On that ideal and whether it is still reachable someday, see my 2010 essay:
"Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism"
https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce...From there:
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Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ...
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ...
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ...
The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream.
We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working"). ...
Still, we must accept that there is nothing wrong with wanting some security. The issue is how we go about it in a non-ironic way that works for everyone. ...
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Here is something I posted to the Project Virgle mailing list in April 2008 that in part touches on the issue of Google's identity as a scarcity vs. post-scarcity organization:
"A Rant On Financial Obesity and an Ironic Disclosure"
https://pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Proje...
"Look at Project Virgle and "An Open Source Planet" ... Even just in jest some of the most financially obese people on the planet (who have built their company with thousands of servers all running GNU/Linux free software) apparently could not see any other possibility but seriously becoming even more financially obese off the free work of others on another planet (as well as saddling others with financial obesity too :-). And that jest came almost half a century after the "Triple Revolution" letter of 1964 about the growing disconnect between effort and productivity (or work and financial fitness)...Even not having completed their PhDs, the top Google-ites may well take many more decades to shake off that ideological discipline. I know it took me decades (and I am still only part way there. :-) As with my mother, no doubt Googlers have lived through periods of scarcity of money relative to their needs to survive or be independent scholars or effective agents of change. Is it any wonder they probably think being financially obese is a good thing, not an indication of either personal or societal pathology? :-( ..."
Last April, inspired by some activities a friend was doing, I asked an LLM AI ( chatpdf ) to write a song about my sig, using the prompt 'Please make a song about "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."'. Then that friend made the results into an AI-generated song:
"Challenge to Abundance"
https://suno.com/song/d3d8c296-c2c4-46c6-80fb-ca9882c5e00a
"(Verse 1) In the 21st century, we face a paradox so clear, Technologies
of abundance, yet scarcity we fear, Irony in our hands, what will we
choose to see, A world of endless possibilities or stuck in scarcity?
(Chorus) The biggest challenge we face, it's plain to see, Embracing
abundance or stuck in scarcity, Let's break free from old ways, embrace
what could be, The irony of our times, let's set our minds free. ..."
I hope Googlers and others eventually get the perspective shift that comes with recognizing the irony of what they and many others are doing with weaponizing and otherwise competetizing AI...
Also on that larger theme by Alfie Kohn:
"No Contest: The Case Against Competition"
https://www.alfiekohn.org/contest/
"No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other — at work, at school, at play, and at home — turns all of us into losers. Contrary to the myths with which we have been raised, Kohn shows that competition is not an inevitable part of “human nature.” It does not motivate us to do our best (in fact, the reason our workplaces and schools are in trouble is that they value competitiveness instead of excellence.) Rather than building character, competition sabotages self-esteem and ruins relationships. It even warps recreation by turning the playing field into a battlefield. No Contest makes a powerful case that “healthy competition” is a contradiction in terms. Because any win/lose arrangement is undesirable, we will have to restructure our institutions for the benefit of ourselves, our children, and our society. ..."