Will Minecraft and Makerbot Usher in the Post-Scarcity Economy? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios
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From the Jetsons to Cory Doctorow, science fiction writers of all stripes have imagined a world where any object could be instantly created. Modern economics on the other hand, is built on the principle of competition for scarce resources. And while it may not seem like a video game and printer could alter this economic reality, we beg to differ. Minecraft's creative mode is the perfect vehicle for understanding a Post-Scarcity world; a place where resources are permanently available and constantly regenerated. It shows that with unlimited resources, people end up creating amazing digital structures! Of course, a world of infinitely available resources seems pretty fantastical until you consider the Makerbot and the future of 3D printing. The Makerbot is an at home device that allow you to print real three dimensional objects, meaning a Minecraftian future where you can print anything you want at anytime might not be that far away. Let us know what sorts of crazy ideas you have, about this episode and otherwise: Tweet at us! @pbsideachannel (yes, the longest twitter username ever) Email us! pbsideachannel [at] gmail [dot] com Hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta) Made by Kornhaber Brown (http://www.kornhaberbrown.com) This video contains a clip from Zach Bora's Minecraft - Mansion Timelapse video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPU0W44wMNo Music By: Roglok - http://vimeo.com/musicstore/track/21166 DJ Mar.S. AKA One Milk - http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/367557/dj-mar.s.-aka-one-milk Room for the Homeless - Level 5: http://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a101325/level-5 Minecraft Fun: http://www.geekosystem.com/21-amazing-minecraft-creations/ Makerbot & 3D Printing Goodness: http://www.makerbot.com/ http://www.thingiverse.com/ http://www.gizmag.com/the-pirate-bay-physibles-3d-printing/21208/ http://www.noblevisiongroup.com/technology/gabor-forgacs-on-bio-printed-lab-meat http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/en-uk/blog/burrit0bot-will-3d-print-some-tasty-burritos-for-you Watch Shannon on Coffey Chat! http://www.youtube.com/user/coffeychat Want some more Idea Channel? Here's last week's episode: How Did Sherlock Holmes Pave the Way for 50 Shades of Grey? http://youtu.be/beJdVmiQijM Want another one? Here ya go: "Does the Kinect Make Microsoft an Arts Benefactor?" http://youtu.be/h4VMbeB5Hlk You want more? Check this one out:"Does Nail Art Prove That Anything Can Be A Canvas for Artistic Expression?" http://youtu.be/DaYfonm51Lo
Comments
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Just to shout to the void, I hate the term "post-scarcity economy", as "economy" is a method to distribute scarce resources. No scarcity, no economy, so the term is "post-economy".
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looks like you never tried to make anything in makerbot
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I'm kind of new to this channel and maybe this is an inside joke that I don't get .... why does he keep using Comic Sans in the videos?
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you described Minecraft in a very wrong fashion
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Omg its survival mode... Adventure mode is only really used in maps...
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so you could you 3d print a 3d printer
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Need an endlessly renewable resource to replace plastic for the maker bot?
Why not hemp? -
a post scarcity economy could in fact exist if we were to somehow upload our consciousness into a computer, giving us an infinite amount of resources in that computer world
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You forgot about the first law of thermodynamics
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you already said it, and I paraphrase: in the real world we have finite resources.
post scarcity is a falsehood, a wayward school of thought that simply cannot be. -
the maker bot would have to be a part of it other wise labor would be required
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Read Damon Knight's 1959 sf book, A for Anything for the answer.
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Ah Makerbot. The Apple equivalent in 3D-printing. (Nice on the surface, shoddy underneath and not enjoyed by the community.)
Seriously though, you have to give it to them for jump-starting the consumer market for 3D printing. Sure, there are better companies and printers now that are less expensive, but Makerbot was the easiest to work with for the average guy, at least until it broke again. -
Well isn't creative mode still work because you still have to build things.
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Makes me think of Fullmetal Alchemist: transmute!
But also makes me wonder why their society wasn't all that different from ours... (aside from thematic reasons) -
ahh, how the 3-D printer became a phonaminon.
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Last!
There is one resource that you forgot: person-hours. A person-hour is the amount of work a person does in an hour. So 10 person-hours equals 1 person working for 10 hours, 2 people working for 5 hours, 5 people working for 2 hours and 10 people working for 1 hour. If 20 people spend 10 hours making a Turning Complete computer, then they were not making a fully functional railway system. This would be the new currency in a post-scarcity economy. -
"Piracy" is post-scarcity economics in action, within the context of media. There is almost no cost associated with the replication of a media file. In a traditional economic sense, they have no monetary value. If you want to make money on media, sell tangible merchandise. Allow the media to act as advertising for your brand. Sort of like Star Wars, without all the lawsuits.
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This is the same intellectually folly as the RBE. There will always be something of scarcity, and whatever it is, it will matter to us. In most first world countries starvation is ERADICATED. Think about that for a moment. Yes we still have hunger, but nearly no one dies from lack of available food.
You'd think we might be singing the praises of having eliminated the #1 killer of humans over our entire collective history. But nope. Now we laud people who are thin/fit, because in the US, then tend to be less scarce than people who aren't.
The real death knell for the RBE is to look at any group of hyper rich people. They essentially have no scarcity and abundance of anything they want. Are they all perfectly happy? Nope. It's just like how "poor" is a relative saying. What we call "poor" now is fantastically wealthy compared to even 200 years ago. You'll never "eliminate" poor, it's relative.
So even if we can craft anything, scarcity will be those thing we don't have designs for that people keep secret. Or any idea, material or thing that isn't as common as anything else. And we'll be just as disappointed about not having that "thing" as we are now when we can't afford some other doodad.
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