What If Humanity Was a Post Scarcity Civilization? | Unveiled

What if Humanity Was a Post-Scarcity Civilization?

Scarcity rules the lives of almost every organism on Earth. Living creatures are all fighting for key resources like water, food, and shelter. Even plants compete with each other to get as much sunlight and nutrients possible. But what if we lived in a world where we never had to worry about running out of things again?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what if humanity was a post-scarcity civilization?

“Scarcity” means that a given commodity or resource is limited. it exists in a finite supply, though the reasons why are different from one commodity to another. In the year 2020, for example, the world was faced with a global shortage of computer chips due to silicon and lithium scarcity, which severely hampered the production of all electronics from cell phones to games consoles. But while you’re not going to die if you don’t have a PlayStation 5, millions of people do die every year because of food scarcity. Starvation takes hold when there isn’t enough food available, and this is a massive problem across the world map. But, in a post-scarcity society, this problem doesn’t exist. Post-scarcity is an ideal state, where people have their basic needs met without ever having to worry about any of the most vital resources running out. That means endless amounts of food, but also water, power, and plenty of housing.

The good news is that with the way science is developing in many different areas, we’re well on the path to a post-scarcity world. Some predictions claim it’ll happen before even the middle of the twenty-first century. But what needs to change between now and then?

Arguably, the resource we’re now closest to generating an infinite supply of is energy. Much of what we hope to achieve is rooted in a Kardashev scale-like quest for advancement, where we’re aiming to master the entire energy output of planet Earth – before moving on to the output of the sun. With fossil fuels being expensive, difficult to extract, devastating for the environment, and running out, it’s clear that we need a wholesale switch to renewables. And the wheels are in motion to make that happen, although time will tell whether we’re already too late. Regardless, the key thing is that a post-scarcity civilization would never rely on fossil fuels. So, we need to ditch them if we ever hope to become one.

Of all the alternative options, solar power is usually billed as the best bet. In the decades since the first photovoltaic cells were developed, the tech has drastically increased in capacity and decreased in cost; with the price of a photovoltaic module dropping by 99% between 1988 and 2018, according to research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is a major success in the push for post-scarcity, so much so that it’s hoped in some quarters that, eventually, all of Earth’s energy needs will be met by solar power alone. We might not even need the other renewable sources available to us. Solar panels are easy to build, maintain, and move. They can theoretically be installed anywhere. For efficiency’s sake, a post-scarcity society might even build them in space to get energy directly from the sun… so long as it could shuttle that energy back to Earth.

But, despite the promising signs, we know that energy isn’t the most important or immediate resource we need more of. After all, humankind lasted for thousands of years without electricity… and in many ways electricity could still be considered a luxury product. Food and water, on the other hand? It’s impossible to survive without them. So, the absolute minimum that a post-scarcity civilization needs to do is to provide these unlimited.

Without food, a human might last weeks. Without water, it’s only days. Malnourishment leads to severe health problems worldwide, while dirty water supplies spread deadly parasites and diseases. These are issues that human civilization is still dealing with all over the world. So, how do we go about achieving post-scarcity in food? One answer could be lab-grown meat. In the twenty-first century, we’re beginning to assess animal agriculture differently. And, while farming is undoubtedly key to thousands of families and communities… keeping livestock for meat and dairy can also be expensive and wasteful, by some counts. Ongoing research by the Compassion in World Farming campaign, for example, has found that it requires huge amounts of water and grain, plus the space and labour needed to prepare animals for sale is expensive, too. With automation, the agriculture industry is already changing. But some claim it’s time to leave the fields behind for good, and head to the lab.

Though the idea of synthetic meat may turn some stomachs, the signs are that it could one day be the norm - with advocates insisting that synthetic produce will soon be too good to ignore. It’ll take less work to produce, require fewer resources, be cheaper, and might even taste better. The space saved by not farming livestock could then be repurposed, whether that’s to plant more crops for human consumption, or to regreen more forests and woodland. It’s why so many near-future sci-fi stories feature lab-grown products (and don’t feature fields and fields of cows). In a post-scarcity civilization, food is literally available at the push of a button.

This pursuit of ultra-efficiency is a key part of a post-scarcity society. The goal being that everything should be available to everyone, all the time. Ultimately, it’s an ideal that could carry over into all types of work - not just agriculture. Today, it might be said that AI and automation is often received negatively; with fear and suspicion as it threatens to take our jobs. But, if humanity was post-scarcity, then it wouldn’t worry about that so much… because people wouldn’t need to work anymore to have their basic needs met. Automation would then be a positive, embraced by all, producing not only the things we most need but freeing people from their jobs while it does so. Such a civilization would effectively be producing leisure time, and it would be down to its civilians to use and enjoy that time however they wanted to. In a post-scarcity world, AI isn’t resisted but embraced. And the feared unemployment crisis is transformed into the ultimate freedom of humanity.

Depending on your ideology, this kind of world could either be a utopia or a dystopia. Some would welcome the idea of a society where people don’t have to spend most of their lives working just to make ends meet. Others, perhaps, wouldn’t like the prospect of a time where everything exists in so much abundance that no-one need strive for more. According to a study by McGill University and the University of Minnesota, using data from the United Nations, we already produce enough food for roughly one-and-a-half times the global population. That’s around ten billion people or, to think of it another way, what the population is predicted to be in the year 2050. We can see, then, that we could already live in a post-scarcity society (at least where food is concerned), and yet we don’t. Food is still produced and sold for profit, leading to unequal distribution, meaning some people continually go hungry. In a true post-scarcity civilization, this imbalance wouldn’t exist.

So, finally, let’s consider the best-case scenario, where we don’t have to work if we don’t want to, all our energy needs are fulfilled, and we never have to worry about going hungry or running out of water. What would people spend their time doing? Without such a pressing need for paid employment, perhaps we’d see an increase in volunteering. Or in people pursuing their creative interests. But, also, humanity would no doubt still be seeking to advance. Even at a post-scarcity level, there would be new things to discover, new places to visit, and new technologies to develop. There would, then, still be roles for people to play in pushing society forwards… it’s just that they’d be free to play those roles without having to worry over things like the household bills or the food in the cupboard. One of the most exciting implications of post-scarcity would surely be in space travel, where an advanced enough society could take its infinite resources to other moons, planets, and galaxies. Suddenly, spreading out across the universe would appear far more achievable.

We’d have instant power, as much synthetic food as we needed, and fully streamlined automation to make sure everything went off without a hitch. It would be a world where everybody is free to follow any lifestyle they wanted to. And that’s what would happen if humanity was a post-scarcity civilization.