[buzzkillington]

>Currently we're on our way to the first option. But the second is the only viable long-term outcome - because in the limit the wealthy will continue to play status games with wealth, and the circles of distribution will become smaller and smaller until eventually literally everything is owned by a small handful of individuals and - perhaps - their immediate families.

That's been the case for most of human history. I don't see why this isn't a viable option again. High technology does not mean a humane society. For the majority of the last 10,000 it was pretty much the reverse. Egalitarianism meant primitive, starvation and deprivation meant wealth.

Of course one only need read what happened to monarchs for most of the period. Being king is good, less so when you become furniture for the next king.

[bsanr2]

Because, at the same time that this is happening, the capacity for a single actor to wreak catastrophic destruction or violence is increasing. If that "viable option" increases the number of discontented people who increasingly have access to WMDs (or that support actors who can, given enough of that support), you increase the likelihood that someone has the motive to blow everything sky high.

Also, you're wrong. Egalitarianism has meant a lack of luxury relative to what was possible at the time, but a better baseline for the population as a whole.

[buzzkillington]

The majority of people are disarmed and happy to be defenseless because "Won't someone think of the murdered children in schools!".

>Egalitarianism has meant a lack of luxury relative to what was possible at the time, but a better baseline for the population as a whole.

[[citation needed]]

The population of China was larger than any of the time and the majority lived in poverty so great the Europeans who visited were shocked by it.