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0 pointszackmorris12y ago0 comments

To extrapolate on what you said: "which will in turn allow people to live with much less money", I think this is absolutely true but the endgame is that most things will be nearly free but people will have no money to buy them.

For example computers are effectively free now, they are widely available on Craigslist for under $100 and capable smartphones are bundled into most cellular plans. Flat screen TVs, for all their perceived excess, halve in price each year. However houses and cars still cost $100,000 and $10,000, even used. What's beginning to haunt me is that soon there will be no money in so many industries that people think of as lucrative now: computing, transportation, services, etc, yet the things that constitute the core infrastructure of our society only appreciate in value. You'll be able to get what you want, but not what you need.

My prediction for America in 10 or 20 years, assuming there is no intervention soon, is that corporations will replace the state as the primary wealth manager and that nearly the entirety of the population, probably 400 million people by then, will have no wealth to speak of. People will be struggling to find high paying jobs because raises will be a thing of the past once automation progressively lowers costs each year. There will be a profound sense of being "locked in", running a perpetual rat race where work that used to be worth $100 per hour slips to $50, then $25, and so on until even the most trying work is not profitable, and stabilizes on some rate set by fear, perhaps $10 an hour. With everyone making this across industries, we'll have neo-communism. Your boss won't be able to afford a home, and neither will his or her boss. But go high enough up the ladder and houses will be gifted out as perks.

Then there will be some kind of revolution, it's tempting to think we don't know what form it will take, but if it's to be successful it will be a peaceful one. Basically we'll all look around and wonder why we're all working so hard in the most productive economy that's ever existed, and we'll throw out the bosses by deciding not to participate in the activities that they depend on. Suddenly everyone will have a substantial level of public wealth, you'll instantly own the home you're in, and it will be unclear whether you'll still pay a mortgage. The way it works is that the people and policies that help society are carried over post revolution, and the ones that hinder it are cast aside.

I kind of hope I'm wrong about all of this, but I know in my heart I'm not. We're living in the last heyday of the industrial age, "enjoy" it while it lasts. We can even pretend that we don't know what the post-revolution age will look like, but that's not true either. Everyone's standard of living will go up to what it would have been without oppression. Only this time it will feel unthinkable to coerce people into doing work you would disdain to do yourself, so robots will fill that role instead of other ethnicities, genders or foreigners. It may very well be the last revolution before we're a spacefaring society.

In fairness, and because this got so long, I just want to say that this is only one possible future, and that we may very well adopt robots on a personal level like the PC (hydroponic gardens, off-grid homes and cars built of recycled materials, a sharing economy like Airbnb for everything) before then and the next generation may follow a completely different path. I just think this is the most likely forecast, based on the evidence I see around me now.

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FD3SA12y ago· 2 in thread

My friend, you are an incredible optimist and I hope this is our future. But history shows that power gained is never relinquished without a vicious struggle.

How do you think a non-violent revolt can succeed in a society where mercenaries keep the peace? Furthermore, what if these mercenaries are autonomous systems which require very few skilled individuals to operate? Surely they would simply work for the highest bidders, and viciously enforce whatever "society" these bidders require.

The truth is, going forward, an ever larger percentage of people (specifically their labor) will be deprecated by superior technology (capital). In fact, as technology progresses, most people will become an operating cost in society, as the cost of keeping the majority of people alive will outweigh their total lifetime labor contribution. This is the reality of capital in the technological era. Economics doesn't break down, it just means capital gets more and more of the production pie, and labor gets less.

It will be a brave new world, but in no way will it be better than now. The Dark Ages happened, and they can happen again.

dllthomas12y ago

"But history shows that power gained is never relinquished without a vicious struggle."

People say this, but it's not true. Obviously there are countless cases where violent struggle was used, and quite possibly in many of those cases violent struggle was required (maybe even all), but there have clearly been cases of individuals and groups giving up power. Sometimes in pursuit of ideals, sometimes out of fear that violence might otherwise follow.

zackmorrisOP12y ago

Ya "how do you think a non-violent revolt can succeed in a society where mercenaries keep the peace?" is a good question and I was never sure either until I watched a show on FSTV called "How to Start a Revolution" about Gene Sharp and his book "From Dictatorship to Democracy":

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/23/world/gene-sharp-revolutionary...

It's hard for me to say what the gist of it is, but if I had to try, it would be that nonviolence is a powerful weapon against totalitarianism because it's covert. If all the people communicate simultaneously online, and there's no leader, and they reach a consensus that they're going to convince the military and police not to stop them (beginning with persuading servicemen in their own families), then nobody stops them on the day they revolt. So the real struggle happens in the weeks and months before the revolution in the hearts and minds of the institutions that prop up those in power. If the revolutionaries find themselves throwing rocks at police on revolt day, then they've probably already lost. Unfortunately we only hear one side of this on mainstream news, specifically to keep us demoralized and in the dark about how nonviolent revolution works.

Of course in the western world, we're all democracies already, so we may never have a revolution like this. I guess I'm most concerned about voiceless democracy, where as you said capital trumps humanity, and they subvert us all into working toward their goals instead of ours. I really worry about people being perceived as a "cost" on society, because it frames any argument for the social welfare in a bad light in people's minds. And I totally agree with you that it's getting progressively worse with machines lowering the value of labor. I hope some clever people meditate on what may end up being the problem of our time and think of a way out of this mess!

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