One thing nearly all utopian societies have in common is the elimination of scarceness . For them , limited resource are normally an antiquated concept , because everyone has enough . Unfortunately , one study shows that hoi polloi in Zion might very well be the same grasping , covetous jerks we know them to be aright now .
Zero - Sum Thinking
Zero - sum thought is n’t particularly attractive , but in many situations it ’s appropriate . Every one mortal ’s gain is another individual ’s loss . There ’s only so much food , money , or outer space in the world , and people are contend for as much of it as they can get . When I eat an orchard apple tree , I ’m take it out of the hand of another person who could eat it . When I lose my menage , another somebody gets it . What I pay out , another soul earns . There ’s one gravid Proto-Indo European , and it ’s just a matter of how the piece are diffuse .
Now , there are those who debate that there is already enough pie , and if we could just take over that and get ourselves prepare , everyone would get enough . That ’s a philosophy that may eliminate hunger or homelessness , but it ’s not quite get away from zero - sum . In utopian gild , there is no pie , no kitty of resources , no question of divvying anything up . There is just more of whatever is need , whenever more is needed . alas , those doing the needing are still human .
The Experiment
One experiment was meant to determine whether masses could let go of zero - sum mentation . participant were asked to predict the grade of a grouping of bookman . Until the last pencil on Earth is snapped in frustration , score can be an unlimited resource . Participants were recount that the grouping of student — who had to give presentation — were grade based on an absolute organization . No one was being grade on a curve , and everyone in the form could have gotten an A.
The study participants were then shown the mark of a few past presentations . One group of experimental player had every reason to conceive that the intact course of study did get an A , as the grades were always on the high side . Another mathematical group was read the grades of either an exacting instructor , or a dishearteningly clumsy torso of students . They all had relatively bad grades . If you were told by a fellow student that closely everyone walk out of Mr. Smith ’s class with an A , while almost everyone barely scraped a C- out of Mr. Jones , you would quickly reason out which course of instruction you require to take if you require an easy A.
The observational participants did not come to that conclusion . They forecast that the group in the “ easy ” course were about to run into an A scarcity . Not everyone could perchance get good class , right ? It was only when another experiment was performed , and the grouping was straight prompt as they were foretell the grade for the hapless students , that there were an inexhaustible number of As to be give , that they slightly modified their predictions . Even then , the lower grades , the Ds and Fs , were most effect . Students turn back believing that the group would flunk , but they did n’t tend to believe that the students would get As .
On the other hand , the observational participants who saw that terrible grades were handed out to group after chemical group were much more likely to judge realistically the chances of the group they observed . The zero - sum bias , then , does n’t issue forth into play in every scenario . People will believe that disaster come to everyone — it ’s only when they see good thing handed out that they start imagine that there ’s a modified quantity of possible happiness in the world .
Can We Get to a Post Zero - Sum Society ?
When we can extract transportation from subject and antimatter , as well as solid food and clothing from replicators , will we finally halt prick and clawing at each other to get things ? Quite possibly not . For one matter , there will always be something that ’s comparatively rare . If it ’s not gold , silver , food , or tax shelter , it will be the attention of the other jump suit - wearing miracle of dentistry that share the same utopia . multitude might claw each other for celebrity , or number of spouses , or anything else that they see as not being ubiquitous enough .
More importantly , the impulse to worry that the “ well poppycock ” is run out will always be there . There could n’t possibly be enough As ; there are only enough Ds . Therefore , if we want to avoid chaos in our succeeding utopias , we ’ll have to downgrade what we worry about now — education , wellness guardianship , food , and shelter — from As and Bs to Ds and Fs . So the masses of the hereafter might live in a utopia with food , and water , and stretchiness - cotton . And although they ’ll have thoroughgoing teeth , I wo n’t see their tooth because they wo n’t be smiling . All the requisite we care about now will be worthless , and therefore not worth fighting over .
[ ViaZero - Sum Bias : perceive Competition Despite Unlimited Resources ]
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