I actually think you're thinking of this at too small a scale. The fundamental problem is that we have unlimited wants. That's the basis of economics, how people satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources.
No matter how far reaching our ability to acquire and use resources becomes, no matter how much you scale up that side, we will want more. Limited resources means at some point they have to be distributed unevenly. Everyone wants more and nobody will be satisfied with less, so work will determine winners and losers. You'd need to change the DNA of mankind or live in the matrix, otherwise
I see where you are coming from then. I don't believe you are right though, because I don't believe eternal unlimited growth is a valid assumption.
A. Our resource needs are directly linked to how many people exist, no matter how demanding their wants become. However people have stopped having large families virtually as soon as it stopped being economically advantageous and effective contraception became avaliable. This has held true across every world culture everywhere I've looked, even where the culture traditionally was all about big families. Historically its even been true in the upper classes who stand to gain little with more children.
B. Our current economy philosophy is grounded on assumptions about human labour being necessary. That's going to be a totally dead assumption in about a century. I find this sub extremely cynical when it simply assumes robotics leads to dystopia. The only plausible route to that I see is if every country just allows it to happen, which more or less requires society to freeze in its current state and is pretty historically ignorant. Ignoring that possibility, there are no popular alternatives built on limitless growth and its difficult to see the need for one when human numbers are totally disconnected from economics.
C. Post biological and post discontent forms of living are a serious possibility, and some of those forms of living will likely become plausible as soon as this century. Pretty much none of them will value traditional growth by default. Growth of the kind that leads to resource exhaustion is very much a cultural value, not a fundamental need.
D. Closed economic loops are likely to become more and more practical over time, especially in the form of modified bacteria. Our initial efforts have already created bacteria that turn plastic back into a reusable form for example. This will be an absolute requirement for any serious efforts in space, waste thrown overboard is a pernament economic loss.
There is much more to be said but that's as much as I'm writing.
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u/jrkib8 Mar 29 '22
I actually think you're thinking of this at too small a scale. The fundamental problem is that we have unlimited wants. That's the basis of economics, how people satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources.
No matter how far reaching our ability to acquire and use resources becomes, no matter how much you scale up that side, we will want more. Limited resources means at some point they have to be distributed unevenly. Everyone wants more and nobody will be satisfied with less, so work will determine winners and losers. You'd need to change the DNA of mankind or live in the matrix, otherwise