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[LordBucket]

Non-physical goods are easier to be generous with

Yes. For now.

I'd totally put in the effort to make a taco if I could then somehow give it to everybody at the same time.

Exactly. So would I. So would a lot of people. Now we're simply talking an engineering problem. In fact, it wouldn't even be necessary to be able to give one to everybody. What if you could make one taco and give it to a million people. Would you still do it? Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. A lot of people would. What if you could make one taco and give it to ten thousand people? A thousand? A hundred? Where's the cutoff point? It's not going to be the same for everyone, and it doesn't need to be.

As it happens, the engineering problem of "making food" has already been solved.

Witness the Sushi robot tht make 3600 rolls of sushi per hour. Witness the hamburger robot that makes 340 hamburgers per hour.

We could make a taco robot. And if we did, then whatever the work investment to build one of those robots is becomes all that's required to supply the thousands or tens of thousands of tacos we discussed a few paragraphs ago.

...ok, so now we need to talk about material supplies, distribution, etc. Yes, these are real problems. But like manufacturing tacos, these too are merely engineering problems. And at some point, they will be solved.

I might be able to score some free tacos from somebody(Hey, some people are generous), but I can't see a global taco exchange happening.  There simply isn't enough generous people with enough time & resources to make tacos for everybody without exchanging anything in return.

At some point, the time and energy investment for one person making a taco available to a thousand people isn't much more than pushing a few buttons. Or maybe pushing a few buttons plus opening the drone-delivered bag of materials and pouring them into the machine. Would you be willing to open the door, pick up a package and unload its contents into a machine, then press start once a day in order to supply 340 people with a hamburger?

At some point, we only need one in 340 people willing to go to that much effort in order for everyone to have a hamburger.

[Frumple]

I might be able to score some free tacos from somebody(Hey, some people are generous), but I can't see a global taco exchange happening.  There simply isn't enough generous people with enough time & resources to make tacos for everybody without exchanging anything in return.

I mean... are you sure there isn't enough people of that nature? What's the number situation look like for that? How many people would you actually need to support tacos for everybody? And how many hours per taco maker per day?

I'd personally guess we could do it pretty easily, if cultural values shifted toward taco sufficiently. We're really pretty damn efficient when it comes to agriculture and whatnot, to the point I could see a fairly small fraction of the population doing less than half days to produce functionally infinite (i.e., more than everyone could eat) tacos. Given even better agriculture techniques or effective substitutes for parts of the materials involved (not!meat that actually tastes like meat, ferex, but can be produced at considerably less cost*), I'd almost say something like tacos for everyone would become not just possible, but trivial.

And ninja'd by LB, sure. Same point being made, ha.

*E: Cost in the sense of resource investment, not necessarily cash.

[mainiac]

I agree with that(apart from Mr. Makeadeathstar at least).  I still think there will be money though, because people will always want more, even if their every desire is being satisfied.  Money will go from something we need to survive, to being a restriction to prevent excessive decadence. 

Star trek actually has a pretty interesting example of this.  It's repeated endlessly that poverty does not exist, people work for the sense of accomplishment.  But there are plenty examples of people doing their own businesses, evidently for the hell of it.

[Loud Whispers]

Inb4 buttcoins

[penguinofhonor]

I misread the title as "The Concept of Monkey" for a second. That would be a way better thread, I think.

[Loud Whispers]

I misread the title as "The Concept of Monkey" for a second. That would be a way better thread, I think.

We should crossover this thread with the wikimonkeyphoto thread and have the concept of monkeyright megathread.

[BlindKitty]

There are some (many?) problems with that approach, Loud Whispers. I mean, there is certainly and engineering problem in providing all the people in the world with all the food they need/want, and nothing more.
But let's jump into analogy!
There is only a computational problem in cracking any public/private key system used for confidential exchange of information. That doesn't mean we are only minutes away from reading Obama's correspondence.
End of analogy.
The engineering problem in actually a huge, huge, huge one still. For starters, while hamburger robot could provide 340 hamburgers per unit of time, there are still people in the world that don't have access to any meat whatsoever, not to mention hamburgers, and there are plenty of them. Hell, here in Poland (and we are in the EU), average person still spends more than quarter of her income on food, and let me tell you, we aren't eating fancy organic foodstuffs here. Actually organic farming is also that much less efficient, so it would make even bigger problem. I wouldn't say it is impossible to achieve post-scarcity in physical basic goods, be we are nowhere near close to that, methinks.
Actually, I have a feeling that you are a little infected with the spirit that was prevalent in late XIX and early XX century in physics. Don't take that as insult, as I understand the sentiment, but I'm on a very different position here.
Also, don't forget that there are some non-reproducible goods both material and immaterial, that are more than an engineering problem; for example, first row seats at cultural events; paintings and sculptures; and other that don't came to my mind right now (you monsters you).

[Levi]

I agree with that(apart from Mr. Makeadeathstar at least).  I still think there will be money though, because people will always want more, even if their every desire is being satisfied.  Money will go from something we need to survive, to being a restriction to prevent excessive decadence. 

Star trek actually has a pretty interesting example of this.  It's repeated endlessly that poverty does not exist, people work for the sense of accomplishment.  But there are plenty examples of people doing their own businesses, evidently for the hell of it.

Yeah, and I believe that is possible. (Its a bit busy at work, so I'm only partway through that star trek article so far).   Lots of people do stuff because they enjoy doing it, not JUST to make money.  My only point is that no matter how well off everybody is, there will always be some form of money used to exchange goods/services/resources. 

[Eagle_eye]

The issue with making food post scarcity isn't one of production, it's one of transportation. There's enough food produced to more than meet the caloric needs of every person alive, it's just that as long as its transportation and sale is subject to the profit motive, no one is going to invest the resources to bring it to people unless those people can afford to pay for the cost of getting it there.

[Angle]

Your idea can be upgraded to much easier and more efficient system by one little addition. And this addition is, of course, money. Why? Because it is like subscribing to all the logistics enterprises all at once; it allows you to distribute your good and get other goods in return, usually with someone in the middle distributing them.

Well, no, not quite. That leaves out one of the most important functions of the Logistics Enterprises (Hereafter referred to as L.E.), the planning. They would be responsible for determining which enterprises were the most effective at fulfilling their purpose without excessive extraneous costs. In capitalist economics, it's the most profitable business that succeeds, not necessarily the most effective or efficient. There are too many ways to cheat the system. With my system of L.E. and attendant enterprises, most of these wouldn't work nearly as well. This requires that accurate information is available on the enterprises involved, of course, but there should be much less pressure to deny people such information under this system.

[mainiac]

The issue with making food post scarcity isn't one of production, it's one of transportation. There's enough food produced to more than meet the caloric needs of every person alive, it's just that as long as its transportation and sale is subject to the profit motive, no one is going to invest the resources to bring it to people unless those people can afford to pay for the cost of getting it there.

Way fewer people are involved in transportation then in sales, branding, etc.

[BlindKitty]

Well, no, not quite. That leaves out one of the most important functions of the Logistics Enterprises (Hereafter referred to as L.E.), the planning. They would be responsible for determining which enterprises were the most effective at fulfilling their purpose without excessive extraneous costs. In capitalist economics, it's the most profitable business that succeeds, not necessarily the most effective or efficient. There are too many ways to cheat the system. With my system of L.E. and attendant enterprises, most of these wouldn't work nearly as well. This requires that accurate information is available on the enterprises involved, of course, but there should be much less pressure to deny people such information under this system.

Please tell me about the ways to cheat the system that would become non-existent in LE-economy. Or greatly reduced. And I will probably be able to show you some new ones pretty soon.

[Eagle_eye]

Way fewer people are involved in transportation then in sales, branding, etc.

Yes, but, a: sales and branding are only useful in a for-profit environment, which is exactly what I'm advocating against and b: I'm talking about resources in the sense of trucks, roadways, fuel, etc., not human resources. If there's one thing we're not short on, it's manpower.

[Angle]

Please tell me about the ways to cheat the system that would become non-existent in LE-economy. Or greatly reduced. And I will probably be able to show you some new ones pretty soon.

Planned Obsolescence would be one of the most blatant- where products are designed to wear out sooner than they otherwise would so as to make you buy a new one. Pollution is another, where a business cuts it's expenses by externalizing costs- say, by dumping their waste in a river. Cutting their costs by hiring underpaid migrant labor is another, or by simply paying their workers as little as they can get away with. Anti competitive practices. Manipulation of government, as seen with our privatized prison industry.

Of course, many of these have solutions that could be implemented in a capitalist society. But due to the fact that that would run contrary to many vested interests, it's unlikely to see adoption. The big thing that my system does is prevent anyone from gaining too much power, whether that political power, economic power, whatever. There would be strict regulations on how large any individual enterprise could get.

[Tomcost]

PTW. I love how these discussions always derail into interesting things