The Proto-post-scarcity Economy

Five years ago, I published an essay on Medium: The Economics of Star Trek: The Proto Post Scarcity Society. It garnered over a half a million reads, and was featured twice on the home page of Reddit, in Slate, Bloomberg, Boing Boing, Hacker Monthly, and more.  It was a crazy time. 

In honor of this essay's five year anniversary, I'm putting it out in book form, expanded and annotated. The original essay appears as-is, with extensive new footnotes which add new information, challenge some of the original suppositions, and expand upon certain points. There are a lot of them. 

Additionally, there are six new essays regarding Trek and Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin, Universal Basic Income and the new Trek franchises in film and television, as well as a retrospective essay looking back on the past five years since the original publication. We also include a contemporary interview I did for the essay "back in the day." 

Finally, the book includes an all new foreword from Manu Saadia, author of Trekonomics, which is the other major publication on the topic. Manu and I have been in contact for these entire five years, and my original essay on Medium was part of his inspiration for Trekonomics. 

I've been meaning to do this for years - originally I was going to do it in sync with Star Trek's 50th anniversary of hitting the airwaves, which would have been 2016. But with a December publication, we'll be hitting the shelves right before the 50th anniversary of the originalTrek leaving the airwaves, so I guess that's something! 

If you ever wanted this in book form, wanted to read me babble about blockchain or AI, or have always wanted to read this but don't read things on Medium, now's your chance! Wish this seminal essay a happy 5th birthday in style.  

This Kickstarter is the first offering of this book. After this, the paperback will be on Amazon, and it will be available on Kindle. This is the only way to get a signed copy, the hardback version, or other electronic formats such as PDF and epub. We set the target amount low because the book is done, and I just need a little moolah to pay the editor (well, I paid her, but, you know), and get some assistance formatting the book to Kindle and getting it published to Amazon.