Note my latest blogging over at Singularity Weblog, which you may be interested in. It's regarding the Singularity not happening yet.
Often people struggle to understand why the Singularity (Post-Scarcity) will abolish all crime, below are my thoughts on this issue. I was responding to one commenter on the Singularity 2045 G+ page and you can also leave comments there if you desire, or you can comment via KurzweilAI.
You may think a serial killer is not killing for resources thus you may dismiss scarcity being the cause of violence, but if you partake in such dismissals you ignore the impact of a resource-scarce civilization on the mind. The point is that a resource-scare civilization is generally a very cruel civilization, very callous, which is why we have wars, it is why people constantly lock their homes, cars, bicycles etc. So what impact does the constant state of fear, conscious or subconscious, have upon our minds?
Largely people cope, barely, with the rapacious nature of scarcity, although judging by the obesity problem, the comfort eating method of coping, obesity is perhaps more dangerous to health than serial killing (see end quote), but despite the general illusion of people coping with the horror of scarcity it is understandable that a minority of minds will violently echo, or be pushed over the edge via, the scarcity mentality of civilization, thus you have serial killers and other forms of mindless violence, which are products of a scarcity-civilization.
We are considering a civilization where people who crush competitors are the successful winners. Capitalism (a scarcity-based economic model) is all about profiting from other people, thus capitalists only become rich via taking advantage of other people, which means paying workers less than they deserve and overcharging customers. When you consider what our civilization actually is you see how the socio-economic structure of society provides the blueprint for serial killing. I think the problem with psychopaths is merely honesty, they honesty reflect the true nature of scarcity whereas "normal" people pretend vast wealth-inequality is civilised.
The language of capitalism (scarcity) clearly demonstrates the undercurrent of hostility, which we see echoed in serial killers. Consider hostile takeovers, price wars, or making a killing.
For further reading you might be interested in Forbes reporting on link between psychopathy leadership or the New York Times reporting on the link between psychopathy and wealth or Forbes again addressing how some psychopaths make great CEOs.
So while it may be true to say a serial killer is not killing to acquire resources he or she is killing directly because of scarce resources, serial killers are a product of scarcity, they are products of a civilization where exploiting your fellow humans, thereby amassing colossal wealth, is a socially acceptable economic model for "normal" existence.
On the issue of crimes regarding theft or drugs, there will be no need for theft when everything is free and if people really want to take drugs their printers will print endless drug supplies. Sex crimes are crimes based upon scarcity of power and scarcity of intelligence, both of which will be remedied via explosive intelligence.
Obesity - 2.8 million adults die each year.
The WHO wrote: "Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths. At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. In addition, 44% of the diabetes burden, 23% of the ischaemic heart disease burden and between 7% and 41% of certain cancer burdens are attributable to overweight and obesity."
