RE: Will Money Be Missed In A Post Scarcity World?
Your thought experiment is interesting (as they always are) but it is based upon a premise, that there will ever be time without money. I find this highly unlikely.
Money is an "intermediate unit of exchange." But it is a unit of exchange that is based upon labor. If you have no labor ... you have no currency. Gold, for example, does not derive its value from its unique arrangement of protons, neutrons and electrons, but rather from the astonishing amount of work that it takes to find it, mine it and refine it. If it were just lying around everywhere, it would be worth little to anyone.
Of course, that brings up the whole debate about strong-AI and robots making humans economically obsolete, which we've already discussed, so I won't belabor the point further.
One of the problems with so many future-focused thought experiments is that they're done in isolation, i.e., they consider only science, technology, biology, psychology, economics, etc. ... individually. And, this would seem like good practice as it adheres to the scientific method ... only change one independent variable at a time.
The problem is that economies are highly complex with hundreds of inter-connecting variables, and considering one variable independently, in isolation from the rest, is simply unrealistic.
Your analogy about the rat experiment is also interesting but, I would respectfully argue, incomplete. Yes, the rats will press a lever wired up to trigger dopamine release in their brains, instead of a lever that delivers food, and thereby starve themselves to death.
But this is cheating, no?
Normally, eating food stimulates dopamine (reward). All the experimenters did was give the rats an artificial method of delivering a higher dose of dopamine. In essence, rats aren't motivated to eat food for foods sake, ... they eat food because it gets them dopamine.
While we can program and re-program computers at will, human beings are a different story. Science is not within a million miles of being able to rewire the primary motivators of the human brain ... one of which is Self-Interest.
I discuss some this and more in an article, "Entitled: Killing Off Cryptogee's Fantasy Girlfriend." (@old-guy-photos said you were traveling so perhaps you missed it.)
As ever, you have given me lots to think about and respond to all at the same time!
Exactly, so I'm imagining a world whereby the labour done in the world is done by machines which are energy positive. So all the work that needs to be done, is done for us and therefore taking away a need to represent value via work done.
I get your point about intrinsic value, however gold does have a use beyond being a shiny bauble for us to adorn our bodies and faces with. It is incredibly useful in computing, and in fact there are people in certain African countries that mine gold from discarded computers.
Agreed, it is a big problem when engaging in futurethink to use one variable as a deterministic principle, along with the fact that we try and second guess tech that simply hasn't been invented yet and the impact of said technology on our lives. It's an interesting way to go about it though, perhaps after some time of changing variables we will have some kind of bigger picture.
Yes and no, it is because of course it engineers a completely false situation, however as you point out, the experiment does show that the rat eats for dopamine, and the pain of hunger becomes insignificant next to that desire. However it does give us insight into what really drives us as biological entities, and I believe that may also give us a clue as to how we may behave in a world whereby basic need no longer gave us the dopamine rush we used to get.
I was indeed travelling getting a much needed break, I love the title and I'm off to read it right now! :-)
Cg
@cryptogee,
I cannot help but draw an analogy between the rats pressing a lever to get dopamine (and thereby starving to death) ... and our (mine included) collective behavior here on Steemit! :-)
Do you see the parallel?
Gotta run ... GINAbot just beeped (as I scarf down a Sausage Egg McGriddle ... no time to cook).