zlacker

We're all so pessimistic about the future not because we think it's going to be captured by the plutocrats and oligarchs, but because we know the future has already been preemptively captured by them. They're all doing the work now to cement their positions in the future, and there's nothing the rest of us can do about it.

I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.

>>ryandr+(OP)
That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising.

>>deadba+kb
Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working.

The ruling class will bring the violence soon enough.

>>deadba+kb
There's plenty they can do. For one, control all your media (for example banning of tiktok, since chinese oligarchs are not aligned with our oligarchs), with control over media they can prevent your message from getting out (e.g. Luigi Mangione's manifesto being disappeared), or if the message does get out they can spread propaganda to turn the population against you (see, BLM and many other movements). Also they can remove all your privacy so that any subversive action has a high social cost such as losing your job. Also they can overspend on a stifling police state even as surveillance and control tools get better and cheaper.

Really, they're getting better and better at this, they have tons of practice and their population control tools are getting better.

>>ryandr+(OP)
> I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.

I have good news and bad news. The world doesn't stand still. There are some iterations that destroy the structure of society, after which a new structure must be built. The oligarchies of today will meet their end at some point. And, no amount of preemptive effort can prevent that. That's as the good news go, in as much as they are good news.

These are not my ideas exclusively. If you want to hear them from people that has dedicated a fair amount of time at exploring this subject and gathering data, I recommend these books:

- Capital in the Twenty-First Century, for an overview of historical change. You will find that the author agrees with you in many accounts.

- The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Josph A. Tainter.

- Principles for dealing with the changing world order.

The bad news is that the most likely iteration coming around the corner is human's lost of control of our societies in favor of machine intelligence. It's not going to be as "peaceful" as the rise of the post WWII world order, but I hope that we survive.

>>ryandr+(OP)
As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones.

What is actually interesting is while the plutocrats and oligarchs have more leg room and better food on their private jet, the airplane itself doesn't move that much faster than me in coach.

You simply underestimate the financial mass of the mass market. These plutocrats and oligarchs only exist as part of a system with an even bigger mass market.

This time is not different.

>>ryandr+(OP)
> I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.

Due to the laws of diminishing returns, the inventions aren't going to be that great and in fact actively destructive as we are basically running the world on innovation, rather than creating innovation for the world.

>>shadow+3Q
> As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones.

What is interesting is that expensive iPhones are really not that great for society in the first place. It is not that they have iPhones and we don't. Rather, it is that we have iPhones and that is how we are controlled and the return isn't worht it.

>>deadba+kb
> That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising.

The problem with revolution in today's society is that it will be a revolution against a system that provides little trivial comforts, rather than a revolution against a system causing starvation. Thus, it will take much more work to revolt, as it is a revolution against technology itself.

>>TOGoS+Rm
> Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working.

Can't happen. As soon as significantly many people stop working, the remaining will be offered larger salaries to keep working. That is why revolution against the modern power structure is so hard: because there are economic incentives against revolution for the working class.

>>shadow+3Q
They are working on automation to replace the bigger system, they rely on.

China just rolled out a police drone, even though china has more than enough people to train for that job.

This is where my dystopian nightmare begins. Autonomous weapon systems, so targeted and unlimited in reach and capability, that no number of civilians thrown into the frey will make a difference. A single machine gun could have stopped the french revolution, and yes, i think humans are very much capable of pressing that button.

>>deadba+kb
As a HN reader most likely making 2x, 3x, 4x or more the median wage, _you_ are part of the overpaid techbros they will be leveling the "massive violent uprising"(sic) against. The working class and poor know darned well we aren't part of the proletariat.

>>Throwa+5J3
You sure about that class strata?

I'm a software developer but I work in a factory making minimum wage now.

I can barely afford rent. I certainly don't feel like bourgeois.