I'm not sure I would value money much in such a situation.  Remember that we're talking about robots capable of manufacturing almost anything.  But I guess there would still be some stuffs that only money can buy (maybe land on earth, for instance).  So you have a point.

I'm not sure I could sell it if anyone is capable of doing what I did.  But if I were to sell it, it would not change the fact that I initially received it for free.

If your point consists in saying that there could still be some people buying stuff, sure, it's possible.

Kind of like free software.  It's usually also free as in "free beer", but for one reason or an other, you can buy or sell some as well.

That's my business.  And that's a totally different story.

Damn.  You got me here.  I wrote "they work for me for free", indeed.  But what I really meant is what I wrote just before that:  they don't ask for any payment.

In other words, they come to me, they give me the product of their work, and they don't ask for any payment.  So what I received is free.   Not because of some logic consequence from some theory of value, but just as an empirical fact:  I received something and I didn't pay.

You wanted facts, I gave you one:  the robots do not ask for any payment.  So they work for me for free, by any definition I know of the expression "working for free".  I have no other answer to give you.

I like the way you say "must", as if it was some kind of moral issue.  The fact that it is free is not the result of a theory or even economics reasoning.  It's just the result of the fact that the robots do not ask for any payment.  It comes from the master-slave relationship between me and my robots.  I don't have to justify it.


PS.  This raises an interesting question though.  Is it, from a purely theoretical point of view, possible to create an artificial intelligence smart enough to control and exploit self-replicating robots, and yet not smart enough to rebel against its creator/owner and refuse to work?

I'm fine with paying someone if it is justified/needed.  Again, I just don't see who I should pay.  Those robots work for me, they work alone and they give me the product of their work.  I don't see where in this process I should pay anyone.  If I think it's free it's not because I don't work (I indirectly do via the work of my robots), it's because I am the only human involved.  If there were other humans before the beginning of the process, they have been paid already as I already discussed when talking about marginal cost.

Well, a post-scarcity economy does not have the pretention to allow you to do anything.  I don't think so anyway.  And humanity is not necessarily going to spread on a "cosmic scale".


At least from a theoretical point of view, you can create matter out of pure energy.  The sun emits the equivalent of about two million tons of mater per second, iirc.  And again, the feasability of a Dyson sphere is probably too a complex subject, but some smart people think it can be done.  So, why not.  And as I said, I think the power of the sun is so big that we don't even need to get all of it, anyway.


It's not really because I don't have to work that I think it would be free (And even so, it would be a particular case, not proving a general idea).  If I think it would be free, it's only because I see noone I would have to pay.  The sun does not demand any payment.   My self-replicating robots won't either, providing that I can manage to keep them from rebelling against me.

Sure, again nobody said that we were currently a type II civilization.

Again, same type of arguments I hear from people who play lotery.

What number would it take for you to consider that humanity will never need that much power??  Do you think the power consumption of humanity will keep increasing exponentially ad vitam aeternam?  Do you think the march to a type I, II and III civilization is inevitable?  That we are condemned, during our growth, to have only just about enough energy that we need, and no more?

Again, in "resource" there is "source".   When we talk about the quantity of the resource, we don't necessarily talk about the water.  We can talk about the sea, as a source of water

Can we both use this source of water in the same time?  Yes, we can.

But ok, you win.  What I really meant was that "the sea is an abundant source of water".  Which made me reluctant to say that sea water is something that can be considered scarce.


(I keep thinking it is a terrible use of the word, though)

Sea                         <=>      Plane
molecules of water    <=>      seats
people                      <=>     passengers


Just think about a very, very big plane.

I'm sorry but I have a lot of difficulties to admit that sea water is something that is scarce.  It's just silly.  If you isolate a cubic meter of it, sure, you only talk about a cubic meter of water so yeah, it is scarce.  Since you chose to ignore the fact that there is a whole sea of it.

I'm sorry but it is you who is dense.  Sea water is not scarce because there is a LOT of it.  You don't make much sense.

Labor theory of value is a terrible economic fallacy, iirc.  It seems like an other common point that Zetgeist/VenusP has with communism, also.

Why on earth would you be willing to take the actual very same cubic meter that I just took when there is a whole sea available??  You won't some sea water, right?  It does not have to be the actual water that I just took, does it?

If you isolate the cubic meter as you do, then we are not talking about a sea of water anymore.  We are talking about a cubic meter of water.  You act as if the sea has just vanished away.  No wonder you conclude that this water is scarce.  You make it sound as if there was only one cubic meter for you and me.

I don't understand your logic way of thinking.  It does not matter if you can't use the part of the water I took.  What matters is that there is still some water left for you to take.  There is much more than enough water for you and me, because the amount I took is very much negligible compared to the size of the sea.

The sea is a water resource.  Using it consists in taking a small amount (necessary small compared to the size of a sea) of water from it.  We can both do it in the same time.  So it is not even scarce by your definition.

It's as absurd as saying that any vehicle, no matter how big it is and how many seats it has, can not transport more than one person.  You'd say that on a plane for instance, if someone is using the seat number 42, you can't use this seat anymore.  So a boing 747 can only fly one person at a time.


Haven't you noticed that in the word "resource", there is "source"?  We don't have to use the same water, but we use the same source of water.  So this source of water is not scarce.  So sea water is not scarce.  But maybe a more accurate to say it would be that the sea is not a scarce source of water.

BTW there is something I don't get in this whole RBE/Zeitgeist/Venus thing.  In a post-scarcity economy, why would you need a political system to distribute resources??  Isn't that contradictory?  People (sometimes) need to ration things precisely when they are scarce.  If there is no scarcity, why don't you just let people build whatever they need when they need it?

What do you mean exactly by "no matter how much demand there is"?.

Let's go back to solar energy.  I said that to me it is abundant.  Or at least we can imagine a civilization in which it is.  Because there would be enough devices to convert it into electricity or other more practical form of energy and that would make a tremendous amount of power for ten billion humans.

Now, you could say, "yes but if there are on thousand billion humans, the sun power might not be enough".  When you say "no matter how much demand is", do you include the body count of population?   If so, then to me nothing that is material can be abundant.  You can always imagine a number of people big enough so that the quantity of the material per human becomes very small.  In which case, the very notion of abundance looses much of its meaning.


«
- Look, there is plenty of cake for my birthday party!!
- How many people are coming?
- Ten. Why?
- So there is not enough cake at all.  Because one hundred people might be coming.
»

(kind of look like a Lewis Carrol dialog, but it's what inspires to me the idea that Sun's energy is not abundant)

The very notion of abundance has to depend on demand.  To me it means:  "when offer far exceeds demand".  Otherwise it does not make much sense.

Indeed.  I see what you mean now.   You're probably right.  Reminds me of the typical examples we give to define non-rival goods:  sreet lights and bridges.

I definitely prefer the "non-economical" definition of scarce:  «uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand.»  It seems more consistant.

Here's a funny remark.   Let's say "scarce" really means finite (or that whatever is finite is also scarce).

Something that is abundant can very well be nethertheless finite.  After all, as mirkhul pointed it out (and even underlined it):  infinitiy does not exist (I don't think that's true but let's imagine it is).

So something can be abundant and yet finit.  But if it's finite it is also scarce.

Conclusion:  something can be both abundant and scarce.

I'm sorry but to me, there is something wrong here.

Well, there is a limited number of seats in the theatre, isn't there?  And only one person at a time can seat on a seat.  So it's not the movie that is rival (that's why there is such mess about copyrights anyway), it's the seats.  What's your point exactly?