At the end of our last FastForward Radio show, Phil and I imagined what a future without scarcity would be like. One dystopian possibility is that we all sit in our virtual reality rooms and do basically little else.

Obviously, we hope for a better future than that.

Back when we had Ivan Kirigin on FFR he mentioned the sci-fi novel “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.” That novel imagines a world with very little scarcity. Goods are manufactured by robots and everyone has everything they need. “Whuffie” has replaced money. Whuffie is a constantly updated rating that measures credibility and how much esteem and respect other people have for someone. It would be like an eBay feedback score for your entire life. Whuffie determines who gets the few things that remain scarce: the best house sites, a table in a crowded restaurant, or a good place in a queue for a theme park attraction.

The novel’s author seems to be preparing for that system. You can download Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom for free.

But we don’t have to invent a new currency system like Whuffie to achieve a Magic Kingdom future. If scarcity really came to an end for most things then the prices of those things would fall toward zero. The things that remain scarce –like that Park Avenue penthouse with the choice view – would remain expensive. Money already is a representation of how the world values our contributions – including our credibility. There is always the issue of whether that valuation is fair, but that would be the case with Whuffie too.

But let’s say you find yourself living in a future with little scarcity. You have everything you need and want, you like the place you live, and you’re tired of playing Halo version 12 in your VR room. What do you do next? During the podcast I suggested that self improvement might be a big part of the picture. And it might. But a life spent in self-improvement that is never applied to useful work would seem pretty empty too. What to do?