An analysis of a topic I initially embraced more than 10 years ago, but has now taken Silicon Valley by storm.
A lot in the effective acceleration circles believe in a concept called post-scarcity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity#Speculative_technology
"Futurists who speak of "post-scarcity" suggest economies based on advances in automated manufacturing technologies,[4] often including the idea of self-replicating machines, the adoption of division of labour[8] which in theory could produce nearly all goods in abundance, given adequate raw materials and energy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
The question is, what type of abundance are we talking about?
Imagine you have a slow -moving, Catgeory 5 hurricane in the Caribbean. Northbound, it is expected to reach the southern shores of Florida in days. A condo highrise has removabable condos, and all the units can be emptied from the frame structure, and temporarily moved upstate or under ground. See my blog post on a letter I wrote to Freeman Dyson in 2008.
When I think of abundance, I think of 3D Printed houses- leveraging automation to lower the cost of construction, because, you know, the median salary of many U.S. workers is far less than the ability to pay off a 30 year mortgage. Supplemental repository: https://github.com/hatonthecat/OpenSourceCondo
In a post-scarcity world, there would be more houses than people. And labor could be simply fixing up/renovating other people's houses, not flipping them or charging exhorbitant rent. Taxes could still be higher in high-demand cities, but shipping containers as portable condos in multi-story homes like a Carvana freight elevator would be a great way to minimize the cost of moving, while getting to keep all of one's junk (nor have to deal with cleanup). If opportunities are not available in a high-tax city, one can move to a low-tax region, but if the opportunity arises, can move again to an area where there is an job- not all types of employment are long-term despite it being an ideal, even for myself (although it really depends on the type of work). When I think of abundance, I also think of Eric Hunting's essay on Solar Punk. I don't think of AI datacenters using up 90% of the potable water in Ireland in some not-so-distant future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cdqs2Q1Vis Because if the world's richest person prefers a tiny home for efficiency when working in a factory, that says a lot about the needs of many others. In the late 00's, I was infatuated with Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. Initially costing between $39,000 and $49,000, I thought they were an affordable home that many could eventually own, and reduce the homeless population. Yet, the cost of large things in the world is increasing, and whether or not the U.S. can adjust its zoning laws that prohibit such free standing RVs in most areas, will lead to what has been described as "systemic homelessness."
In order to make things abundant, the U.S. should be investing in cheaper cars, with open source automotive software, standardized aftermarket components, open source car chasses for mass-producability in local body shops, resembling ultra-fuel efficient vehicles such as the Elio, which, when it was originally announced was supposed to be a $6,800 car that got 84 miles per gallon. Today, Door Dash, Uber Eats, and Amazon Prime drivers spend tens of thousands of dollars on gas and repairs for used cars that do not economically break even, and some even riskier drivers prefer/can only afford to drive on scooters to save on gas.
From the CBS News article linked above the graph:
"Another factor that has swollen average prices is that 32 models in the United States now have selling prices above $100,000, according to Cox. SUVS and trucks dominate the current U.S. market, with the Ford F- Series pickups — priced between $40,000 and $112,000 — taking the top spot of Kelly Bluebook's Top 25 Best-Selling Cars of 2023. As recently as 2018, only 12 models sold for over 100 grand.
People like Andrew Lang of Flint, Michigan, feel priced out of the market entirely. Lang, 26, said there's no way he could afford a new car right now, not even a Mirage.
"I don't make enough money," he said,
Lang spoke after stepping out of his 2009 Chevrolet Impala in a grocery store parking lot near Ypsilanti. The Impala, with cloudy headlights, a crack in the front bumper and a dent in right side of the trunk, has 150,000 miles on it. Lang, an information technology coordinator, said he doesn't know what he'd do if he had to replace it. He would have to buy a used car — if he could find something affordable."
The CHIPS act could have infused hundreds of millions of dollars into an affordable car that no one in Detroit wants to make anymore. Instead it goes towards IP that makes the cost of living even more expensive, as land in cheap areas of the country gets purchased by tech companies to run their datacenters to comply with U.S. investment grants. The Elio needs(ed) between $374 million (in 2017) and $800 million (today) to realize production of its 3-wheeled car. An engine like the opposed-piston or Twin Air (Fiat 500) would also be a a way to improve fuel efficiency above 84mpg. Today, it is renting out factory space, presumably to raise funds.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/20/donna-haraway-interview-cyborg-manifesto-post-truth "Feminist cyborg scholar Donna Haraway: ‘The disorder of our era isn’t necessary’" (6/20/2019)
"What do you find most salient at the moment?
What is at the center of my attention are land and water sovereignty struggles, such as those over the Dakota Access pipeline, over coal mining on the Black Mesa plateau, over extractionism everywhere. My attention is centered on the extermination and extinction crises happening at a worldwide level, on human and non-human displacement and homelessness. That’s where my energies are. My feminism is in these other places and corridors.
What kind of political tactics do you see as being most important – for young climate activists, the Green New Deal, etc?
The degree to which people in these occupations play is a crucial part of how they generate a new political imagination, which in turn points to the kind of work that needs to be done. They open up the imagination of something that is not what [the ethnographer] Deborah Bird Rose calls “double death” – extermination, extraction, genocide.
Now, we are facing a world with all three of those things. We are facing the production of systemic homelessness. The way that flowers aren’t blooming at the right time, and so insects can’t feed their babies and can’t travel because the timing is all screwed up, is a kind of forced homelessness. It’s a kind of forced migration, in time and space.
This is also happening in the human world in spades. In regions like the Middle East and Central America, we are seeing forced displacement, some of which is climate migration. The drought in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America [Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador] is driving people off their land.
So it’s not a humanist question. It’s a multi-kind and multi-species question."
With AI potentially replacing many people's jobs before any amount of social safety nets can be implemented, our world of climate destruction is leading to more instability and uncertainty. Thus futurists and e/acc that place all their optimism in AI are not believably doing anything to address the cost of living crisis. Hardtech is more than AI, and the manufacture of durable, environmentally conscious goods that resemble more permaculture than disposable planned obsolescence is the only path to true and value-based abundance. In fact, anything that isn't "value based" is explicitly unsustainable as abundance of human goods requires an abundance of vacant landfills. Some people prefer basic cars, basic housing, even being labeled "based."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scissors_Crisis
Is there any similarity between cost of manufactured goods and tangibles such as homes and services such as medical care? Or is it that that there are more products to choose from, requiring foregoing some purchases? In any case, it seems that basic needs are overpriced for all but those who have an early advantage.