Resources

There came a point in time when humans had far more resources than they could figure out what to do with. The ratio of robots to the individual was about 7:1 and the mass of raw materials simply dwarfed the amount that it would take to sustain the human population. This made money obsolete by and large and for a long time ended poverty. Great efforts were maintained to ensure the sustainability of this massive bank of raw material.

There were no longer haves and have-nots, only have-these’s and have-those’s. If something could be found that was rare or particularly valuable, people would use currency or barter. For everything else, there were simply common shares of humanity’s resource stores. Because almost everything was manufactured through automated processes and since all production processes were open source, there was nobody who needed to be payed in order to have something made. Corporations were a relic of twenty-first century when people were selfish, earth-born, and stupid.

Most people became either hikikumori (hermits of sorts living off of the resource reserves) or catalysts (those obsessed with making something happen). There were many variations within each of these groups, but the division remained; either you were living passively or you were living actively.

On the farthest end of the hikikumori were the gamers, those who spent the majority of their lives in virtual worlds. On the farthest end of the catalysts were the geniuses who operated on fringe of science and art. In the middle were those government agents, all of which were members of academia, who would attempt to administer fairness and justice. While bureaucracy was automated, ethics remained in the hands of humans.

The greatest problems that faced the human collective concerned which ways of making humans were okay. As abundant as humanity’s resources were, they could still be jeopardized if the population grew. Luckily, as conventional religion died off so too did the importance off propagation. Still, a law was passed stating that anyone who reproduced, conventionally or otherwise, was required to take their share of resources and attempt to live outside and independently of the collective.

Propagation and crime were by and large the only problems government officials faced on a day to day basis. Resources remained stable and people were asked not to kill each other or grow in number. Humanity was very peaceful. Once humanity advanced far enough to make consistent contact with creatures from other parts of the galaxy, humanity so impressed them that many adopted humanity’s social model. Humanity gained many friends.

Of course, some organisms in the galaxy were too different for peace to prosper indefinitely. From time to time conflicts occured. Most amounted to little more than misunderstandings, but some amounted to direct hostility. From time to time, small colonies who had poorly managed resources or picked fights that they couldn’t win also caused problems for humanity at large. However, the human collective persevered.