In a civilization where nobody wants for anything, you think there'd be no reason for shady

deals in back alleys, yet somehow there's always a back alley.

When we imagine post-scarcy civilizations, we tend to picture shimmering utopias where nobody

wants for anything, where replicators hum, the robots sweep the floors, and nobody

argues over the check at dinner, because the dinner doesn't cost anything, or so little nobody cares.

Material wealth becomes as common as air, and about as exciting. In theory, that should spell

the end of crime. No black market smuggling runs, no shady deals in back alleys,

no neon lit pawn shops trading contraband emotions, or illicit nanotech? After all, how do you

run a black market when the regular market makes everything available cheap or free? Yet, needless to say,

there is always a back alley, because human desire does

not end when scarcity ends. It just evolves, changes shape, and sometimes wanders into the place

the civic AI politely asks you not to visit. And in a society overflowing with automation,

anonymity, and augmented reality overlays, those back alleys might exist inside

your visor, inside your neural implant, or under the clean white substrate of the megacity

streets.

Today we'll explore the shadow side of abundance, post-scarcity black markets, what gets

traded, why they exist, who runs them, and why a civilization

that can print diamonds from dust, still finds something worth whispering about. Quick aside,

before we dive in. If the background behind me looks a little different, that's because my wife,

Sarah, rearranged things as a New Year's gift. I'm filming this on January 2nd, since most episodes are recorded

a couple months early, and the writing usually happens 40 episodes ahead. Most of it will look

familiar to folks who watched the live stream a few years back, but we finally updated

...