This does not imply that I have something of tremendous value, or that is necessary for you to stay alive, or that is cherished by all. Simply that you want it, and I have it. It doesn't even have to be a tangible thing.
One of many huge philosophical problems I had with Star Trek: The Next Generation was a future that was imagined without money. Best I could figure, the idea being that once we reach some level, scarcity is no longer relevant.
This is ludicrous. Or, if it's not ludicrous, it supposes that we will reach some state that has never before existed in any complex market system that we've ever explored: a state of zero leverage. That is, even in a world where you can snap your fingers and get anything, people are going to value those who can think up the coolest things to make, right? In any world you can imagine, there are always trades to make. That is, there are always markets. To imagine otherwise would be to imagine a state of human existence that is perpetually happy and never wants anything novel. Does that exist outside of drug abusers and stagnant societies? Would we even wish such a life on our progeny?
I wouldn't.
Don't get me wrong: I think we have many hurdles ahead, and the road is going to get bumpy. In my future, mankind creates a new set of morals around what it means to be human. Do I really want my every thought shared with the collective? Every piece of data about my life to be available to everyone? Fuck that noise. But to each his own. I think this decision about the role of technology in our lives is going to be the turning point. Note that I'm all for trans-humanism: bring on the nanotech and augmented bodies. Just never take away my identity and value my own existence independently as something worthwhile to all of us. We need billions of independently-acting free agents. Not one hive mind.
But worst of all for this libertarian was where we ended up with in this article: the same old bullshit of "Find a problem. Find an academic. Describe the problem. Exaggerate a bit. Suggest some master plan for salvation." I have seen this pattern of article so many times somebody needs to come up with a name for it.
...we should take money from automating industries to fund a state guided program that gives money to consumers in exchange for working at bettering themselves. Sounds like a decent plan. Never gonna happen....
Underline: we do not know how all of this is going to turn out. The entire purpose of writing books like he has (and writing comments like I am) is to explore the problem, not get magic wands out and speculate on solutions. I don't think we're anywhere near understanding what the problems are, much less coming up with centralized systems for fixing them. And this is true in a lot more areas that futuristic fear-mongering. It's wonderful that he took the time to come up with some kind of socialized fix for a particular imagined future-world, but the fix is a little bit too predictable for me [insert long, drawn-out argument over the problems with these kinds of fixes]. I wish he would have just left it off.