[fwipsy]

New technology doesn't eradicate what came before. It only replaces what's profitable. There are still some people in the world subsistence farming. A tech worker is many orders of magnitude more productive in monetary terms, but hasn't replaced them. In the worst case, automation (including physical) may drive the cost of labor far down, but it cannot drive it to zero, and as it does so commodity goods will become cheaper as well. (Housing, education, and healthcare prices are inflated for policy reasons. Expect to see increase in unregulated alternatives for housing and especially healthcare.)

Net effect: huge inequality, many people buying very cheap goods for tiny wages. Middle class destroyed. Lots of struggle. But not as bad as some folks are saying. History zombies on.

[FridgeSeal]

> Lots of struggle. But not as bad as some folks are saying

I don’t know, what you’re outlining there is pretty grim. Especially as we could elect to just…not destroy people’s livelihood’s en masse?

[fwipsy]

All of us? All over the world? Elect not to do something that would make us individually rich and powerful, and instead accept the risk of being left behind if someone else does it?

I don't know, I don't think many nations/organizations would go for that. If we had that level of trust, it feels like there's a lot of other bad stuff that wouldn't be going on right now.