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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein)

Reading about Design Science, I came across this quote. I've been thinking about the having to earn a living mindset. What happens if energy is abundant? What happens if all manufacturing is automated? What happens if potable water is abundant? Food?

I'm having trouble visualizing the transition from scarcity to abundance. Sometimes it seems to me that we are hanging onto our scarcity with our fingernails. Possibly the coming climate changes will push us over the edge.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

anansi133.livejournal.com

I sure did!

time management for anarchists.

From:

ljgeoff.livejournal.com

Holy Wah! Thanks! So cool!

From:

jonsinger.livejournal.com

Howdy. If I may quote —

I'm having trouble visualizing the transition from scarcity to abundance. Sometimes it seems to me that we are hanging onto our scarcity with our fingernails.

Let me leave aside the issue of visualizing abstractions, which is strictly OT, and say a word or three about scarcity and abundance.

I have a suspicion that both of those are, for many people, fundamental internal operating modes or stances that they may or may not be aware of. I also think that the scarcity one is usually self-sustaining: when a person is in that mode, it doesn't matter how much of [item] they get, even if they get all the [item] there is. It still isn't enough, because there is no such thing as "enough". (As far as I can tell, that's the typical internal definition of "scarcity". Note that it's timeless, which makes change very difficult; at least the "real-world" or external definition can sometimes be stated as "right now, there isn't enough [item] to go around", which allows for the circumstances to change.)

My guess is that most people who operate in the scarcity mode for any real length of time will tend to become stuck in it. A transition from "scarcity" to "abundance" becomes more and more difficult, until it takes a thoroughgoing mental revolution (see also, "life-changing experience") to break the spell and get the person out of the tight-loop. (This is a tendency, though, not an absolute.)

Moreover, I think that the "abundance" mode is typically more fragile, because of course some scarcities are real and difficult or impossible to ignore; and if you do not have a way to defend your mode or stance, the first painful shortage that comes along will break it.

Note, btw, that because these are internal modes and follow internal rules, they are not under any obligation to relate in any linear or obvious way to external observables. The mere fact that we live in the richest nation on the planet is not enough to stop people from (just for example) saying that you shouldn't buy foreign-made goods, as if we were going broke and the folks in the rest of the world were trying to take our meagre living away from us. (Etc., etc., ad nauseam.) [Yeah, I know, that's a bit of an overstatement, and only partially to the point. Such is life.]

Hope this all makes some kind of sense.

Cheers —
jon

From:

ljgeoff.livejournal.com

Actually, that helps alot, especially because these are internal modes and follow internal rules, they are not under any obligation to relate in any linear or obvious way to external observables. Something just went "click".

From:

jonsinger.livejournal.com

Something just went "click".

Cool!

This is something I have to remind myself of fairly frequently; "psycho-logic" is just different from formal logic. It follows its own set of rules, which can be pretty slippery. (At least they can often by systematized and understood, though that isn't always easy.)

Cheers again —
jon