Re: How to get Post-Scarcity?
- From: Shawn Wilson <ikonoqlast@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 18:51:58 -0700 (PDT)
On Jun 26, 11:02 am, Remus Shepherd <re...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Limitless energy seems to be the easiest to obtain. New York uses about
about 12 Gigawatts, or 1.5 kilowatts per capita. Let's double that because
I like round numbers, and say that everyone in the world is using that much
electricity, and we get a world power consumption of about 10^13 watts.
Solar cells will pull 100-500 W/m^2, so we'd need as a high estimate 10^11
square meters, or 100,000 square kilometers, or a solar cell farm about 320
kilometers square. We could postulate some advanced power transmission
technology and put an array like that in space, or we could repurpose the
Sahara. Doesn't seem impossible.
Or conventional nuclear power. With existing technology there are
enough proven uranium reserves to last 8 billion people using as much
energy each as the average American for the next 200,000 years.
Manufacture of items is solvable also. Assuming fabrication technology,
we can have fairly dumb robotic makers that suck in raw materials and spit
out manufactured goods. If we want to manufacture food and pharmaceuticals,
then these makers will need nanotech abilities. Still, it seems doable..
But here's where I stumble. Where do the raw materials come from?
What's the problem? We hardly use any resources now compared to what
is available.
There's another thing to consider. What about the trash? Land is still
scarce, so you can't just stick it all in a landfill.
Think about that for a moment. It all CAME from 'landfill' to begin
with, didn't it? Put it back into the hole it was dug out of to begin
with.
We'd have to speculate
near-perfect recycling.
No, we really don't. There is a LOT of land.
The engineering challenges are incredible, but there isn't much about a
post-scarcity world that seems limited by science. Now if I want a story
out of this, I have to figure out how it would warp society...
It wouldn't. It would look like us, only richer. Compared to
previous societies we are now living in a 'post scarcity' world. In
the indefinite future these 'post scarcity' people will imagine their
own version of a post scarcity utopia. The bar just keeps moving to
keep up with wealth.
.
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