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Here’s a thought experiment about the consequences of runaway globohomoism and the post-employment future that mass automation will usher.

Imagine robot tech advances so that in a future not far off 99% of present-day jobs are rendered useless. In this post-employment techtopia, only the top 1% have meaningful jobs. This 1% would include the superbrains who design the robots and code the AI, plus their real estate agents. (Don’t scoff; Amazon already has plans for cashier-less supermarkets that record the point-of-sale via your phone.)

The growing wealth and income inequality is a clue that we’re already well on the way to this post-employment economy.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear the libertardians—”new jobs will be created”. But what if they’re not? What if the new jobs have a 150 IQ barrier to entry? So let’s stipulate 99% unemployment. How do all those jobless people buy the shit that the 1% make with their robot armies?

My best guess is that the government will provide a guaranteed basic income, paid for by the 1%ers in taxes collected. The sub-150 IQ plebs will use their Fed-provided income stipend to pay back the 1%ers what they have lost in taxes to the government. A closed loop feedback system is created, in which no new money beyond that needed to match any population growth (unlikely—.a post-employment economy is also a post-fertility sexual market) is minted for circulation (at this point paper money will be obsolete).

The government prints money (rather, electronically fills bank accounts) for the plebs, who pass that money to the oligarchs, who return that money back to the government. The system is only soluble if the plebs actually spend their GBI instead of saving it. Then of course there’s the wild card of popular revolt and guillotines, this time with the added twist of Skynet to protect the robotocracy managers from their inability to fully reconfigure human nature.

So the question becomes: is a post-employment economy the same as a post-fiat economy?

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Confused?

So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

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