RE: Will Money Be Missed In A Post Scarcity World?
I love your witty thought experiment.
I would like to make a parallel between money and time. As you pointed out, the fact that money is scarce is a great motivator. The same can be said for time.
Whenever we are on a strict deadline, we work harder. If we had indefinitely long lives, I don't know how motivated we would be to accomplish anything.
I guess that competition and prestige would become the biggest motivators and innovation boosters. People would still compete who will be the most famous, the most esteemed, the first to discover.
As per me, in this post-scarcity world I would first start doing all the things that are currently unavailable to me due to non-infinite resources. I would travel the world, taste many different cuisines, go to sea depths, go into the space, ride a camel in a desert, play with chimps in a jungle, swim with dauphins in a sea. Than I would probably go back to mostly dancing Tango.
Cheers! : )
As ever, your comments are sparking more musings within me! I like the fact that you drew the parallel between money and time. Indefinite time and no basic needs will most likely have a very similar effect on society, it's interesting to wonder whether we'll be motivated to do anything anymore.
After all fame is linked to fortune, I've never met anyone who just wanted to be famous and remain poor. Also in a world where we can upload a physics PHD directly into our brains, will discoveries be seen in a new light...?
I think we'll all be dancing Tango in our own ways, hedonism will likely become the driving motivator for human life.
Hmm, more musings coming on methinks!
Cheers to you too! :-)
Cg
An interesting thought! Maybe in that world, we will also be able to upload into our brains an AI that makes discoveries.
This also expands on your articles about AIs and humans - we might not be too inferior to "independent" AIs if we can also boost our brains with "nonindependent" AIs.
Looking forward to more musings! : )