We are discussing the future in the
Dark Enlightenment thread, and the immediately following quote applies to what I wrote before (as quoted at the bottom this post) in this thread here, where I stated that you are demanding the wrong solution with your poll choices:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5238&cpage=1#comment-425667>There is a strain of singularity/post-scarcity thinking among people I might not precisely describe as hackers, but who are definitely part of todays internet milieu nonetheless, which holds that something like a basic income guarantee (or, as a darker alternative, welfare tied to an increasing amount of pointless make-work) will become necessary
I know. This is what we call failure to learn from history.
Democratic welfare states erected on any premise have an inevitable failure mode that I have elsewhere described as Olsonian collapse. This is on topic because its one of the things the DE gets right.
The particular strain of post-scarcity thinking youre describing hasnt figured out that the least unstable versions of a basic-income-guarantee system are despotisms and oligarchies in which the concept of political equality has been necessarily jettisoned. They should study the terminal period of the Roman Republic and learn to be more careful what they wish for.
I don't have time to read this thread to see if anyone already mentioned the recent Oxford study/research which claims 45% of all existing jobs will be gone within 20 years.
The new economy be knowledged based and mostly programmers and hitech knowledge workers (e.g. nanotech, etc). Everything will be automated, there is even a D-shape 3D printer that can print an entire house in solid, monolithic marble.
I've written about this on my blog:
http://unheresy.com
It is interesting how this relates to the dystopian future that Bitcoin creates.
Specifically Bitcoin aggregates too much to the early adopters, because the debasement ends and the mining is ASICs only.
Thus you will end up with only 0.01% with the money and the rest of society pissed off and unemployable.
Luckily I don't think that will be the outcome. Instead an altcoin will soon destroy this perceived monopoly and the world will be saved from this dystopia. But not if the Bitcoiners have their way, such as blocking me from replying further to that above linked thread (or was the entire thread locked?).
P.S. I can't vote for the poll, because it doesn't include the choice, "Minanarchy where the unemployed have to retrain or live in poverty". Of course, we will need to be charitable and provide food via private charities.
Both of the choices for the poll can't possibly be sustained (wasting human resources always leads to failure and death). They are eugenics outcomes. See Ted Turner's (CNN) Georgia Guidestones inscriptions for where that leads you.
You socialists go on with your myopia. History shows where you ALWAYS end up.