PBS uses Minecraft to explain a 'post-scarcity economy'
Don't you hate finding out the games you enjoy playing are actually a ruse to teach you about theoretical economics? Apparently that's what Minecraft has been doing all along, at least as it's presented in the above PBS Idea Channel video. It's the betrayal of outNumbered! all over again.
Idea Channel suggests creative mode in Minecraft is a perfect simulation of a post-scarcity economy, where we have unlimited resources and spend our time building magnificent structures because we don't have to bother with hunting and gathering, as is done in Minecraft's standard mode. While a post-scarcity economy is pretty impossible, tools such as the Makerbot, a cheap 3D printer, are helping to make these forms of creation readily available to larger society, the video posits.
Next time you boot up creative mode, maybe consider how many years it will be until you have an infinite-inventory machine in your own home, and how long it would take to create a physical replica of Hogwarts castle. To scale.
