The idea of technology taking the reigns of our everyday lives and allowing us to fully dable in the possibility's of the universe is a double edged sword. As we learn more we will teach our machines more.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. - Omar Bradley

All these optimistic futurian visions are based on two completely unwarranted assumptions:

1. The Enlightenment paradigm (humanism coupled with faith in the power of rationality, science and progress to improve our lives) will continue to dominate world civilization.
   
   
2. Cheap energy will always be available.

Both assumptions are false. The Enlightenment paradigm, so called for its origins in the historical period of that name, is in retreat everywhere except, possibly, in China and Southeast Asia, where it may survive for a generation or two longer.

As for cheap energy, it has already ceased to be available.

Forget the Singularity, folks, forget the brave new world the old folks dreamt about. The future that lies before us and our descendants is a descent, more or less rapid, into a new Dark Ages.

First of all, I would recommend thinking and reading very carefully before pinning your colours to the Futurist banner. There are some decidedly dodgy wordings in the manifesto of that particular branch of political and social thought, which rather put a crap-smear up the finely polished skin of its construction, namely that one could read an awful lot of right wing agendas into it.

But if what you mean is that technological advancement may mean the end of currency as a driving force of mankind, then I think it is a reasonable assumption, but it does have some issues to work through, before it has a hope in hell of becoming more than an idea. The biggest amongst these reasons would be, that without financial incentivisation, the sort of infrastructural advances in travel, communications, and power production that are POSSIBLE, are not comming to market fast enough, because the corperations are nerfing (in gamer speak: To reduce the effectiveness, or strength of something, to make it fit better into a pre exisitng competitive environment) all the good advances to make them saleable. Here is an example... Microsoft, and Apple. Both would have us believe that they are using the raggedy edge of computing expertise in order to give you a better product. What they do NOT tell you, is that they are building in obseletion, and in some cases back doors to virus programming, so that they can then sell you thier add ons, upgrades, and so on, rather than giving us a product that works, and will continue to do so for a minimum of twenty years.

Despite the fact that the technology exists to build hardware which could build and program its OWN damned upgrades, and do it for FREE, rather than by monthly contract, the tech market needs to exist as it is apparantly, and as such builds in niggles and failiures to its products, to keep its people in work, and its executives in gobs of money! This is the block over which we stumble.

I'm a big fan of the Venus Project. Completely agree with the OP.

Its not a flawless system as yet but its better than anything we have and I really think it could work.

IMO the arguments against it are always rooted in current paradigms. The point is that the paradigm will change.

Markets and economies, capitalism and politics is all built on one principle: scarcity of resources and the need to control distrubution. The core principle of the Venus Project is abundance - i.e. that there's more than enough to go around if individuals don't take more than they need. It is worth pointing out that the scarcity of resources in an ILLUSION perpetuated by those in power. There are more than enough resources to go around currently, let alone after the necessary technologies are developed to make everything sustainable.

Economies simply CANNOT exist when there is abundance - they become obsolete overnight. You can't sell someone something they already have plenty of. All of those concepts will become irrelevant. Also, the focus will shift from instant profit to sustainability, since there's no benefit in short-term trade-offs when you personally have nothing to gain but everything to lose. For example there'd be no reason to make cheap, unhealthy food (McDonalds I'm looking at you) if there is no cost associated with using healthier ingredients and no profit from minimising costs. Everything instead shifts to "What is best for people?" and "What is most sustainable?".

As far as energy goes - we know for a fact that energy technologies are suppressed. We know for a fact that renewable resources work - most of the arguments against them are because they aren't economical. Or in other words, they don't generate enough profit for companies to invest in them. But forget that, because "profit" and "capital" are words that will no longer be relevant. If you just take some resources and build renewable energy facilities then they will sit there and produce energy practically forever, for almost no further investment of resources. It doesn't matter if you can't sell the energy to someone else.

Crime could still be a problem and there might still need to be something equivalent to prisons. However, the motivations to commit crimes almost all disappear overnight as well. There's no need to steal anything when it will be given to you for free. There's no reason to be a suicide bomber when all your friends and family have everything they need and no-one is invading your country to take your recources.

One argument I've heard against this idea is "That there's always someone who will go around and take everything for themselves - its human nature". Well I'd argue that its not human nature. More to the point, the "its always been this way so it won't be any different then" arguments hold no water, because we have NEVER seen humans in an environment of abundance (at least since history began). So we don't know how we would react, but we know that almost all of the driving forces behind greed, control and abuse of power would be gone, so its likely those behaviours that come from that are gone too.

Personally though, I just like it because I am sick of living to work and would rather just live and persue my interests and passions. An idea that goes along with this is the idea of of "Social Currency". In our current society its basically money and power - if you have those things then you are seen as successful and this influences everything from how people think of you to which mates you are likely to attract. In a world of abundance everyone becomes equal in that regard. I think the new "social currency" will become contributing to the human race - i.e. anyone will be able to sit around all day and do nothing if they want, no skin off anyone's nose. However if you genuinely want to go out and make the world a better place, then not only will you have the resources to do that, but people will love you for it. Basically, the new celebrity would be those who contribute positively to the world, rather than those that have accumulated the most resources for themselves.

The last point I want to make is about jobs and work. At the moment, people get REALLY up in arms about the idea of machines doing their work for them. This is a massive reason people don't like this idea. Once again though, it is a fear rooted in the current paradigm, where you NEED to work to be able to live. People are literally enslaved by needing to work to make other people rich in order to survive. In a resource based economy, you wouldn't need a job to survive, you would just be given the resources you need to live for free. This is a sticking point for a lot of people since we've been so conditioned to accept the current paradigm. People will rail against this idea saying that it promotes people being lazy etc - but it all comes back to an irrational fear based on thousands of years of living under artificially created scarcity of resources.

Yes, but how long will it be before an average citizen with nanobots can create a laser beam and split the earth in two?

This is the kind of argument I'm talking about. Ok, maybe its possible at some unspecified time in the future that someone could do that. But why? Why would someone do that? Just because they could? I think not. For someone to actually want to do that, they'd have to have major psychological problems, no doubt because of the inequalities that exist in our current society. Take all of those inequalities away and suddenly everyone is happier by default and less likely to go on murderous rampages.

Perhaps there would still be crime related to jealousy and the like, but with free psychological care for every person and a culture in which its acceptable to ask for help (I am assuming these changes would be part of the process) then people are better equipped to deal with their emotions and less likely to be violent.

Besides, we currently have the technology to annihilate all life on earth (Nuclear Weapons), yet it hasn't happened yet. So its hardly a reason not to invest in new technologies.

If not intentional then you may be suggesting that someone does this by accident, which is possible. However, this idea is based on the current paradigm, where there are relatively few people trained in specific disciplines. The majority of the population has poor knowledge of technology outside of our day-to-day lives. Why? Because of the need to work. The average "1st world" person has to spend ~8hrs per day (i.e. most of the productive time) in a job to earn enough to live. Factor in sleeping, travel time, eating and family life and most people have very little free time. Factor in exhaustion from working all day and most people spend their free time on leisure persuits, not learning.

What would happen if people didn't have to work? Suddenly you have a lot of free time on your hands. Time that you are encouraged to use to better yourself and learn more. With no elite ruling class in place, there is no danger of "normal" people becoming educated - in fact it serves a critical function which is to ensure that everyone knows how the technology works and is the best possible position to come up with new ideas that benefit the whole human race by default (since ownership is no longer a thing, all information and advances are instantly available to all humans). Or at least well enough that they won't be stupid and blow us all up.