How would advancing to a post-scarcity society impact dating/relationships/interactions etc?

HugMuffin · 2017-05-05T14:17:47+00:00

Scarcity isn't the problem today; distribution is. We could easily feed the world tomorrow if we all agreed to distribute the resources differently.

wub1234 · 2017-05-05T13:47:35+00:00

Why would society be boring without work? If I didn't have to make money to survive then I could get down to some serious book writing and I would have absolutely no problem whatsoever filling the rest of my time.

People spend their whole lives chasing goals and trinkets and status, and then we all end up in a box eight feet under the ground bereft of our worldly possessions and achievements. Pleasure and happiness are the primary or most important intrinsic goods and the proper aim of human life.

disposable_pants · 2017-05-05T13:10:08+00:00

Scarcity will always exist, because humans have unlimited wants.

If you look around at all the landwhales in society one would think everyone would be super content! A poor person lives like a king compared to 300 years ago.

But no, our wants are more insatiable today then ever

Eastuss · 2017-05-05T12:40:18+00:00

Human nature doesn't change.

Holodecks and replicators and such would eventually just reduce our sensibility to pleasure hormones because of all the instant rewards we never worked for.

People would be either completely depressed and disconnected, or they'll discipline themselves to only get what they need to survive and everything else should be acquired through personal work.

OfSpock · 2017-05-05T14:50:35+00:00

Realistically, such a system would only be possible with a global totalitarian government. You would end up with three fundamental classes, the elites who govern everything, the useless and addicted who only live for dopamine kicks and are essentially constantly plugged into (mentally or physically) their machine of choice, and people who return to a relatively basic way of life and are allowed to exist as long as they don't make too much noise about the situation.

The economy would still function in pretty much the same way. Commodity fetishism isn't the cause of capitalism, status fetishism is, and so even if people were able to have or do whatever they wanted, our social and economic structure would still be hierarchical. The totalitarian government I mentioned above would never dream of establishing a genuinely egalitarian society, simply because they aren't stable. People would still seek status, not to get laid, but because we fetishize it. That fucking douchebro dork with the fancy car and nice suit doesn't fuck more attractive women than some hippies do in college, but fundamentally he isn't doing to get laid, he's doing it because he wants status. I don't know what status would be based on, but it doesn't really matter. It's not the material (the car etc.) that actually matters, it's what we agree that the material means that matters. We would simply find something to replace material goods as a denotation of status.

Would holodecks eliminate any need for sex with another human?

Just an extension of porn and masturbation. This kind of society probably wouldn't look that different, there'd just be less sex going on and the same dynamic of people who are addicted to masturbation complaining, while people who don't have a problem complain about them. Again, sex is mostly about status, even if it's just ego-validation. It may become very bottom heavy as is happening at the moment, but there will fundamentally be a hierarchy as usual.

And child rearing, let's say you could have machines raise your kids if you wanted so there is no obligation on you. How would that impact relationships?

Yeah same, just more tossing kids into the addiction machine. Meanwhile, that other class will take them out of it. I suspect we'll see a significantly greater polarization of these two groups (which you can kind of see beginning to happen at the moment).

Post-scarcity is going to be absolutely horrendous for most people involved, because they won't be able to manage their addiction. I already know, sometimes I look through my internet history at the end of the day and I've spent 8-10 hours just sitting there in front of a screen. That's most days, I'm already plugged into this post-scarcity machine, because there's no scarcity of information, so I just sit here taking it all in. I still do my exercise, eat healthy food, learn a lot of things, have a girlfriend etc. but it doesn't matter, I'm completely fucking hooked. That's going to be the same for a lot of people and it's going to be much worse than what I've got (and incidentally what lots of other people have, be it through TV or smartphones or whatever). Just because they're useless doesn't mean that they look like cabbages. I have almost no sex drive but I still fuck my girlfriend, and still clean up etc. People will still be having sex, getting married, having kids and so on, it'll be less people for sure, but it'll still happen because it's simply what people do, regardless of whether they have any real drive for it.

It's not going to look radically different. The only difference is that people will be able to sedate their drives (not satisfy them) in easier and more effective ways. As is going on today, the drive to get laid or attain status or whatever is going to be less prevalent, but those that are capable of doing it will still do it for the most part simply because it's what is to be done.

EDIT:

It just occurred to me, honestly, that I might be describing the society imagined in Brave New World. I didn't have that in mind when I wrote that, and I haven't actually read the book. It was assigned reading when I was thirteen but I still don't think I read it. I remember the basic premise of it, whether I read it or just sat there listening to other smarty-pantses talk about it in class, and it always seemed too unrealistic to me. The society I'm imagining is not really that different to today's. IDK???

Atlas_B_Shruggin · 2017-05-05T13:15:24+00:00

Has our biology changed? Abundance is already part of the modern issues with men and women

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despisedlove2 · 2017-05-05T12:36:06+00:00

As a confirmed Star Trek geek, I would say that in such a world, relationships would be transitory, marriages rare and procreation less of a concern for most people. The two extremes would be O'Brien and Picard, with most men being Riker or LaForge.

IIHotelYorba · 2017-05-05T13:08:07+00:00

I dunno we already have a society where a lot of things aren't that scarce and people just seem to be mindlessly eating themselves to death, and getting incredibly sedentary by resting every chance they get.

Maybe all the things you're talking about will happen after a long enough period of time of people dying and being bred out, or maybe medical technology will make us into the people in Wall-E.

Fijiwater69 · 2017-05-05T13:33:54+00:00

Idk, choosing a mate would depend only on looks and personality? Rich guys with bad personalities and looks would be screwed because everyone is rich?

Alth12 · 2017-05-05T13:38:36+00:00

I dont think it would change much. Humans still have a basic need to connect with one another. I think the issue would be that it'd be more difficult to have real connections. In a world of social media, mobile phones etc people are already reporting feeling more lonely than ever before. To me that indicates that the personal connection is more important than the technological to us on a biological level.

So you can have sex bots, holodecks or whatever you want, people are still going to seek each other out. The reasons we do it might be gone, but our subconscious doesn't know that, and it'll still want what it wanted 100,000 years ago. When you think about it many of the evolutionary reasons for tribes/friendships are already gone. There is nothing going bump in the night. Everyone still wants friends though.

BPremium · 2017-05-05T14:33:53+00:00

I think It'd be fun to find out

theiamsamurai · 2017-05-05T14:35:16+00:00

One interesting possibility is AGI using hard drugs and virtual reality sex to motivate people to do less important work that it doesn't want to allocate its bots/cyborgs to. I guess that's a bit dystopian.

sunkindonut149 · 2017-05-05T14:42:50+00:00

This is already kind of true. A fry cook at mickey dees is considered lower status than an ibanker but in most of the US, the fry cook can afford a home, a car and other necessities of life.

IFuckingHateAllergy · 2017-05-05T14:47:24+00:00

Societal hierarchy would still exists though so status would still determine attraction. If everyone looked identical then there's still personality, likes, dislikes, hobbies etc.

Intimacy and sex is a primal thing so unless you eliminate that too then the desire to find a real person to be with would still exist as well.

Marriage is a social construct. It means nothing really even to today's society. Realistically, I would guess most relationship would be polyamoric.

ThrowawayCactus6012 · 2017-05-05T14:56:57+00:00

Well, in Star Trek, people are evaluated mostly on their intelligence and knowledge of science, so it might be a geeks' paradise. Wesley Crusher - big man on campus.

Overall, men would be judged by who they are (intelligent and/or physically attractive), not by what they own or how much money they make.

Some of it might depend on how much interaction there is with other alien races. An awkward autistic human male who has bad luck with human women might find better results with a Vulcan woman, who would be ruled by logic and not emotion. In any case, there would be a wider variety of options available.

Or maybe a Klingon woman. Maybe a bit rough around the edges, but super-freaky in bed while also extremely loyal and honorable. They would kill for their mate.

The ones to watch out for are the green Orion women, who give off pheromones which can arouse and control most humanoid males (except for those who have bonded with Vulcan women).

alreadyredschool · 2017-05-05T15:10:06+00:00

Would people still seek status? Based on what?

Just look at communist Russia and the awesome creative/innovative things they created.

Would holodecks eliminate any need for sex with another human? Or would there still be a drive find a real person to be with?

Probably, have you ever had a sex slave? Shit gets boring after a while, the holodeck has to create a person that also challenges you.

And child rearing, let's say you could have machines raise your kids if you wanted so there is no obligation on you.

Sure that's probably the main reason to marry. Just to find someone to have kids with. Add artifical wombs to the equation!

TheOneTrueMagnet · 2017-05-05T15:49:19+00:00

It would look like the ghetto. Everyone gets the same stuff, except women get more and mothers even more. Men get fight for territory and access to women.

The point is fairly moot because post-scarcity means robots at the level of humans in capability. This means the elites won't need us anymore and will use their robot army, bio labs, and other near infinity force multipliers to reduce the population of the planet in the name of climate change. At that point, the only question is whether or not humanity will survive when skynet activates.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2017-05-05T15:42:32+00:00

Ever seen the movie Wall-e? Everyone is fat, short limbed, rides around on couches and slurps milkshakes all day?

That's where we would be.

IndisputablyNotACop · 2017-05-05T15:49:38+00:00

Some people would seek status by developing skills. Someone would still be the best chess player, pianist, architect, clothing designer, etc. The main difference is that nobody would gain high acknowledgement by being a cheat anymore. Someone like Donald Trump would be a nobody. That's my ideal vision anyway

siaynoq11 · 2017-05-05T18:13:14+00:00

Well, I'm an out-there crazy hippie type, so I'd like to think that given ample freedom, security, and time, people would spend it working on themselves. Exploring their own consciousness and subconscious. Stretching the limits of what their brain and bodies are capable of. Meditating. Thinking about philosophy. Finding a way to be fulfilled.

I'd like to think that, without any financial pressures, interpersonal and romantic relationships could become even deeper and more profound. If material things are of no concern, then you have to look inward for what is of value. I'd like to think that more people would become enlightened, and that we would see an increase in empathy.

I'm aware that's not very likely to happen, but it's a nice dream to have.

Of course, the other way it could turn would be complete hedonism. People only looking towards the next physical pleasure, through drugs and sex and food. And yes, through virtual reality. Virtual reality is sort of sad to me, because it's such a pale imitation of the richness of real life. I just think that living your life only for pleasure gets boring and soul-sucking rather quickly. At least it did for me.

[deleted] · 2017-05-05T19:54:44+00:00

ambivolence, nihilsm, and generally hedonism.

unless you can find a universal way to convince men to work towards a common mission, in which case, you'll see less hedonism

bornredd · 2017-05-05T20:19:16+00:00

Go read some of Iain M Banks' sci fi novels for a very interesting take on this subject.

Neoprime · 2017-05-05T20:41:30+00:00

You mean Communism.

fooliam · 2017-05-06T00:52:03+00:00

Would people still seek status?

Absolutely. With Status comes Fame, and there will always be people who will do anything for Fame.

Would holodecks eliminate any need for sex with another human? Or would there still be a drive find a real person to be with?

The drive to find a person to be with is the result of 4.5 Billion years of evolution. Even if a post-scarcity society eventually led to an evolutionary change which for some reason was preferential towards loss of the pairing drive, thats a change that would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not more. I'd expect it to be a moot point by then.

What about marriage.

Marriage was, is and may likely remain a legal contract. Even in a post-scarcity society, people are still going to have things, they're going to have possessions, homes, and things that have value that isn't monetarily based. There's no reason to expect that the legal contract assigning joint ownership of all of that to two people is going to go away. ANd just to be clear, that contract is called marriage.

And child rearing, let's say you could have machines raise your kids if you wanted so there is no obligation on you. How would that impact relationships?

Once again, you're dealing with 4.5 Billion years of evolution. There is a strong biological drive for parents to enjoy being around their offspring (attentive parents = less dead babies), and that drive also isn't going to go away anytime soon. In fact, given that the progress of knowledge for the past several decades has consistently pointed towards parental involvement being crucial to the development of a child, parents might spend even more time with their kids than now.

OpheliaMachine · 2017-05-06T03:46:12+00:00

Fully automated luxury space communism or bust, baby

caesarfecit · 2017-05-06T15:15:48+00:00

Social status and power become the be-all and end-all of the SMP. The only cure to that is to have social status and power based purely on merit and achievement - human society still hasn't gotten that quite right.

incellington · 2017-05-07T09:01:37+00:00

I don't feel like this would ever come about. Even when everyone has enough, competition continues unabated. Some humans will always want to be at the top even if they can live comfortably where they're at. Competition, conflict, violence, these will be facets of the human experience until a superior AI imposes its will on the testosterone driven primates.

Man's central problem is that he cannot be satisfied sitting in a room by himself.

Assuming this did happen, I feel humans would have to be extremely lazy. Certainly too lazy to maintain an LTR when sexbots or virtual reality or just really good porn/drugs exist. Most people would be disgusting blobs anyway.

Title	How would advancing to a post-scarcity society impact dating/relationships/interactions etc?
Author	5th_Law_of_Robotics
Upvotes	8
Comments	113
Date	May 5, 2017 12:27 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/69ecxh/how_would_advancing_to_a_postscarcity_society/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/how-would-advancing-to-a-post-scarcity-society.268347 https://theredarchive.com/post/268347