Ulaity

Noah Smith notes a gap in the world of Star Trek: The Next Generation: “No one is doing business.” Food is free. Scarcity is a thing of the past. People work if they want to, but they don’t need to work.

Could this be our future? Smith thinks so. What happens when the per capita gross domestic product reaches $100,000-$200,000? A small tax on the wealthy would be enough to distribute the fruits of abundance to everyone. Maybe the wealthy would get more altruistic. “Who cares if the robots put us all out of a job,” Smith asks, “when we can create paradise with just a tiny dash of redistribution?”

He thinks that Trektopia is too modest. The transformation ahead is more radical: “technological advances will actually end economics as we know it, and destroy scarcity, by changing the nature of human desire.” Since we can “hack” the brain we can modify it, so that “reason will no longer be the slave of the passions.” Scarcity won’t define our economics. “Self-expression” will.

One resource will have to be scarce, though. “Of course,” Smith adds: “this depends crucially on the number of humans being limited.” If we are going to create utopia – n0place – we’ll have to ensure that we create ulaity – nopeople. Of course.