So, basically Malthusian theory plus Objectivism.

Rikers, since the Sun is our greatest source of heat and will be for some time to come, once we're actually producing enough heat to be a big problem, rather than trapping it like we are now with greenhouse gases, don't you think our technology will have advanced enough to control the amount of heat we receive from the Sun? Yes, I'm proposing very large and stylish polarized sunglasses in geosynchronous orbit filtering out as much IR light as is necessary to keep our planet cozy, perhaps converting some of it to energy for space stations and taverns. Maybe we can get some sexy AI bots to slather our planet's sensitive bits with sunscreen, reflecting back some of that heat instead of absorbing it. Wouldn't such measures or something similar allow us to keep using as much energy as we want without overheating?

Turning sunlight into other forms of energy reduces heat...

Enough with the hippie songs, Brian. Can't you see I'm going for the Robert Palmer Miami Vice look here?

We could use electricity harvested from the sun's energy to power vibrators (preferably the Hitachi Magic Wand). Women masturbating wouldn't just be fun; it would also be the patriotic thing to do.

@rikers I'm confused how the elite maintain there authority in your scenario.

If conditions are not acceptable to 99% of the population you don't think they could revolt in whatever way to dethrone the 1%?

How they always have, and continue to do so right now.

By playing the game smarter than you.

You can't dethrone that which has no centralized base of power.

From what I'm reading in riker's post the 99% are aware the 1% exist and who they are.

Not sure why this is important.

Just because you may be in the elite 1% doesn't automatically make you immoral. Nor does it give people any particular motivation to dethrone the 1% using means other than 'competing in the game to get to top 1%'.

Indeed, one reason we already have such a dominant 1% is precisely because so few people have the courage to try and compete.

Mechanisms of market-share concentration closely resemble mechanisms of power concentration in societies. With greater risk (courage) comes greater reward. In a way, you get the amount of power that your level of cowardice permits.

For now we in the U.S. and much of the developed world have constitutions and the vote. If things play out as disastrously as I predict the 1% should be very worried.

I'll offer a not quite fitting example: The White farmers in Zimbabwe would've likely agreed to a tax rate of 95% rather than be driven off of their land (and sometimes killed in the process).

Similar is coming to the 1% if the rest are not satisfied, which they won't be.

If you're in the West and own a refrigerator, car, laptop, phone and have a roof over your head, you are like the 1% to the rest of the world's population, roughly speaking.

Just to be sure.

You're saying that we're likely to not have a top 1% in the future? or you're saying that they are likely to be replaced by another group of top 1% individuals?

Riker's seems to be framing it exactly this way. All 99% are exploited for the absolute dominance of the 1%. Unless I'm completely missing something here. The 99% will be impoverished and the 1% will be gods.

Paraphrasing of course.

The way I read it is that the 1% will have access to cool technology that the 99% won't. Sure the inequality will get larger, but the standard of living for the poor will also be improved enough to keep them complacent and docile.

Revolutions come and go, but a top 1% always remains.

On a related note. Fighting for more power, whether at the bottom or near the top, is fighting for more power. No need to sugar-coat it as 'fighting for equality'.

Not sure how that helps reduce heat, or how it's patriotic even, but it does solve quite a few other pressing issues, so

If my prediction of doom, which is based on how horribly people act according to past performance which I think predicts future results, comes true I don't think that there will be any 1%. The head of Goldman Sachs is going to be replaced by a computer if I am right so who is going to be in the top 1% if it doesn't include that person? If we agree that the current trajectory leads to an all powerful AI and all work is done by robots how are humans going to determine how resources are allocated? And if it turns out that some small group of people manage to grab all of the luxuries while everybody else has only the basics the basics better be good enough to make those getting it happy bec if they are not happy, very happy, the top-top are going to lose their tops.

We are off into movie script time itt, which btw is a very satisfying to me hit. It can be written all sorts of ways but many have an elite living large in protected enclaves. I really don't think people w/ a vote will allow it and for now we have a vote. And a vote is needed to take away our votes absent violence which will beget the violence I predict even more surely. Woe, woe, woe……….it's coming.

I see a movie coming too.

The top have more time on their hands and they only have 1 job.

Maintain power via keeping the masses content enough to stay complacent, docile and most importantly: risk-averse.

The top will utilise all sorts of techniques to accomplish this, including complex shopping malls, entertaining sights and smells, and cool technology that keeps you glued and serves as an obstacle to you developing any kind of charisma or social skills that may prove useful to gaining confidence. Confidence that may be needed for breaking out of your comfortable risk-averse bubble. Confidence that may be needed to build the courage to compete for more power.

Other techniques utilised include the statistically insignificant threat of 'terror', that puts the fear of God into you, and makes you forget that a lot of your taxes are going toward manufacturing war-machines and surveillance equipment that will be well-utilised by the top - to further compound their power.

With this cocktail of techniques and more, it's often tough for me to see how the bottom percenters will have the (a) time and (b) resources; to revolt. Interesting to get some new perspectives nonetheless.

Preach it, brother! The thread is a hit! May it be on the front page forever!

No one will teach useless maths and science at school, that is what AI is for, Asians will excel at Art and poetry. Creativity will reap the biggest rewards.

Since we keep redefining what poverty means, and the poorest in developed nations are wealthier than the wealthiest people 150 years ago, there won't be a violent revolution, only peaceful reforms. I can't see us returning to 18th century French peasant status, which is what it might take for example.
conversely, people in the US might argue people were better off just a few decades ago, before global capitalism and wage stagnation, but the manufacturing will re-shore with AIs filling the roster, working with the lights and air-conditioning off 24 hours a day producing wealth, but for whom with up as far as 50 percent unemployment predicted shortly.

Surveillance technology will become so advance, privacy will be a thing of the past as David Brin outlines in his book 'The Transparent Society'. It could be the corporations/governments watching everyone or sousveillance (everyone watching everyone). Personally I imagine Google Earth street view in real time, at the least (let me google this to see if it already exists).

Someone could write a virtual reality, where we plug in cranial jacks, hook ourselves up IVs that feed us and keep us hydrated, while we live in the matrix to keep us occupied. We might still need to exercise, which would be the only obstacle preventing people from being 100% lazy bums.

I predict that people will continue to think their predictions for the future are more than silly simplistic narratives with no actual predictive power.

What will actually happen is that we will all become EDM DJs. This is already happening in Las Vegas where strangely there are more than one EDM DJs per capita.

Then I have no argument with this. I agree as long as the masses are placated nothing will change.

Brazil


A great movie by the way despite being thirty years old. The future has changed since then*.


*Picking up on BTM2's elegant point.

It's useful to predict the future. Besides pure entertainment, it helps us avoid making huge mistakes. We shouldn't stop, it's what we don't imagine that always kills us.

By fiat I'm declaring the poster below the Official SMP Poster for the Robot Apocalypse Thread.

It is dangerous and powerful, use with discretion.