[chandler]

>> Why "combat" the impact of robots?

For an outside consideration, take the view outlined in this "Rules for Rulers" video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs )--especially the part that discusses what sort of political structures arise when wealth is generated mostly independent of human production (e.g. are we sitting on a gold mine?).

[oillio]

As a counterpoint, it is possible to distribute windfall profits from natural resources in an equitable manner, and keep a functioning democracy. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-can-tiny-norway-afford-t...

It is rare, but not impossible.

[nickjarboe]

Another rare example is the US where mineral rights are spread over millions of individuals instead of the govenment.

[Asooka]

The view outlined in that video is that the systematic inertia brought by greedy self-centered assholes is nearly impossible to put a stop to by replacing just one person, ergo I take it to mean, that the only realistic way of implementing a sharing scheme has to start with a bloody revolution a-la the French Revolution. Or, of course, we can also just kill off enough people (middle-class and lower only, of course) so that the few remaining ones have guaranteed jobs maintaining the robots (see: Stalinist Communism).

In any case I predict the next few decades will be pretty exciting for future historians. The "A Song of Ice and Fire" kind of exciting.