Games in a Utopia

I guess it depends where you sit.

We live in a post-scarcity civilisation (we have the technology), we just don’t live in a post-scarcity society. Scarcity is manufacturered.

So are we close to a utopia if we fixed distribution and inequality? Well. Kinda. There would still be people with greed. People who think that the accumulation of “more” is the only purpose of life. I found The Culture’s attitude to that to be entertaining. You can really have what you want. But it’s empty because people generally don’t mingle with people driven by needless accumulation. That is a mental illness.

Is there nothing to do?

Well, assuming that there are areas where the utopia hasn’t spread, there are always the frontiers as others have said.

A few years back, I did a mini documentary on “edges” as a source of fecund diversity as you have three ecosystems. – in this context, you would have the ecosystem of the utopia, the ecosystem of the “barbarians” and then the ecosystem of the people who live on the border.

I also like the Cortex setting Hammerheads (it’s Thunderbirds) though I really can’t grok their system. Rescuing people is a good thing. From natural and man-made (or alien-made) disasters.

And the idea that while it is a utopia, the people are not mindless Eloi. They can have jealousies. Even though the replicators can make anything, they can’t manufacture something created by the hands of humans. It will always just be a copy even if molecule-perfect. Even if you can have your simulacrum sexbot, it’s not the same as the person you love. Authenticity remains.

I like the idea of gaming in a utopia. It’s better than the grubbing around for gold that is the mainstay of fantasy and most modern and sci-fi games. I’ve never been money motivated in games or real life.