Humans and Robots test case

So what's your point? That people with millions of dollars each will go into orbit to live in a Habitat that is constructed without an economic rationale, and these people won't have anything to do there that can't be done on Earth or that robots can't do better, no way to make a living, but they'll go to this frontier because as a group they are bound by some common philosophy. I really don't get it. Why do they need to "make a living"? What has been described here is a fantastic world were people live in beautiful homes constructed by robots using materials extracted for free from non-terrestrial sources, right? You don't have to do anything but sit around being waited on hand-and-foot by robots that can do anything and everything for you. You can focus your energies on art, entertainment, mental pursuits, or just plain relaxation. Wow, sounds like a great place to me. Where do I sign up? No, I don't buy it either. If it sounds too good to be true... The problem comes in that there's always something you want that needs human beings to provide it.

For example, a lot of people want the latest car (or space runabout), so they can impress girls. In order to have the latest car, you have to pay for it; even if the car was built by robots. (In fact, these days it often is, and the unit cost of cars is minimal anyway.)

But wait! If it's built by robots, why do I have to pay for it? Well, even if the unit cost of the car is negligable/free, the manufacturers still need to recoup the development costs; and development usually requires people. Hence, straight away the manufacturer needs engineers; and they need to be paid. Then, the engineers are flush with money, so they want to have a cleaner in, cos they are too busy working. So they employ a cleaner... and so on. You get a net of money flowing around; an economy bootstraps itself up.

It's considerations like that that pretty soon end up with a 40 hour week, a negotiable currency, based to some extent on the cost of peoples' time; multiplied by some factor such as how rare their skills are.

Or the entertainment; that needs actors. Actors expect to be paid; they're funny like that, because they want to buy a car...

Some form of economics isn't going away any time soon. There's always going to be money.
Chris.