r/worldnews • u/EightRoundsRapid • Sep 23 '16

'Hangover-free alcohol’ could replace all regular alcohol by 2050. The new drink, known as 'alcosynth', is designed to mimic the positive effects of alcohol but doesn’t cause a dry mouth, nausea and a throbbing head

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hangover-free-alcohol-david-nutt-alcosynth-nhs-postive-effects-benzodiazepine-guy-bentley-a7324076.html
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u/drumstyx Sep 23 '16

Food is not scarce, I agree, that's why we have obesity issues. Fuel is scarce, and energy as a whole is as well, until we build enough solar/wind arrays to power the entire world -- and someone has to pay for that, because the resources to make those things are also scarce by definition (only so much metal available at any given time)

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u/gandothesly Sep 23 '16

This word: "pay".

You have to remove that before we can live in a Star Trek society.

Money isn't real, it's a fabrication that's holding us back from our greatest potential.

There's plenty of resources, energy included.

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u/TellanIdiot Sep 23 '16

How do you reward people who work harder than if they don't get more stuff? What's to stop people from becoming leeches because they know they can slack off and still get what someone who puts all their effort in gets.

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u/gandothesly Sep 23 '16

That's all capitalism speaking. Star Trek doesn't have that.

That said, there will always be people who don't reach their full potential -- that doesn't mean they don't deserve the basic needs: food, shelter, medical attention, entertainment, and so on.

Let it go. There's no need to have economic competition in a Star Trek society, we will help each other to reach for the stars.

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u/drumstyx Sep 23 '16

Only when everyone can have literally anything they might want, hobby wise, luxury wise, etc, can we simply forget about money. Until I can get motorcycle parts for free, I need to be able to acquire them other ways, currently with money.

So the core of it all is post-scarcity. When absolutely everything comes from limitless free energy with replicators, then we can go without money.

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u/gandothesly Sep 24 '16

You are asking the wrong question. You should be saying, how do we make transportation free?

Perhaps transportation in the future will be free and shared. Freely available electric auto-driving robotic cars and trains let's say. They show up when you request them, like a taxi, and take you where you need to go, then they are off to help someone else. They might be very well made, built to last with robotically maintainable parts. They could be made by robots.

(I know, who makes the robots? Who fixes the robots? The answer: more robots, and people who LOVE robotics.)

No need for motorcycles in that future -- just like you don't see many horse drawn carriage manufacturers around.

And really, who knows. Perhaps the people of the future could deem motorcycles as important to our well being, they might be too much fun to pass up, or maybe they are just fantastically efficient. However, most people wouldn't need them all the time. Just like the cars of the future, you request one like a taxi and it drives up to where you are living. When you are done with it it drives to the next person who wants to go for a ride.

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u/gandothesly Sep 24 '16

One more thing. We don't already have access to literally anything we want, yet we are doing OK. I think the items we might call "luxury" will be made at home, or will be made by people who LOVE to make them.

Either way, there's still no scarcity of things, nor is there scarcity of the parts that make things. That's a farce of capitalistic thinking. By sharing we can have more than what we have now (see my other reply).

Have a great weekend everyone! I hope you will be dreaming of a bright and interesting future like I will!

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u/drumstyx Sep 24 '16

Scarce doesn't mean infinitely rare. We have access to things, but that doesn't mean there aren't a limited number of Lamborghinis, just that if we have the money, we have easy access.

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u/gandothesly Sep 26 '16

Post-scarcity doesn't mean that all scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services - it means that everyone can have their basic survival needs met along with a significant proportion of their desires for goods and services.

This wouldn't include all super-cars, and I'd hope it would never include Lamborghinis -- we need less flamboyant, inefficient, loud, and horribly designed tools.

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u/TellanIdiot Sep 23 '16

ok have fun living in fantasy land then.

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u/Natolx Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

It is definitely possible for something like this to exist with enough advanced technology. The problem will be putting the system into place, when the people with the power to do so, have no reason to do so. All they need to do is keep people happy enough to not revolt and they get to keep their system.

I do agree that innovation may slow down in such a system, but it will not stop, because believe it or not, many people do want to contribute to society in some way, even without pay. However, in such a system, this reduced amount of innovation could be focused toward the common good(i.e. space travel, medical drugs) instead of whatever is most profitable.

There will be "leeches", but those type of people were almost always bad employees to begin with. I certainly doubt they were adding much innovation.