> I couldn't agree more. We are on the verge of complete societal breakdown. And historically that's always ended violently (eg French revolution, Russian revolution) as a form of redistribution.
Don’t threaten with good time.
> I couldn't agree more. We are on the verge of complete societal breakdown. And historically that's always ended violently (eg French revolution, Russian revolution) as a form of redistribution.
Don’t threaten with good time.
Unfortunately, while I'd love to finance the Glorious Revolution, I don't think my money will be of much use. And SWE skills aren't very useful in a collapse scenario.
Is there a term for "reverse Roko's Basilisk"? That you are convinced society will trade your freedom and opportunity in pursuit of an AI superintelligence, so you learn bow-hunting and how to dress a deer carcass while prepping your Quonset hut in northern Idaho?
Even the revolution will need to update to the latest Javascript framework.
So I don't see this going back to subsistence or primitive accumulation. If it does, some very bad things have happened. No, I see a likely future as what many, myself included, call "neo-feudalism" where the only jobs and housing are on massive estates of likely trillionaires where you don't own anything. And there's no land to and live on primitively. It's all owned. I guess another job will be rounding up such "rebels".
There's likely an in-between state of fascism where states will largely be apartheid states with an ever-shrinking in-group. It's a bleak future.
Some people really want to bring on the revolution. We tend to call them "accelerationists". I'm not in that camp. Revolutions and the resulting upheaval tends to be incredibly violent. Many millions will die. That may well happen anyway as climate change makes parts of the Earth uninhabitable and we have massive climate-caused migration.
But what really is the difference between having $200 billion and $300 billion? You already had more wealth than you can possibly ever spend, need or want. All you're doing is hoarding, well, everything.
The only way to stave off this outcome is to mildly share so normal people have something, have security and have hope. Whatever you say about the robber barons, at least there were some public works with their unimaginable wealth.