One possibility I worry about is that as scarcity recedes, people will be relatively less motivated to play positive-sum cooperation games. With material goods less of a bottleneck, there’s less motivation to cooperate in order to accumulate more of them. Such positive-sum games could be replaced by zero-sum petty status games or political hobbyism, like you see on social media for example. The US is an interesting case study, as a very wealthy country with bitter, Manichean politics—there may be a connection.
If this theory is true, the influence of fanaticism could increase in the future as global economic growth progresses. Economic growth is probably helpful in the short term, to show people that positive-sum games are possible and worth playing. But the “hedonic treadmill” or diminishing marginal returns could dominate in the longer term. Sort of like how coffee stops working as well if you drink 4 cups every day.
The best approach might be to create and popularize more institutions which harmlessly dissipate human tribal instincts, e.g. sports fandom.
(I think the US example is perhaps a bit more complicated. It’s not just very wealthy, it’s also highly unequal and offers much weaker safety nets than most other liberal democracies. So the bitter politics may have more to do with material insecurity than with post-scarcity boredom.)
That said, I do agree that as scarcity recedes, zero-sum status games could become more prevalent.
Another reason why fanaticism could matter more in the long run is that future disagreements may be much more about terminal value differences than instrumental policy questions like how to create jobs or make things more affordable (no one will need jobs and there could be huge abundance). That’s where fanaticism becomes especially relevant because it entails potentially drastic value disagreements that are locked in, with potentially no room for change, trade, or compromise.
(I think the US example is perhaps a bit more complicated. It’s not just very wealthy, it’s also highly unequal and offers much weaker safety nets than most other liberal democracies. So the bitter politics may have more to do with material insecurity than with post-scarcity boredom.)
As I linked in my comment, ideologues in the US tend to be rather wealthy:
Progressive Activists have strong ideological views, high levels of engagement with political issues, and the highest levels of education and socioeconomic status. Their own circumstances are secure. They feel safer than any group, which perhaps frees them to devote more attention to larger issues of social justice in their society.
The Devoted Conservatives are the counterpart to the Progressive Activists, but at the other end of the spectrum. They are one of the highest-income groups, and they feel happier and more secure than most other Americans.
I worry that American ideologues have got all the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy satisfied, and they are now pursuing self-actualization through partisanship.
Furthermore there appear to be a number of “urban legends” which float around the internet about the United States which are not true, or at least not as obviously true as you’ve been lead to believe. One blogger claims:
Common measures of poverty in the U.S. do not factor in taxes and transfers. The very things implemented to address the issue. We already “won” the “war on poverty” in absolute terms to reduce suffering—as measured by consumption. The same stunt is often done for inequality. If you don’t move the goalposts and count existing policy interventions, we’re already largely post-scarcity and highly egalitarian—to the extent the U.S. is more progressive and redistributive than any European country. Which is why poverty became positively correlated with obesity about the same time that bottom line dropped below 5% in the 1990s.
One possibility I worry about is that as scarcity recedes, people will be relatively less motivated to play positive-sum cooperation games. With material goods less of a bottleneck, there’s less motivation to cooperate in order to accumulate more of them. Such positive-sum games could be replaced by zero-sum petty status games or political hobbyism, like you see on social media for example. The US is an interesting case study, as a very wealthy country with bitter, Manichean politics—there may be a connection.
If this theory is true, the influence of fanaticism could increase in the future as global economic growth progresses. Economic growth is probably helpful in the short term, to show people that positive-sum games are possible and worth playing. But the “hedonic treadmill” or diminishing marginal returns could dominate in the longer term. Sort of like how coffee stops working as well if you drink 4 cups every day.
The best approach might be to create and popularize more institutions which harmlessly dissipate human tribal instincts, e.g. sports fandom.
Interesting points!
(I think the US example is perhaps a bit more complicated. It’s not just very wealthy, it’s also highly unequal and offers much weaker safety nets than most other liberal democracies. So the bitter politics may have more to do with material insecurity than with post-scarcity boredom.)
That said, I do agree that as scarcity recedes, zero-sum status games could become more prevalent.
Another reason why fanaticism could matter more in the long run is that future disagreements may be much more about terminal value differences than instrumental policy questions like how to create jobs or make things more affordable (no one will need jobs and there could be huge abundance). That’s where fanaticism becomes especially relevant because it entails potentially drastic value disagreements that are locked in, with potentially no room for change, trade, or compromise.
As I linked in my comment, ideologues in the US tend to be rather wealthy:
https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/#progressive-activists
https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/#devoted-conservatives
I worry that American ideologues have got all the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy satisfied, and they are now pursuing self-actualization through partisanship.
Furthermore there appear to be a number of “urban legends” which float around the internet about the United States which are not true, or at least not as obviously true as you’ve been lead to believe. One blogger claims:
source, see also