Board Thread:Fiction Universe Discussion/@comment-4242472-20160617203303

Post-scarcity is considered on the fictionverse is considered the pinnacle of economic success. As in the general sense, it's a state where there is no rarity of anything; food, commercial goods, whatever it is, though industrial practices and sophisticated distribution chains everything is available in infinite or at least near-infinite quantities.

The concern I noticed however is this interpretation of limitless resources. The common presentation of which is that there are no shortages and everything is abundance to the point where currency can be antiquated. How having genuinely infinite resources is unbalancing doesn't need to be explained. So a discussion was conducted between Womulon, Ghelae and Drodo Empire and this is what has been considered.

I'm not against post-scarcity as in them modern world, technically the Western world lives in an age where food or information are in such abundance that they can be considered to be at post-scarcity levels. I prefer Wormy's suggestion that belittling or a sense of overpowering can be negated or avoided with enough explanation.


 * Some things will always be scarce - primarily things replicators can't easily make, ownership of certain locations like specific theatre seats or houses (which can be alleviated with holographic technology)
 * Even when manufactured goods are in abundance, there will likely be a desire for 'handcrafted' goods. Artwork like paintings or statues are considered valuable because there is a limited number of original instances. Or even jsut one original instance.
 * Poverty has two definitions, and the use of definition can determine the values of the statistics.
 * Absolute poverty is when one cannot access the most basic supplies in order to guarantee a healthy life.
 * Relative poverty is when one is living in conditions considerably below the national average.
 * One can live in relative poverty but not be classed as being in absolute poverty. In 2009, around 13% of the US population were classed as living in poverty but less than 5% of the US population were facing starvation and less than 2% lived off less than $1.25 per day.
 * The classification of poverty can depend on the acknowledged fundamentals of sentient rights. There is a push to make internet access a fundamental human right so what 'fundamental' rights might exist for much more advanced civilisations that would classify our societies as 'in poverty'?
 * Relative poverty largely comes about because as the standards ov living increases for everyone, some in society inevitably fall behind due to.
 * Post scarcity is generally sustained though immense amounts of energy, resources and industry.
 * Currency is useful for exhanges and as an abstract measure of value and erguably a universal for mof work compensation.
 * Infinite supplies means nothing without effective distribution. Even with very advanced or sophisticated supply chains, it's quite typical for frontier or outer populations to have a lower standard of living than those living in the heart of a region, nation, planet or galactic society.
 * Due to the imperfections inherent in virtually all methods of distributrionn, it's typical for standard of living to go down the further you get from centres of economy.

What problems arise from post-scarsity the way the fiction universes uses it?

While I these are perhaps valid criticisms of post-scarsity, at least the way it is popularised, we have to face the fact that the SporeWikiverse uses hyperspace as something to defy not only transportation of matter and information through time and space, but also to seemingly defy the conservation laws and thermodynamic limitations. It seems for civilisations nearing Tier 1, this naive model of postscarsity can be justified by using hyperspatial infrastructure to maintain hypermatter as an indefinite powersource, moving that industry away from energy sources used in realspace.

1) Dependence on hyperspace - The cord can be cut - i.e. the Apalos ship defeating the Loron Warboss by putting it in a hyperspace-nullifying field

2) Instability in hyperspace - Hypermatter reactors are dangerously unstable, so unfit to distribute evenly amongst the populace. Alas, this seems to occur in the SporeWikiverse.

3) Wars of attrition between post-scarcity powers - Seems that dead-ends and Pyrrhic victories are common these days.

4) Lack of competition with other kinds of economic system

5) Reduced need for innovation - Many technologies came about to solve problems. When resources are of infinite abundance and there is no risk of sickeness, what need is there for problem-solving technologies that relate to these areas? Granted there will always be new problems, that's always difficult to anticipate. But with innovation, this is the case. Iain Banks' Culture series has a highly advanced society, but it reached a point where innovations came to rarely affect society as a whole.

6) More abstract values - There should always be a market for things manufactured or experienced by authenticity, or things crafted or found naturally. We should look beyond merely material values.  There would also be religious ones, subcultural ones.  Natural objects may be required for comparative purposes.

7) Limits in hyperspatial physics - Something we haven't looked into hard enough... And where more traditional criticism of physical limitations could be applied.  I.e. speed of light must apply to hyperspace.  Hypermatter is described to form structures like regular matter does, so it must enter a more disordered state in order to organise it, or when heat is dumped.  We could explore how the limitless supply of hypermatter is an illusion.  We could posit that hyperspace is smaller than the visible three-space universe.  If the positive-mass/energy is reduced*, will that effect hyperspace's negative energy density, expanding its scale and dimensions, reducing its usefulness?  Can matter somehow be put back without causing even more disorder?


 * This equal energy density is a constant and will always cancel out come to think about it. If hyperspace is part of the universe, what does that mean for cosmology?  Would dark energy expand hyperspace, if so would shifting matter into realspace remove the dominance of gravity's curvature, accelerating its expansion?  I think not, if hyperspace is part of the universe, then it should make no difference. Alternatively, maybe hyperspace is negative energy from the frames of reference of positive mass in realspace. In that case hyperspace is just a low entropy form of matter in the universe, and can be transformed into more disordered form of matter in realspace. Whether pos/neg energy remains balanced depends on whether hyperspace is part of the universe or not, but the universe gains more high entropy matter as a result in either case.  Or, if hyperspace is another universe, then realspace gains more in curvature.

8) Lack of need for meaningful trade - When a society has resources so abundant that it has no reason to import what it cannot acquire by itself, it becomes less appealing as a trading partner. Trading for diplomatic reasons has it's issues as the post-scarcity factions would need to find some why to use or dump what it imports out of generosity, While these nations can easily export goods in abundance, most nations would prefer to strike a balance between importing and exporting.

Post scarcity as an element of the universe is too ingrained in the fabric of the fiction to change too radically. Which is why the proposed option is to balance it out using the points above so that we can keep nations that declare themselves to be post-scarcity interesting to engage with without sacrificing balance. 