Well, I can't give you an example of a society that literally had infinite resources, so all we have are extrapolations from societies with finite resources.
By the way, we should not talk about "infinity" literally. Literal infinity is probably technically impossible. This galaxy only contains a finite amount of matter and energy. So when we say "infinite resources", we really mean something like "1 000 000 000 x more resources than we have today". We do not mean literal infinity. I am emphasising this to prevent possible technical arguments using mathematical properties of the literal infinity (such as: however microscopically tiny nonzero fraction of the infinity is still infinite).
If we look at historical capitalist societies, we see huge differences in access to resources: several magnitudes of order, even among people living in the same country. It seems plausible that in the future it would remain essentially the same. If the society as a whole would have million times more resources, that does not mean that all members of the society would have million times more resources than they have today. It could also mean that the "top 1%" (or maybe top 0.0001%) would have million-plus-epsilon times more resources, while the rest would have just as much as they have today, or maybe ten times more.
On the other hand, if we look at historical communist societies (and for the sake of this debate let's suppose the egalitarian division of resources is a fact, instead of merely a propaganda), there is one important scarce resource: power over people. (Let's assume that the "resources" cannot be used to manufacture synthetic sapient people, because that would be yet another ethical problem.) In a communist society power over people is even more important than property. People can have their lives ruined, and the lives of their relatives ruined, because of things like criticizing the regime or its leaders. So even if resources are not a problem, "who is my boss, what will they make me do, and how will they punish me if I fail?" is a huge factor.
(And those are only the examples of real societies. If we use our imagination we could imagine also some kind of technologically advanced theocracy, where the church has infinite resources, but they are used e.g. to create as much suffering as possible, to bring people closer to Jesus. Also for better brainwashing and better detection and destruction of heresies, so the society is stable.)
Greetings all! There's a puzzle that I'm working on and I'm interested to see what the members of this community have to say about it.
I am an electrical engineer that is currently working on a master's in counseling. One of the big questions I keep asking myself in this program is "how effective is this field in making the world a better place"?
To help focus the discussion I want to focus on violence. This video from Steven Pinker is a great overview of the data http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence. But for those who don't want to spend the time to watch it, the short version is that violence per capita is at an all time low for human history, and other people will state it as "there has never been a safer time in history".
The question then, why is this so?
My personal belief on this is that our technology advancement has reduced the effort it takes for people to survive so there is less drive to become hostile towards people who have what we need. This belief applied to effective altruism would suggest that the most effective method of improving all of human life would be to continue to increase our technology level so that there is an abundance of basic needs and no one has a need to become hostile. I do believe that as a planet, we do not yet have that abundance so I don't believe this is merely a matter of redistribution. The GWP (gross world product) per capita, as of 2014, was $12,400 USD, which is just barely above the poverty line for an individual. This is why I say, we're not yet producing enough to truly eliminate need.
From this belief, I wonder if social movements and psychological training are really doing anything in comparison to the need that exists.
Going back to the violence issue, I am thinking if we can understand why violence has been declining we can also understand what is truly effective in bettering the human condition. I believe the reason is technological advancement. Does anyone have any good evidence to suggest other reasons?
Are we possibly at a tipping point? Has our past been dominated by technological advancement but now we're reaching a level where more socially oriented advancements will be more effective?
Thoughts?