Marcin Jakubowski on Open Source Ecology and Practical Post Scarcity

by Socrates on January 10, 2012

We (still) live in a world of scarcity.

Free entrepreneurship, free markets and the age-old principles of Economics are supposed to provide for the most efficient resource allocation and thereby defeat, or at least alleviate the problem.

Yet, more than 2 centuries after Adam Smith and David Ricardo, this has not been accomplished.

Consider a Big Idea:

Reducing technology to the most simple yet sufficient modular lego-like people tech imaginable.

A single DVD as the complete manual for your civilization-starter-kit.

An open source DIY Global Village constructed with robust, sustainable, modular, highly efficient, low cost and self-made tools.

Open Source Ecology refers to the integration of human and natural ecosystems along the lines of open-source principles such as open collaboration and sharing of information with the goal of creating real communities and achieving post scarcity.

So, do you think that open source can overcome scarcity and provide post-scarcity for the whole planet?

Can greater distribution of the means of production, environmentally sound supply chains and a DIY culture overcome scarcity?

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Tagged as: Marcin Jakubowski, Open Source Ecology, post scarcity

  • Marco Santini

    Interesting article. For sure these simple techniques can be a key element to achieve
    acceptable life standards in the underdeveloped countries.

    A key factor for success in the advanced countries is interconnection, resulting in the
    aggregation of people and resources in large cities and industrial systems. At
    least for the info part, the new communication systems can reverse this trend
    allowing more delocalization. The hardware independence can also be reduced
    using modularity and new techniques, even sophisticated, like 3D printing.
    Ecological architecture allows to minimize the impact of housing on the
    environment, while reducing costs.

    However, when I think about a post scarcity world, I like to imagine a further future,
    perhaps only 100 years ahead, dominated by intelligent systems and autonomous, self
    assembling and self maintaining machines. An optimized structure, reducing to
    the bare minimum waste and risk, created by beings with needs probably quite
    different from ours, having as top priorities the acquisition of knowledge and
    skills with the final objective of expanding into the universe. For the starships
    and the space colonies – future version of the villages described by the author
    - will be even vital the achievement of autonomy and efficiency.

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