What if everyone were self-independent?

[Shinova]

What I mean is that all human beings need a daily supply of air, water, food, and other such things in order to keep living, and to get that daily substinence we typically work for it in most civilizations, which formed so that people can work together and sacrifice a little bit of their freedom and independence so that everyone can enjoy a higher standard of living and mutual protection and company.

What if, humans were suddenly able to live, through one mean or another, without a daily intake of resources? What if in an essence we became capable of easily living, defending ourselves, and creating and maintaining our own standard of living or living habitat through some extraphysical means or another, like evolved psychic powers or magic or whatever, enough so that we no longer had any dependence on the environment in order to survive and live well?

What would happen to the human race then?

[Superman]

From an economic standpoint, I think you're referring to the elimination of scarcity. That is, instead of not having enough of whatever to go around, which is really what any given economic model tries to deal with, suddenly, everyone would have more than enough of whatever.

Am I at least close to the mark?

[Shinova]

From an economic standpoint, I think you're referring to the elimination of scarcity. That is, instead of not having enough of whatever to go around, which is really what any given economic model tries to deal with, suddenly, everyone would have more than enough of whatever.

Am I at least close to the mark?

Hmmmm....... not exactly what I envisioned but the results are the same.

You're saying that there are more than enough resources to go around for everyone. What I actually wanted to say was if everyone could survive and live easily without daily resources. But both achieve nearly the same effect I guess.

[Gerald Tarrant]

Yes this sounds like a post scarcity economy. I have a question though.

What if in an essence we became capable of easily living, defending ourselves...snip

I'm sort of curious what you meant by defending ourselves. Defense against natural threats? Or defense against similar humans?

If Defending ourselves includes very good defenses against other post scarcity humans, then government becomes mostly superfluous.

If not you'd probably still need some minimal government to deal with true sociopaths (post scarcity societies aren't really going to have any thieves who are thieves by necessity). Crimes in a post-scarcity world would probably be committed by maladjusted individuals of one stripe or another. And unorganized individuals are probably not up to stopping them on their own.

[Shinova]

I'm sort of curious what you meant by defending ourselves. Defense against natural threats? Or defense against similar humans?

If Defending ourselves includes very good defenses against other post scarcity humans, then government becomes mostly superfluous.

If not you'd probably still need some minimal government to deal with true sociopaths (post scarcity societies aren't really going to have any thieves who are thieves by necessity). Crimes in a post-scarcity world would probably be committed by maladjusted individuals of one stripe or another. And unorganized individuals are probably not up to stopping them on their own.

Capable of defending against natural threats. If everyone had the same amount of power as in my scenario, people would still be capable of hurting each other. So yeah, only against natural threats.

[aerius]

I doubt post-scarcity matters, there will always be people who want more. Even if everyone was Bill Gates rich, there will be people who want to be 100 times as rich, and if that means breaking things and killing people, they'll do it. And that's not even getting into the people who get off on playing power games, some people enjoy fucking over others because to them it's "fun". Unless you can fundamentally change human nature, total freedom will result in a total clusterfuck.

[Enforcer Talen]

As a recall, there was a study done recently. People dont want "more", they want "more then the other guy." Big difference, and rather makes a mess of things when first world situation allows food for everyone. Now we can compete with cars and tvs!

[Junghalli]

As a recall, there was a study done recently. People dont want "more", they want "more then the other guy."

"Pride measures her advantages not by what she has but by what other people lack. Pride would not deign even to be made a goddess if there were no wretches for her to sneer at and domineer over. Her good fortune is dazzling only by contrast with the miseries of others, her riches are valuable only as they torment and tantalize the poverty of others."

Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia