Our society is organized around a scarcity economy to such an extent that many people believe 'scarcity' and 'economy' mean the same thing. Even if it were true, different economies deal with differently scarce things.
MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld talks about his Fab Lab -- a low-cost lab that lets people build things they need using digital and analog tools. It's a simple idea with powerful results:
The age-old practice of turning the soil before planting a new crop is a leading cause of farmland degradation. Many farmers are thus looking to make plowing a thing of the past
Mathematician Andrew Hicks, at Drexel University, Philadelphia, used computer algorithms to generate the mirror's bizarre surface, which curves and bends in different directions.
J. Legge, and R. Durant. Public Organization Review, 12 (2):
191-207(2012)First published online: April 26, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11115-012-0175-x(Eurobarometer).