Thread:Monet47/@comment-5496489-20161217062120/@comment-4242472-20161217161745

Hi Gorzil. I'm fine for the Persan to establish a territory in Andromeda. It's not a bother at all. Where are you planning to set them up?

As for plans to make the UPD post-scarcity, it's understandable if you feel daunted. It's admittedly a rather idealistic vision for a society that would in most cases need some major paradigm shift in a society's thinking to work. But if it helps there's two versions we could consider.
 * Post-Scarcity - When materials and products are so abundant and easy-to-acquire they seem practically infinite in supply.
 * Post-Currency - When a society moves to transcend the concept of having a medium of exchange.

One can be quasi-post-scarcity without being post-currency. Technically, many developed Western nations' food supplies could be considered post-scarcity as the supply of food is so plentiful that no one can really starve to death in these countries any more. But post-currency puts you at a disadvantage as the key advantage of a medium of exchange is its ability to act as a more precise measurement of value than what is possible in a barter economies of old. Other nations like using currency and may be disinclined to perform exchanges if the other party has a very different idea of what a fair trade is.

But post scarcity is a little controversial because of it's image where everyone can produce what they need. Pulizer-prize winning writer Thomas Friedman once wrote "Communism was a great system for making people equally poor |...| Capitalism made people unequally rich.” A post-scarcity society improves lives by taking the communist model and inflating the footprint considerably until everyone is satisfied and living well. This is at the detriment of economic efficiency as the higher an individual's quality of life is, the greater the quantity of resources required to sustain it it.

As for how this could apply to the Persan, they're partly on their way to a society where they're at least quasi-socialist. They hold a communal sentience, meaning crimes that hurt society are as psychologically painful as acts of harm on the body, which deters desires to act out in ways that could hurt society such as theft, crime, bribery and xenocide. The flow of raw materials are managed by polities like the local community or a planetary administration. The inefficiencies and inequalities that plagued the Soviet Union and doomed it to a slow starving death are unlikely to happen among the Persan.

But best to talk to Charles about the nuances as he has a fair amount of knowledge on the systems of economics.