The Future of our civilization in 3 steps

The begin of year 1963 was a very important year for civilization as we know, Russian astronomer Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev (Никола́й Семёнович Кардашёв – born on April 25, 1932 in Moscow) was examining quasar CTA-102 in the first Soviet quest in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and started to philosophate about extraterrestrial life and all achievements of mankind.

leia este artigo em Português

The result was released 22 years later in his work "On the Inevitability and the Possible Structures of Supercivilizations" in "The search for extraterrestrial life”

The basic ingredient for a decent standard life and to improve a society to prosperous levels is ENERGY. At the present moment we humans are getting most of the energy we need from dead plants and animals on the planet turned into coal, oil, etc.

Karadshev has developed a scale that has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. These are based on the amount of usable energy that a civilization have at their own disposal, and the degree of space colonization. In general terms, a Type I civilization have achieved mastery of the resources of our home planet as seen in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a “planetary civilization”, system. Star Trek with the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet colonization of few Star Systems correspond to Type II, a time when our civilization have achieved mastery of the resources of our own solar system. And Type III like the “Empire” in Star Wars, when we have achieved mastery of the resources of our own galaxy.

We are now in type 0 (ZERO) civilization because at the present moment, we are not able to achieve mastery of the resources on Earth. Far from it, we had almost destroyed ourselves many times during cold war, the best known of these episodes was in 1962 when military intervention by the United States in Cuba, that almost triggered a nuclear war perfectably capable of human race annihilation. That was the so called “Bay of Pigs episode”.

Japanese-American theoretical physicist Michiuo Kaku (加來 道雄 - January 24, 1947) says that the transition form type 0 to type 1 civilization could be the most dangerous period that a civilization can face. Mathematicians says that could exist thousands of Type 1 Civilization in the galaxy, and if is so, why we have not seen them yet?

Kaku says that in one hand we have cultural tolerance, good scientific growth, integration, but in other hand we have nuclear weapons, terrorism that works as obstacles to reaching Type I Civilization status. Perhaps no other civilization could make it to transform itself from a Type 0 into a Type I.

The current status of human civilization has thus been named Type 0. Although intermediate values were not discussed in Kardashev's original proposal, American astronomer Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) calculated in 1973 grades between 0 and 1 in HUMANITY’S CIVILIZATION TYPE – HCT he stipulated that at that point Earth was to be 0.7, in relationship to Kardashev's model for Types 0 and I

Sagan used the formula:

Kaku posted that in 1900 our HCT was 0,58, in 2004 was 0,72 and that if we make use of large scale application of fusion power, Anti-matter production to be used in antimatter-matter collisions power plants, Solar energy, converting sunlight into electricity by either solar cells, etc. in the year 2100 we could get out of zero and reach HCT I.

Earth in 2012 is a Type  0,72 civilization

The Great leap into a Type I civilization also encompasses economical and political changes, maybe in year 2110 could be read in headlines of the newspapers “Today was signed the first planetary trading block, we could buy antimatter from VULCANO with paying taxes” or “Despite all Chinese efforts English was approved as the new interplanetary official language”.

Even if in our Type I economy English would be the “planetary idiom” other languages will be spoken because people will have time and resources to stud and enjoy their own culture, cultural tolerance will tend grow with no limits because people learned from the process of reaching Type I that diversity was the great ingredient of evolution, poverty will be extinguished, because “now we can explore other planets and make use of abundant resources” , enterprises will not enter into a new business because of money; instead, they will pay more attention to improve employee’s personal skills, they will realize that this is the best way to prosper in a resourceful planetary system. Type I political system (adopted as one in the whole planet) is more equitable and maybe democracy will be replaced by “total democracy” (I have no idea how that would work).

Understanding our reality and the forces that could lead us into a Type I, II or III civilization, we could be the race (maybe the first) that will prosper beyond the limits of a planet, solar system or galaxy.

Adventure Captalism - How could we make a poor family in Brazilian Northeast be part of a prosperous Post-Scarcity System

Some regions such as the Brazilian Northeast, has suffered from great evasion, but remains inhabited thanks to the strong and resilient local people. NIMPS and Blemya present here some tips that could help these people suffer a little less.

Leia este artigo em Português

It is noteworthy that the objective of this article is not an attempt to change cultural features and/or interfere with issues of ethnic identity, we simply extrapolate how would these isolated communities be better served by some clever ideas of productivity and low environmental impact.

Now, Check out some “almost impossible solutions” for the suffering inhabitants that live in the doughtiest northeastern region of Brazil.

The good news for this local humble farm in the middle of the drought is that a group of engineers of Blemya and NIMPS analyzed the scarce local resources and have implemented a number of gadgets to transform the lives of this couple with their two young children.

The family new income will be the production and sale of fuel oil from algae, grown in special solar greenhouses.

Some of the oil will fuel the 'Alageus' a car designed to run with this oil.

A solar hydraulic pump will draw water from deep artesian wells and will be purified, also with the use of solar energy.

Computers, televisions, refrigerators and all other electrical appliances in the house will be powered by the newest wind and solar power generators.

As we saw this humble rural family went from suffering poor to prosperous workers through the use of global intelligence coupled with a willingness to work.

Now learn more about these new technologies.

Providence Solar Water Pump

The water pump systems have solar panels (Photovoltaic cells) that move automatically to track the movement of the sun, for maximum efficiency. Water is drawn from the source through a “straw” by a pump that is powered by the solar panels.

Solaqua Uses Solar Power to Purify Water

Jason Lam, a student designer at University of New South Wales, shows a water purifier that uses the power of the sun to make water drinkable. It's intended for places with limited resources where water-borne diseases are prevalent, helping to save lives with the power of the sun.

Solaqua utilises ultra-violet and infra-red rays from the sun to eliminate pathogens within contaminated water. Raw water is first passed through a sari cloth filter to improve efficiency of solar water disinfection (SODIS). A five tap funnel fills five specially designed bottles to obtain ten litres of water. By spreading and laying the bottles on the ground, the transparent bottle surface allows maximum exposure to UV rays. The black, back surface of each bottle absorbs heat, while reflective inner surfaces reflect UV rays within the water itself.

The design uses plastics, which seems problematic for a device that will sit all day in some very hot sun. Lam states, though, that plastics were chosen to keep it lightweight so it can be carried to where water is available, and so that each part can be replaced and recycled as needed. That doesn't mean, though, that the parts will be long lasting, which would be a key element to a design going to rural areas.

Modeling Software Aims to Improve Small Wind Turbine Designs

A lot of research and focus is given to large horizontal wind turbines because they're able to generate so much energy individually and in large wind farms, but small wind turbines in more urban settings can still pack a punch if they're designed and positioned in a way that lets them generate the most energy. But what designs are better and where exactly on a roof is best? That's exactly what new modeling software from researchers at Murdoch University is being used to figure out.

“A knowledge of turbulence intensity helps predict the load on the machine, so it informs the required design strength of turbine components, including the tower and blades. We need accurate data to ensure turbines are strong enough for all conditions,” said PhD student Amir Tabrizi.

Tabrizi is working on developing a three-dimension computational fluid dynamics model built with OpenFOAM software that will incorporate various wind environments and factor in things like height, prevailing wind directions and the effects of different building shapes. So far, he's found that rooftop and forest sites both face far more turbulence than the current design standard for small wind turbines, which is based on open space installations, equips them for.

Solar Prototype Concentrates Sun's Energy with Glass Orb, Boosts PV Efficiency 35%

When talking about concentrated solar power, we usually mean focusing the sun's energy from a large area into a smaller area, which generates a lot of heat that can be used to produce electricity. But a prototype for a different method of concentrated solar power focuses the sunlight onto a photovoltaic panel, and is said to be able to boost efficiency by as much as 35%.

Barcelona designer and architect André Broessel's ß.torics (Beta Torics) spherical lens solar generator uses a large water-filled glass ball to concentrate the sun's energy (by up to 10,000 times!) onto a small PV panel. His design also integrates a fully rotational tracking system to optimize the solar energy gain throughout the day, and is said to be able to be mounted on or in walls for use with either PV panels or solar thermal applications.

© Raw Lemon

This is a beautiful device, but there's at least one big question that comes up when discussing the idea of integrating these units into buildings, which is the weight of these water-filled lenses, which could easily outweigh any other options for rooftop or wall-mounted solar energy devices. Other limiting factors in producing these might be the high cost (and the technology needed) for turning out optical grade glass balls of a significant size, such as the one in the prototype, and the high temperatures generated on the surface of the PV panels.

The ß.torics spherical glass solar energy generator design is currently awaiting patent approval. For more info, see Raw Lemon ß.torics.

Viable Oil Replacement Must Be Synthetic, Not From Nature, Venter Says

A recent announcement from celebrated scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter suggests that the plan to create the world’s first mass-market biofuel has stalled in its tracks. In a landmark partnership between Venter and ExxonMobil, Venter and a research team planned to develop a commercially-viable biofuel from algae.

Since algae naturally generates oil in higher amounts than biofuel crops, it was believed algae could be the key to developing a sustainable biofuel.

World's first algae-powered plug-in electric hybrid vehicle.

Josh Tickellis the creator of the Veggie Van Organization and director of "Fuel," which was honored as best documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Tickell created the Algaeus mobile, As the name suggests, it's the world's first algae-powered plug-in electric hybrid vehicle. Essentially, the Algaeus is a tricked-out version of the already fuel-efficient Prius. Tickell added a nickel metal hydride battery and a plug to the hybrid car. Instead of gasoline, the car's engine runs on algae fuel.

The set-up is so effective that the Algaeus can run on approximately 25 gallons from coast to coast.

Developed by the green startup company Sapphire Energy, algae fuel is produced on a farm in the deserts of New Mexico.

Proponents of algae fuel claim that it has the potential to be a new source of 100 percent carbon neutral energy that won't require changing the country's current energy infrastructure..

Low Maintenance Desert House Design by Gracia Studio

Here is desert house with low maintenance based on the ones designed by Gracia Studio. This house featured with outdoor swimming pool and opened living room. The materials used in their construction are carefully chose to withstand hurricane and also need a minimum maintenance. Basically the house is one open floor plan for the common areas and the bedrooms are more enclosed to have privacy. Both houses have similar structure. It is composed of concrete matching the natural color of the local dirt. Some walls are covered with “talavera” in order to bring a traditional “Nordestina” architecture into its design. The floor plan is very easy and flexible because of the linear structure of each house. The simplicity of the floor plan matches the simplicity of the design of the exterior making the place perfect for enjoying the nature.

THE GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK

Hildur Jackson, born in Denmark in 1942 is the person behind ‘The Global Ecovillage Network - GEN’, a global association of people and communities (ecovillages) dedicated to living "sustainable plus" lives by restoring the land and adding more to the environment than is taken.

She has spent most of her life in the suburbs of Copenhagen, with a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Copenhagen and also did postgraduate studies there in cultural sociology, She and her husband Ross Jackson since 1967, has 3 sons and 5 grandchildren.

GEN members share ideas and information, transfer technologies and develop cultural and educational exchanges.

In 1991 Hildur and Ross Jackson from Denmark established the Gaia Trust, a charitable foundation, Gaia funded a study by Robert Gilman and Diane Gilman of sustainable communities around the world. The report, Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities, was released in 1991. The report found that although there were many interesting ecovillage projects, the full-scale ideal ecovillage did not yet exist. Collectively, however, the various projects described a vision of a different culture and lifestyle that could be further developed.

In 1991 the Gaia Trust convened a meeting in Denmark of representatives of eco-communities to discuss strategies for further developing the ecovillage concept. That led to the formation of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). In 1994 the Ecovillage Information Service was launched (see Global Ecovillage Network link below). In 1995, the first international conference of ecovillage members, entitled Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities for the 21st Century, was held at Findhorn, Scotland. The movement grew rapidly following this conference.

By 2001, GEN had obtained consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In October 2005, at the conference to celebrate the tenth anniversary of GEN, a group of young adults joined together to found NextGEN (the Next Generation of the Global Ecovillage Network). GEN does not have a verification procedure to select ecovillages or member subscriptions on their website. A Community Sustainability Assessment tool has been developed that provides a means to assess how successful a particular ecovillage is at improving its sustainability.

GEN surely is the necessary step for the creation of post scarcity cells all over our planet - exploring new ideas and putting them into practice, leading us to a life with more harmony and abundance.

http://gen.ecovillage.org

DESIGN & CONCEPT - Simone Madella Ephraim Henrie Pavie Wolkswagen AQUA Car University Xihua-China 

Blemya

Blemya - The friction-free monster of collectivity.

The core philosophy of Blemya blog lies in the beliefs that “Super Collective composed by the beautiful and strong different individuals will achieve better present and tomorrow”. The sympathetic character of the blemya monster is regarded to what we are now living; In the beginning, it can be very frightening, but if you can beat that little negative rejection to the monster of collectiveness, you will surely love her.


http://www.blemya.com/

Evolutionary Economics

Every fisherman in Tsukiji fish market (築地市場 Tsukiji shijō) in Tokyo knows that the fight to the top, in a non productive way, is the worst thing one should do in order not to be eaten.

Leia este artigo em Português

Portunus Trituberculatus, the GAZAMI crab is a Japanese blue crab that is also the most widely consumed species of crab in the world, with over 300,000 tonnes being caught annually the GAZAMI is the best example of nature’s contraproducent behavior. The lack of success of this crab is due to an apparent inherited selfish attitude.

Gazami demonstrate some intelligence and are even capable of communicate by drumming or waving their pincers. They are aware about themselves and others.  It is well known that if you put a bunch of GAZAMI crabs in a barrel they would never be able to leave. When one nears the top of the barrel, approaching his escape, one of the other crabs reaches the mate and pulls the crab back down. Another one goes up, and he or she is also pulled up to fall.  This process continues and the only way for them to escape from the barrel is to be sold to someone with lunch or dinner intentions.

Markets are the perfect non-biased teachers of self-reflection and discipline as well as evolution. Studying attitudes of animals like that we could understand our own nature and also learn how to keep up with our social lives. Termites in other hand are proliferating worldwide, and differently from GAZAMI crabs, they are capable of helping each other, looks like they live by the motto “Create more prosperity in the life of others and you shall experience more prosperity in your own life”.

David M. Raup, a biologist at the University of Chicago, identifies in his book "Bad Genes or Bad Look?" that everything about extinction that we thought was true is wrong. The author’s main thesis is that extinction is a mostly random event; due to catastrophes and bad luck, and not related to the process of evolution itself.

There is an interesting but naive chapter in the book on the relation of extinction to industries. Raup argues that most of the companies around today were not in existence 50 years ago, and the cause of their disappearance, merger or bankruptcy corresponds to the causes of species disappearance or phyletic transformation.

The author draws parallels between such things as that the total number of companies names was lower 50 years ago, just as biodiversity was less, and that certain industries wax and wane just as species do.

Comparing the extinction of ancient species and old companies brings few points into consideration:

1 - Species are temporary but the energy manifested in individuals and markets carries on beyond the gradual understanding of science and reason. (Corporate) death is nothing but an opportunity. Time is nothing but a hubristic attempt to contemplate the unknown;

2 - Individual entities, while susceptible to a variety of ills, are more inclined to survive attacks based on the presumption that assumes a large group is present and available to be taken out with the first strike. Less mass = Less possible chance of extinction;

3 - Diversification in multiple markets should prove a trusted strategy?

4 - Extinction would have taken its toll on multiple organisms, yet somehow these organisms were allowed endure.

Evolutionary economics is a heterodox school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology. Much like mainstream economics, it stresses complex interdependencies, competition, growth, structural change, and resource constraints.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (8 February 1883 – 8 January 1950) was one of the predecessor of evolutionary economics, economist and political scientist born in Moravia, then Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic. Schumpeter wrote “Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung” translated as The Theory of Economic Development (Entwicklung also means Evolution).

In Schumpeter's book he proposed an idea radical for its time: The evolutionary perspective. He based his theory on the assumption of usual macroeconomic equilibrium, which is something like "the normal mode of economic affairs". Both economics and evolution employ the notion of optimization, whether optimization of the profit, of a business, or optimization of species for its environmental niche.

Howard Aldrich, Geoffrey Hodgson, David Hull, Thorbjoern Knudsen, Joel Mokyr, Viktor Vanberg and others have argued that the general Darwinian principles of variation, inheritance and selection should be applied to social as well as biological entities, despite important detailed differences in the mechanisms and processes involved.

Maybe in the future Artificial Intelligence and paleontology would work together in a model that simulates fluctuation of the markets comparing companies to extinct and living animals.

Perhaps Google could base its strategy on algorithms using as a base the events that lead Dimetrodon to evolve into mammals (the large sail at the back of the Dimetrodon which gave rise to the homoeothermics creatures can be compared with the mechanisms of Google search, and its magnificent effect in the global economy). And so Google can plot its next move to an even greater leadership strategy in the future.

Larry Page, Sergey Brin and the Dimetrodon - both have a breathtaking new tool 

Edward O Wilson wrote in 1978 “Human Nature” – Economics can be improved by Darwinian theory. Wilson supports that All Social sciences rely upon implicit models of genetic. (It won a Pulitzer Prize) Even though it was written in 1978, it continues to provide a good overview of much that is still held to be true about human biology and sociology.

He asserted that many human behaviors had genetic basis, like the behavior of termites inside a mound, an idea then disputed by many social scientists and by Marxists intent on remaking humanity.

Today, termites are one of the world's most pervasive and successful insect groups, with about 2,300 known species, mostly in tropical settings, busily at work chewing wood or other plant fiber that protozoa help to digest. They have important ecological roles, helping to create habitat, build soil fertility, recycle nutrients and serve as food for many predators.

On march 2009 Dr. George Poinar discovered the earliest known form of mutualism between an insect and a microorganism ("mutualism," type of symbiotic relationship in which two species help each other) a termite and a protozoa entombed in amber for 100 million years. This particular termite was probably flying around while mating in a wet, humid tropical forest in what is now Myanmar during the Early Cretaceous period.

We should take social life in a termite colony as model for today’s economic life, it is flawless. The termites act together simultaneously as one body and cooperate in performing all functions of the community. And, if we consider that some termites live together with at least one million others, we can easily understand the importance of a system of communication that allows termites to provide a working area, come together and join forces against intruders and manage all the other needs of the colony in perfect harmony. This communication system is based on the exchange of chemical signals such as smell or taste.

Perhaps it is in our DNA the origin of our social life, but, once it would not be appropriate for a person to be conditioned like termites, we should not be surprised if in a non-distant future colonies of termite-minded robots would be working in the surface of Moon or Mars.

I’m sure that more and more we will live under the motto “Create more prosperity in the life of others and you shall experience more prosperity in your own life”. In fact I do believe that this attitude is more like a genetic instruction than a religious commandment.

Post-scarcity is not post-problems by Toby Russell

www.thdrussell.com

“Free will is doing gladly that which one must do.”

Carl Gustav Jung

Upon hearing a post-scarcity world described, most people find it silly and fantastical, or a charming yet unrealistic dream. The idea that an abundance could be produced for all the world’s people, that there would thereafter be no war, no poverty, no corruption etc., is hard to envisage, but our understandable difficulty picturing such a world makes it neither unfeasible nor unrealistic. Indeed, our difficulty is not a reflection of the unerring accuracy of our predictive abilities, but arises naturally from a history of economic systems shaped, until now, by conditions of scarcity. This small article is my attempt to make a post-scarcity world seem a little more pragmatic and prosaic, less “nirvanalike,” less utopian, and therefore more worthy of serious study. For my more detailed analysis, read this article.

I want to remind people here too, that this is not some idle, cerebral pursuit of a perfect world, something to while away the hours on a rainy Sunday. There are serious reasons to consider a radical alternative to the current crop of economic models, and there are serious people discussing them.

Money is, among other things, a force for division and corruption. Because being rich is better than being poor, money motivates many to behave corruptly, and lies at the root of all socio-economic models currently operative on our planet. Combine this tendency to corrupt with humanity’s enormous powers of consumption and production, add in the legal structure of the corporation requiring that ever increasing profits be the number one priority, factor in a teetering ecosystem, and you have a huge and many faceted motive to take radical change seriously. So it is not just that a post-scarcity world would be better than a scarcity-based world, but that we must start looking at how to implement such a model as a matter of urgency. We are consuming ourselves to death, while manufacturing and inventing with an eye only to profit. We ignore the branch we all sit on – the environment – at our peril, and put, to our collective detriment, matters such as human dignity and respect on a distant back-burner.

So what does post-scarcity mean for ordinary folk like you and me? Put very simply, it means no more material/financial worries. It would be as if everyone had enough money not to worry about it any more. Would this mean an end to all problems, all challenges, all worries? Of course not. Ask those who have won the lottery, question them on the new set of problems they have had to deal with. Having no money worries does not in any way guarantee happiness. It simply means one type of problem has been removed. That its successful removal from society would necessitate a prior, well-planned, ground-up redesign of everything, would of course mean other (profound) changes too, but my basic point remains. We would still be humans, would still have to get along, learn, do, sustain, and otherwise grow old, and die, as happily as we are able. That will always be an almighty challenge.

Furthermore, if we look a little deeper into the way things are today, we can see we don't actually HAVE to do the boring job that brings in the money we need. We are actually “free” to live our lives completely differently; to go off and live in “nature,” or live on the streets, or go into crime, leave our families, commit suicide, and so on. The reasons we tend to carry on with what we've got, however mundane and uninspiring, do not exist solely because of money, but consist of a complex of societal influences, as well as our own likes and fears and history. All these things combine to make us do things we might not otherwise do. We each sustain the system that is our life by various means, and for various reasons, only one of which might be suffering a job we don't like. My point here is that no matter what – and even in a post-scarcity society – there will always be things that must be done, compromises to make, opportunities that must be forgone, as inescapable parts of keeping things going in the manner of our choosing. And there will always be forces, internal and external, to “make” us do them. Consequently, the disappearance of money and financial concerns would not mean motivation disappears from human experience, nor that life would be one endless party, nor that we would no longer be able “to get things done.”

As an introspective person who enjoys such solo pursuits as reading and writing, a post-scarcity world appeals to me, perhaps because I can easily imagine filling my time pursuing my twin hobbies. And yet I know not all are like me in this regard, and nor should they be. It will be an enormous challenge to fill one's own time with activities and hobbies, goals and objectives we set for ourselves because we want to, not because we are told to. True freedom is actually a daunting prospect, when you think about it. A post-scarcity economy will not be “heaven on earth,” and should not be imagined as such. It will necessarily demand of us all full maturity, which few in scarcity-based systems reach (myself included in my humble opinion).

Post-scarcity economics of course requires, as mentioned above, the total and deliberate redesign of all aspects of society – our cities, our energy sources, our transport systems, education, law, defence, etc. It is misleading trying to imagine post-scarcity looking like the present, just minus money. Indeed, today's world could not function without money. Total redesign is essential to the idea's successful execution.

Each human on the planet would have to be raised from childhood to become a mature, free-thinking adult, as opposed to the unthinking and obedient consumers our education tends to produce today. A post-scarcity world demands of us generally a recognition that we are responsible for our actions, and that we understand how profoundly interdependent we are. It will be up to us all to maintain our societies, and the ecosystem that supports us, in a sustainable way.

Ethical evolution is an important part of human history that will never end, just as technological progress knows no end. Currently, we face a set of coinciding circumstances unprecedented in human history, a challenge which requires of us a readiness to consider solutions which seem outlandish and unworkable at first. In contemplating a world of abundance for all, we are obliged to remember that such a world is not about the self-serving accumulation of possessions and status, but about cooperation and sustainability. Just as the cells of the human body co-operate in conditions of nutrient-abundance, but compete with, and steal from, one another in conditions of nutrient-scarcity, so humans would exhibit co-operative behaviours in conditions of abundance, as surely as they go to war in conditions of scarcity. For example, in a theatre we get along, laugh, clap and enjoy ourselves as the play proceeds. Should a fire break out we become very different creatures indeed, trampling each other to death to escape the danger.

Behaviours that seem so natural and “inborn” to us, such as lording it over others, seeking power over others, Schadenfreude, and so on, are more accurately seen as the inevitable consequences of conditions of scarcity. Scarcity leads to competition, where obviously the victors benefit, which rewards aggressive and hoarding behaviours, this over millennia shaping our belief systems, our social and economic systems, our politics and philosophy, profoundly. Of course aggression and competitiveness are natural – as is greed – in that they exist in us as potentials, but their chance of being expressed, and the manner in which they are expressed, are determined by environmental factors.

Imagine two puppies taken from the same litter, one raised by wolves, the other by a loving human family. How differently would these dogs end up? They might start out physically and genetically identical, but their personalities would be as different as chalk and cheese. So it would be with identical human twins, the wolf-boy being after seven years in the wild utterly different from his twin raised by loving human parents. So too with apple-seeds from the same apple, one planted in barren, the other in fertile soil, one grown with minimal water, nutrients and sunshine, the other with exactly the right amounts. The seeds would be genetically identical, but the fruit produced very different in taste and sweetness, though of course still apples. Environmental conditions are not everything – puppies can’t grow into cats, apple-seeds can never become orange trees – but they are extremely significant. Significant enough, in fact, to make a post-scarcity world both feasible and desirable. We just have to take it seriously, then work towards it.

It certainly won’t be easy, but will be well worth the effort.