Re:Proof-of-stake is inherently self-referential
by hinkley on Friday May 21, 2021 @01:49PM
(#27237421)
Star Trek spent a lot of time dealing with scarcity problems for a show about people who don't get paid a salary.
Waste is a problem that has its own friction built into it. As long as waste costs you something, you have some greater incentive to end it. Until we have some better way to prevent waste, the opposite of scarcity is excess, not satiation.
There are not an infinite number of things, and there are not an infinite number of places to externalize the consequences without feeling them.
On a ship in the literal middle of nowhere, scarcity is still breathing down your neck at every turn, and there is a strong group incentive to controlling waste, otherwise everybody dies. I'm not sure the STNG utopia plays out the same way on inhabited worlds.
Waste is a problem that has its own friction built into it. As long as waste costs you something, you have some greater incentive to end it. Until we have some better way to prevent waste, the opposite of scarcity is excess, not satiation.
There are not an infinite number of things, and there are not an infinite number of places to externalize the consequences without feeling them.
On a ship in the literal middle of nowhere, scarcity is still breathing down your neck at every turn, and there is a strong group incentive to controlling waste, otherwise everybody dies. I'm not sure the STNG utopia plays out the same way on inhabited worlds.