So what IS "automation-based post-scarcity", you ask?
Sometimes lovingly (or jokingly) referred to as "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism", this is a concept that basically refers to a futuristic utopian setup. You heard me right, not DYStopia, but actual Utopia, with societal structures that work for and support far more people than the ones we currently live (or die) by. The idea, at least as far as I am interested in discussing it, purports that capitalism may have been a useful tool for allowing society to function at larger scales, as a means of representing the production and consumption of not-unlimited goods, resources, and services- but that with the development and implementation of various types of automation, constantly advancing and progressing to become better and more adaptable, those goods, resources, and services can increasingly be provided without human labor and suffering, leaving humanity to reap the benefits and relax into just the role of consumption, simultaneously allowing us to dedicate our time and efforts towards creativity, luxury, pleasure, and development of the sciences. Thus, capitalism is no longer needed. Many (MANY) people would, in fact, agree that the continued stranglehold of late-stage corporate capitalism is increasingly causing more harm than good.
We have the technology to start this transition to a better way of life, for a lot more people. We should have started this a long time ago. It might already be too late, but we can't give up hope! It's going to take a lot of work, and a LOT of deep overhauls, communication, and empathy. There are so VERY many things that we have to work on. We're going to need some powerful tools to help us do it. Here are as many facets of that as I can think of (and have the time to write about), subject to updates and additions at any time.
We need to stop making the Earth uninhabitable for humans, because we don't yet have the technology to go anywhere else. If we're going to survive, we need to completely switch to sustainable/renewable energy sources, and we need to do it YESTERDAY. We need to reduce our carbon footprint until it is NEGATIVE, and drastically so. We are on a collision course with an irreversible future of unbearbly hot summers, deadly-cold winters, and natural disasters so damaging and so frequent that we won't be able to survive, to say nothing of the coastal flooding... The tough part here, is that this change needs to happen on a global scale, in every country, in every corporation, in each and every industry, no exceptions allowed. And we don't yet have the unified global authority to mandate and enforce that change. The UN and the Paris Accords are doing their best, but they aren't enough. Not every nation is in accordance, and even those that are, still do not address this life-and-death issue aggressively enough to hold their corporations accountable and halt the damage before it's too late. We need to work on mobilizing every governmental power in our grasp to make this a priority.
As for the technology, there will be at least three main angles of attack on this issue, maybe more. One is developing those sustainable/renewable energy sources to make them more efficient, more viable, and easier to produce and distribute and install. The second is the refinement of detection and tracking technologies, to make sure that even corporations who do not report to a higher authority, or corporations who are not forthcoming and honest in their reports, are not able to secretly continue pumping out carbon emissions unimpeded. And as always, we will want to work on reducing the amount of power needed for every piece of technology we use, so that we don't need to supplement sustainable sources with non-renewable ones. I'm not currently clear on whether our current level of technology would allow us to switch completely to green energy, but it definitely allows for a higher conversion rate than has already been adopted, so we have a lot of room for improvement, even with just the technology we already have.
2. Government.
Right now, the United States of America theoretically relies upon a system of representational democracy. We are supposed to be a nation built by the people, for the people, with laws that are created and upheld to that ideal. We like to think of America as "great," as a bastion of freedom that sets an admirable role model for other nations, especially those still early in their technological and economic development. At the time that this nation (or going even farther back, the very concept of Democracy) was founded, it was inconceivable that every person would be able to weigh in on every decision, because the number of people far outweighed the technological ability to poll them for their direct opinion on every relevant issue. So they built a system of representation, in the hopes that elected representatives would be able to work and govern in the interests of their constituents.
That inconceivable impossibility 244 years ago is now well within our grasp. The speed and connectivity of the internet, combined with the mass distribution of devices with access to it, means that we have had the necessary tools at our disposal for about two decades, maybe more. If we could communally make decisions about how to live together, in a way that fairly allows every individual to voice their opinion, we would no longer need to elect representatives to make those decisions for us. We could transition into a system of Direct Democracy, crowdsourced en masse to every person capable of participating. This would allow for the rules and infrastructures of our global society to be established in a form which will better serve the interests of far more people, rather than the select few that are served by our current "representative" system.
Now, technologically speaking, this is still going to be a massive undertaking. The interactive and conversational nature of polling which would be required to cover the nuances of every decision is going to need to be able to handle an astronomical amount of data, possibly more than any one unified entity currently is capable of handling. This could be solved either by a higher authority collecting and acquiring the means to handle the task, possibly through a process in the spirit of anti-trust laws and eminent domain. It could possibly also be achieved through crowdsourcing, via methods like blockchain or public-domain cloud computing. Admittedly, I'm still new enough in the field of IT and Computer Science that I'm not even entirely sure those terms refer to appropriate or relevant concepts, but I *think* they do...
In addition to the huge amounts of data, bandwidth, server size, processing power, etc. that will be needed to support this system, it will also need an intuitive interface- easy to use on every device possible, and comprehensible (or accommodating) to any person who wishes to use it. And to reduce the hours of review and deliberation needed to distill billions of opinions into a manageable number of options to choose from and tally a majority vote, this system will require the deployment of cutting-edge machine learning, paired with a level of interactivity not commonly deployed in today's consumer-facing AI. This is what I'm referring to as my current pet project, the voting system.
More to come, under construction:
3. Deprivatized production.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JobStealingRobot
4. Distribution according to need.
System for this will also be needed- could be like a shopping cart for goods and services that can be provided through automation, and a craigslist for goods and services which still require human work. People can use the craigslist function to complete voluntary tasks and earn "community credit" for use in obtaining things that are still scarce, like more optimal living locations and luxury stuff.
4.5- better (global) systems of distribution, will need to factor in sustainability and optimizing against food/resource waste
5. Civil rights.
This would hopefully be greatly helped by the direct democracy voting system, but we'll have to be sure to curb any inherent biases and adjust against systemic injustices already disadvantaging people.
6. Mental health and physical health, healthcare system overhaul
7. Education system overhaul
8. Social Services - would mostly be covered by #4 but may need special attention
9. Law enforcement, reparations, rehabilitation, incarceration?
10. Creativity, intellectual property, public domain, fair use and derivative works
To be continued! Last updated 10/11/2020
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