>If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed.
When you start with ridiculous premises, you're going to reach ridiculous conclusions.
When you start with ridiculous premises, you're going to reach ridiculous conclusions.
Unless we reach the singularity, there will always be the need for something.
And if you think of needs as something as abstract as "power over the universe" (which is still a limited resource, even after the singularity), you cannot ever reach the state where machines produce everything we need.
Hence, the premise can be unreachable, or - in parent's words - "ridiculous"
Inequality will always be with us because humans compete. If they don't compete directly economically they compete for social status.
Providing a base level of food, shelter, and medical assistance is achievable. I just don't think it will be enough when envy is factored in.
> machines produce everything we need
There's a difference between need and want. People want iPhones, but they don't need them, so they can decide themselves whether working more is worth it.
On the other hand, people need food. The only choice is work or die, which isn't really a choice. There is an infinitely large jump between extremely cheap food and free food (and energy/shelter). As food gets cheaper, wages decrease as well, so you still need to work about as long to survive. When/if food becomes free, people won't need to work any longer.
It is cynical and ignorant to assume the dollar is the monotheistic deity of motivation for everyone. There are and have been countless cultures across the world who don't require monetary payment to produce the requisite food for the community.
The things that people think they need. Be it plain consumerism or something cultural or social like honor, an iphone, a beautiful wife, a car for boys to impress girls or to go to work, a marriage before losing virginity.
In each of the above cases need in the survivalist sense and need in the subjective sense cannot be more different.
One will have a hard time arguing that those people don't need what we think they don't need.
Except we don't live by their standards -- we live by our standards. And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more. That's why it's ridiculous to assume we will ever have "everything we need".
AI + Space = everything we need
Machines have been labor saving entities since the invention of the wheel. Inevitably, one day they will perform all labor.
This is not true of many tribal or "uncivilized" cultures. Conspicuous consumption, luxury, and economic advantage/inequality as moral value systems are taboo for close knit tribal communities.
>Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
-Lame Deer
Whilst I certainly want things that my iron-age ancestors wouldn't even have known they could want, my actual physical needs are not greatly different from theirs.
Part of the "challenge" a capitalist society faces is making sure there are jobs despite that only a tiny fraction of the population needs to work to provide everyone's basic biological needs, but that without work everyone else can't pay for those needs to be satisfied.
Not necessarily - and even so, the work left to be done by humans might only cover a small % of the population.