I suspect that in 1813 there were people who worried about whether they would find themselves without enough food, shelter, medicine, or defense from hostile outsiders.
If I described to them the level of food, shelter, medicine, and defense that their counterparts in 2013 had available, I expect they would go “Wow! That’s amazing! Why, with that much abundance, I would never worry again!”
If I then explained to them how often their counterparts in 2013 worried about whether they find themselves without enough food, shelter, medicine, or defense from hostile outsiders, I would expect several reactions. One is incredulity. Another is some variant of “well, I guess some people are never satisfied.” A third is “Huh. Yeah, I guess ‘enough abundance’ is something we approach only asymptotically.”
If I explained to them the other stuff their counterparts in 2013 worried about , and how anxious they sometimes became about such things, I’d expect a similar range of reactions.
For my own part, I think ” ‘Enough abundance’ is something we approach only asymptotically.” is a pretty accurate summary.
So, sure. As we progress from “even wealthy people routinely suffer from insufficient food, shelter, medicine, and defense” to “even middle-class people routinely suffer from IFSMaD” to “poor people routinely suffer from IFSMaD” to “people suffer from IFSMaD only in exceptional circumstances” to “nobody I’ve ever met has ever heard of anyone who has ever suffered from IFSMaD”, we will undoubtedly identify other sources of suffering and we will worry about those.
Whether we are at that point in a “post-scarcity” environment or not is largely a semantic question.
I suspect that in 1813 there were people who worried about whether they would find themselves without enough food, shelter, medicine, or defense from hostile outsiders.
If I described to them the level of food, shelter, medicine, and defense that their counterparts in 2013 had available, I expect they would go “Wow! That’s amazing! Why, with that much abundance, I would never worry again!”
If I then explained to them how often their counterparts in 2013 worried about whether they find themselves without enough food, shelter, medicine, or defense from hostile outsiders, I would expect several reactions. One is incredulity. Another is some variant of “well, I guess some people are never satisfied.” A third is “Huh. Yeah, I guess ‘enough abundance’ is something we approach only asymptotically.”
If I explained to them the other stuff their counterparts in 2013 worried about , and how anxious they sometimes became about such things, I’d expect a similar range of reactions.
For my own part, I think ” ‘Enough abundance’ is something we approach only asymptotically.” is a pretty accurate summary.
So, sure. As we progress from “even wealthy people routinely suffer from insufficient food, shelter, medicine, and defense” to “even middle-class people routinely suffer from IFSMaD” to “poor people routinely suffer from IFSMaD” to “people suffer from IFSMaD only in exceptional circumstances” to “nobody I’ve ever met has ever heard of anyone who has ever suffered from IFSMaD”, we will undoubtedly identify other sources of suffering and we will worry about those.
Whether we are at that point in a “post-scarcity” environment or not is largely a semantic question.