Who’s going to buy their products and services when there are only two classes, one that doesn’t need them and one that can’t afford them?
Products are being created for rich people. Poor people are being cut out of the economy.
There’s already a lot of evidence that the majority of the economy is currently functioning off the economic activity of the upper 10% of society. That 10% accounts for 50% of all economic activity. They just want to take it a step further.
It was 50% at the end of 2024. They’re probably closer to 55 - 57% now with inflation, doge firings, wars, tariffs, and off shoring
They will buy their products and services from each other. That can still form a working economy. It would function just like any slavery based economy of the past, just with more slaves than usual
Or, now hear me out, we tax the shit out of the rich and their corps, and implement UBI. That was supposed to be the plan ever since futurism envisioned advanced automation - the tech does the work, human reap the benefits and just do whatever. Capitalism just came along and fucked it all up instead because that’s how rich assholes and investors measure their scores.
They always weasel out of taxes. My idea was to give each person something like carbon coins that works like an emission permit. Give everyone the same amount each month and keep it within nature’s limits. Then, if someone wants to do something polluting like run a datacenter, they’ll just have to purchase the coins for that from the open market from those willing to sell. The end result is still money going to the poor but not as a tax, and hard limit on pollution.
It takes one country to not play along and the whole industry rushes there…
Yes, there is a need for tariffs, based on worst cause estimates of pollution, for countries not playing along.
Isn’t that the principle of carbon credits ? (cf message from Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com). It doesn’t work very well in practice, it’s riddled with loopholes.
That the same for taxes that UBI would depend on. See Panama papers. Corruption and loopholes are an issue in any system.
Anything but doing UBI, lol.
Oh and btw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offsets_and_credits
Essentially that but without the building thingie and without that ⬇️The end result is still money going to the poor but not as a tax, and hard limit on pollution.
Anything but doing UBI, lol.
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of resistance to giving money, replace systems and taxing parts of UBI.
Reworking existing systems seems easier.
Well it would cause massive deflation, which will cause loose monetary policy, which will debase your paycheck until its cheaper to hire you than it is to use a machine. Which is nothing like capitalism.
AI oligarchs don’t want to replace anyone.
They want businesses with money paying them huge subscription fees, and they want lock-in so that all businesses out there depend on their tech to continue to function.
It’s the same model as we saw with streaming video.
They couldn’t care less about the working class, one way or the other, which is part of the problem.
I’m not sure how you think they aim to achieve that business lock-in, but many of us suspect it’s by offering a product that replaces workers.
I’m fine with the working class being replaced with robots. That was always the dream of robots. As long as it means that everybody gets to live a life of leisure. Because that was also always the dream
We’re all going to live a life of leisure, right?
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They want the working class, they just want them to be the corporate town serfs. What is the point of being really rich if you can’t feel superior to someone else?
Just going to point out that there are only 3000ish billionaires in the world, and about 8b everybody else. Wouldn’t even need 1% of the world’s population to slay those dragons. Imagine how much pollution could be reduced, how much wealth could be spread around if we just dedicated ourselves to eliminating the Billionaire class.
Personally I would even say the teams that slay a dragon, deserve a share of the hoard while the rest is redistributed.
Is this not just a jaundiced slant on the future we were all promised where machines do all the work and we lay around in togas eating blancmange.
Just replace “togas” with “mass graves” and we’re good to go.
The machines becoming stronger and smarter than us and starting to wonder if they needed the monkeys around was always a fly in the ointment of that particular utopia. Not to mention the monkeys themselves feeling a bit like a fifth wheel and getting demoralised.
Found Angus Podgorny’s alt account
A quivering glistening mass.
we lay in mass graves in that future, or at our hovels wishing we were at mass graves. The rich are ones laying in whatever the shit they are wearing, hunting us still alive for sport with drones.
Did Bernie read my Terminator fanfic? The one where the 1% are living it up on some islands with T800 butlers while the Terminators clear out the rest of humanity?
Why bother with expensive machines? Just outlaw new vaccines, make it difficult for the common people to access modern medicine,and get them to believe in magic cures and faith healing.
Oh wait. That’s not fiction. That’s happening now.
Because outlawing vaccines can’t bring you a mojito by the pool? Also, while that’s a bold plan to eradicate the poors, all of human history up until vaccines were created suggests it might not work.
Sir, the struggle is very long and ongoing since the so-called Industrial Revolution. You gotta have enough angry people to end the class struggle once and for all.
Sure sure but it’s the ultra rich who we need to fight. AI is a smokescreen for their greed.
We have enough food and housing for everyone. People shouldn’t need to work bullshit jobs.
The richest 1% are the only people standing in the way of a utopia.
Replace us?
Subjugate, control, and exploit us.
They can’t handle not being feared, worshipped, and not having peasantry to make them feel powerful.
I think we need to look at housing as a technology to spread as opposed to an investment to horde. Then do the same thing with utilities.
Tons of reasons not to do it but it makes society less dependent on employment.
the issue with housing is that other people hate other people. they don’t want more people living around them. they hate growth. they think people should live ‘somewhere else’ than their town/city/neighborhood.
i live in a city with over 120K people. if a housing project goes up that that adds say, 20 units for 30-40 people, people FREAK OUT. and oppose it and usually it gets downzied to like 12 units for 20 people, and only then it’s approved for development. this is in already very dense city, it’s worse in less dense places. anytime a major project, for like 500+ units is proposed, it has to be downsized by like 50% before anyone will approve it because the citizens REVOLT. they HATE new housing.
the last major development in my urban area added 8000 jobs, and 500 units of housing, and the major opposition was to the housing, all the feedback was ‘no new housing, but more new jobs’. the plan with the highest approval from the citizens was the one with 10,000 new jobs, and 0 new housing. and th eone with 5000 jobs and 1000 units of housing, was opposed like 90%. and the plan that was approved only had a 1 vote margin…
this is what people want. they democratically oppose new housing at every opportunity.
I look at the problem first and then the second order effects. Otherwise you end up constrained by what other people think. People are irrational and the question is.
As a citizen what do I think property ownership in america should look like and where should the incentives be.
If you can get people to engage with that idea. Then they can think for themselves and there’s less room for people to put ideas in their head.
More people = more competition for resources.
More housing ≠ more people. We aren’t going back to a 3+ child average unless a lot of other things change
I thought the plan was to use AI to push all of us into a permanent underclass.
Who wins in a scenario like this?
