Technology

I think the big danger is that we have an 80% that are living hand to mouth and the main way to make money off of them is through their numbers, and jacking prices on life essentials to the absolute limit they can bear.

Then we have a 20% who are wealthier than the bottom 80% and these folks actually program the robots and run our economic system, and are paid well enough to buy the fancy products, etc. This 20% buy double what the 80% do or more and constitute a whole economy unto themselves.

The big game is convincing the 80% they can move into this 20% somehow. This keeps them from revolt, along with the fact that the 20% control the media and so on and work against wide messaging of even the existence of the problem let alone a revolutionary solution. Of course the absolute top fraction of that 20% have more wealth than everyone else combined and exert the most influence, largely through the 20% professional class that they allow to live in relative luxury.

Right now that top fractional 1% are asking themselves “hm, could AI shrink the 20% to 15%? That would improve our profit margins and shrink the only class of people with enough power to really disturb us.” Because the “we are the 99%!” crowd are really 20%ers most of the time. 80%ers are consumed by their immediate challenges of survival and the ill side effects of poverty AND above all the hustle to move into the 20%.

It’s an interesting comparison with pre-revolution. France where the 1% lived on the backs of an agrarian 99%. With the introduction of that magic 20%, the 1% are vastly more wealthy than if they lived off of pure agrarian peasantry. And they’ve created a buffer between them and the bottom tier that largely manages the masses for them, pacifying it with the promise of mobility. I don’t think anyone consciously plans this shit but if they did they’d be high fiving themselves for their absolute genius.