“Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, often explored in science fiction, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free.” [Wikipedia]
Bar some large corporations trying to fight the flood, free information is just around the corner – and free software we already have. Now, if I want to, I have free food and goods, free transport, and free accommodation. It requires some effort and social skills, but I know quite a few people who are living their lives mostly like this. It’s not my personal choice to limit myself to free (as in free beer) since the quality and especially my freedom to choose goes up drastically in exchange for a little bit of labor.
An argument often brought forward is that dumpster diving and hitchhiking are not scalable to everyone. I hundred procently agree. But there’s no need to worry about this. First, I don’t expect that half the population of the EU or the US will suddenly choose hitchhiking as their favorite means of transport. And second, if it would happen I think it would bring us a lot closer to a post scarcity society not further away.
What I’m thinking of is promoting concepts to people who are open to it. Who then will spread the abundance around them. Just like I’ve done myself, my mind was opened by the endless possibilities of free software, I came across wikis, then hospitality exchange and hitchhiking – and combined some of these concepts and consequently catalyzed the spreading of information about abundance. When volunteering for couchsurfing I had vague ideas to take that platform a step further but it didn’t work. Now it’s time to create a new platform that does it. It might not be for everyone, but couchsurfing is leading to 100.000s of people opening up their homes to strangers. There is often some self-interest involved but to me it is showing that post scarcity is a serious possibility to many and that is time to create a Bitchun Society.
Not based on virtual concepts like Twitter accounts, but on real social interaction, on sharing goods and services and spreading happiness. Not on being a homeless bum in the street, by living a life both spontaneously and productively (although possibly not measured in ¥€$). It won’t be for everyone in the first decade but it might just come a long way.
Now we just need a name. And Drupal 7.
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You mean a platform that would implement hospex, hitchhiking, binning and other free-stuffing ?
I don’t see how, with the given penetration of mobile internet, anything beyond hitchwiki could be made. But for the name, with a friend, we used the word “freewheeling” for the concept. Which I can’t help finding superior to the dry-tech “post-scarcity”. In French “roue libre”. Like you’re driving fast on a bike, propelled only by the downhill, without effort.
Yes, a platform that enables people to do all these things, but above all, that enables people to share. Hitchwiki would be a big part of it yeah, at least in the beginning, build on the network of hitchhikers and find ways to provide Hitchwiki’s information easily to hitchhikers.
How do you see mobile internet as an impediment to making a “free-wheeling” platform? I think it’s the opposite
I’m interested on the idea, but as far as I remember the most popular kids at school didn’t tend to be the best by any measure… I could argue that those with the greatest amount of popularity will tend to have millions of popularity points ‘whufies’ but very little care or respect for each of the people they are connected to (eg. Sarkozy’s facebook profile with 30k+ “friends”)
I find a greater amount of respect and loyalty for a limited number of people to be much more respectable (even in art, I would say that a larger amount of respect by a smaller number of people should be more valuable than ephimeral attention by the masses).
Another issue I see is an increase on the undesirable effects of democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#Criticism_of_democracy) by a system that would basically take the idea to its heights.
I do see though that the system would bring greater amounts of transparency, which is certainly good (specially for hitchhiking!) … but could we not apply these to our current system without requiring such a drastical change?
I’m not proposing a drastic change, just some ideas, websites and a network with some slight fixes to the current system.
I’m into adhocracy, not democracy. Generally there is too much complexity and too little time to have many discussions.
The most popular kids in school won’t be the first to join anyway, I think.
BTW Silvio, where are you now?
thank U, Kasper. U are really the inspiration!