like cell phones were fiction before engineers who grew up watching TOS invented them in the 1980s?  I don’t mean to be flip — I agree with you.  But I genuinely believe fiction has a place in our discussion of what we would like the future to look like.  Of course Star Trek doesn’t offer a meaningful blueprint.  But it does offer an end point — a north star to guide our thinking.  Even if we wouldn’t want it to look exactly like that, it’s at least a starting point for the conversation.

I’d argue there’s actually something brilliant about how Star Trek handles its technology, both social and otherwise.  It’s kind of unique in science fiction for presenting a universe that  purportedly adheres to the tenants of known scientific principles, but deliberately avoids explaining how things work.  At least on the show itself, the audience had no idea how a communicator worked, or a warp drive — it was enough to know that they did.  And then an engineer who watched the show thought, “Hey, that’s cool!  Let’s make something like that!”  Or, “We already have this idea for this other thing.  What if it worked more like Kirk’s communicator?”

The influence of Star Trek on the STEM fields is undeniable.  With the rise of automation and post-scarcity problems, I’d love to see more economists and sociologists take up the challenge in the same way many scientists and engineers did.  Most of us would agree Star Trek holds at least some of the elements of an ideal future — regardless of how achievable they may or may not be — so how do we get from here to there?

I’m staying a bit from your point, but let me offer one more thing in response: I think the above is exactly how the writers intended it to work.  Sure, Star Trek was never meant to provide a true blueprint for future society.  But neither was it meant to be a bit of escapist fantasy, in which we didn’t consider the larger ideas being presented.  Their goal was to get us to look at the modern world and figure out how to build a better, kinder, and more compassionate version of it.  It would be a shame to just ignore that.

That’s it for now.  More tomorrow.

I’m often at a loss to describe my politics.  I used to refer to myself as a Social Democrat and a Capitalist, but that was just a way to make my views more palatable and ensure they went down easy in a crowd — I was a Socialist and afraid to admit it.  Since then, my views on capitalism and currency have grown more complex.  The term “Socialist” doesn’t fit the bill because there’s a technological and predictive dimension to my politics.  I don’t hate capitalism — I just see it as a failed social technology; or, at least, tech that is rapidly outliving its usefulness.

A friend of mine suggested “Futurist” for this viewpoint, but a) that word has come to mean something entirely different, re: a hobby or occupation, and b) it sounds pretty douchey.  It all sounds douchey, to be honest — far flung speculation about what the future might look like when real people are suffering in the present.  If there’s a paramount rule of science-fiction, it’s that humans are terrible at predicting what the future is going to look like and science-fiction writers more terrible than most.

But we’re good at telling you what we’re afraid of — and the things we’re afraid of can’t help but shape our politics.

Mine have mostly to do with post-scarcity and automation.  I think the gradual dissolution of capitalism is the goal.  I think a suite of social programs are needed to combat the rise of a robotic labor force: free healthcare, free housing, Universal Basic Income (or some equivalent workaround).  I think post-scarcity is closer than we think and maybe it’s already here.  (To a Victorian, we’re already post-scarcity with our abundant food and efficient distribution networks.)  I think ignoring these ideas will ensure the destruction of our social institutions and way of life.

What the hell do you call that… ?  Pre-post scarcity-ism?

Suggestions welcome.