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Question about hypothetical future utopia (see details)?

Asked by HungryGuy (16039points) July 17th, 2010

Suppose, hypothetically, it is 200 years in the future. Ignore for the moment that “utopia” rarely is, but assume for the sake of argument that “utopia” has arrived. For instance, home cold fusion (LENR / CANR) electric power generators are commonplace. Tritium, the “fuel” for cold fusion, can be easily extracted from tap water. So energy is plentiful and free, and your fuel is basically water. AI robots do all the menial labor like driving trains and buses, cleaning, yard work, etc. 3-D printers, a.k.a., matter replicators, are also commonplace. So you can manufacture anything you want, pretty much out of thin air (or, again, tap water which contains trace amounts of just about every element needed to make any consumer product). As a result of this, the economy has collapsed because nobody has to work for a living. Nothing is made or sold for profit by companies. There is no longer any such thing as advertising. Money is obsolete and worthless. Another plus of this is that crime will drop to nearly 0%. Sure, “crimes of passion” will still occur, but burglary, muggings, theft, robbery, will cease to have any motivation. Vice “crimes” like drugs and prostitution will also end simply because of the end of a profit motive. Very many social problems will cease to exist with the absence of money and profit motive. Politicians will no longer be influenced by corporate profit interests since corporations and private companies will cease to exist.

Now, those of you who presently write or create art for a living: If there’s no profit or income from it, would you still write/create for the satisfaction and pleasure of it? If not, what else would you do?

What about other professions that robots (even AI robots) probably won’t be able to do, like police, school teacher, surgeon, researcher, etc? Will people still volunteer their time to perform these professions gratis, if only a few hours a week? or do you think our “utopia” means that technological progress will effectively come to a screeching halt since there’s no longer a profit motive do to anything?

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