A thought occurred to me a few days ago about a potential chain of events that might transpire in the near future, and I just wanted to share. It felt like a eureka moment because some things just kinda clicked and suddenly made sense when considered together. First, a quick background. There is a lot of talk that developments in artificial intelligence and automation will automate many jobs and create huge numbers of people whose skills are no longer useful because machines will be able to do those jobs. And worst of all, they won't be able to re-train and/or get different jobs because those jobs too will be automated, there are no replacement jobs coming. This video covers this really well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU - "Humans Need Not Apply"
Seems like a real possibility (in many ways it's already happening in many industries), though hard to say how "smart" these machines will be and how much they will be able to ultimately automate. But let's say smart enough to render billions unemployed and unemployable. What happens to all the unemployed? A very popular solution commonly proposed for this chaotic period is Basic Income. Here is a good video that explains that concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQXxcjJ5ODw - "What is Basic Income and why do we need it"
On the other hand we have a very real prospect of economic collapse as well as a total elimination of paper currency. All transactions will be done digitally, probably with some sort of chips as the C's said here:
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,25981.0.html
It seems like Artificial Intelligence, automation, and basic income concepts are starting to gain a lot of attention and popularity. It is happening incrementally but already people like Bill Gates, Steven Hawking, Elon Musk have talked about the dangers of AI, and because of their popularity, this is bringing it into mainstream consciousness. Many countries are starting to take the idea seriously:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world
Notably, Finland is starting a trial on it:
http://www.demoshelsinki.fi/en/2016/08/30/thousands-to-receive-basic-income-in-finland-a-trial-that-could-lead-to-the-greatest-societal-transformation-of-our-time/
France might try stuff too:
http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/europe/2016/02/24/push-for-basic-income-in-france
There is a push to run the experiment in many other countries as well. Anyway, it seems like automating jobs away will push the PTB to consider their options, if this is indeed on the agenda. What to do with the vast majority of unemployed humans?
So here's my suspicion for what might be happening here:
Automation increases corporate productivity dramatically, allowing the rich to get dramatically richer while the majority are jobless and broke as they are not the owners of the machines/facilities to benefit from them. Of course, this means we don't have any money to buy stuff either. So in the initial stages of automation, companies who are laying people off and replacing them with machines will benefit by saving money. What they haven't considered is the economic effect overall - people without jobs can't buy whatever these companies are selling. But of course those few companies who do think of the larger context and are loyal to keeping people employed will be driven out of business due to narrow-minded competition automating and out-competing them on price and quality. This results in the inevitable social and economic collapse - people without jobs can't buy anything, big shocker! What now?
Just as the riots are starting, the government implements basic income. This gives everyone an allowance and purchasing power. But this is where they drop paper currency in favor of fully controlled electronic-only currency. They will insist this is the only way basic income is possible on a truly large (possibly global) scale - to curb corruption/money laundering/etc that might compromise it. They will find a way to link paper currency as part of the reason the collapse happened or whatever else they need to say to get this done. People will be desperate so no one will really argue too much, they'll just be happy to get money again.
Ultimately of course if machines produce all goods money is actually completely unnecessary anyway. But our social mentality doesn't allow for that idea just yet, and controlling money (and retaining the concept that it's necessary) means controlling people. This time much more directly and much more profoundly. People won't work for a living - but they will literally only live if their digital money handout isn't cut off. Who will rebel then?
Anyway, automation COULD offer a utopia - there is nothing wrong with letting machines do the annoying drudgery and allow humanity to stop laboring at pointless and stupid soul-crushing jobs and instead focus on whatever fulfills them in life - travel, reading, writing, friendships, families, whatever! But the elite won't just let us be free - any beneficial technology that SHOULD liberate us will actually enslave us even more. We might not be working for a living, but they will still get 9999% of all the benefits from automation and we will get the "free" scraps - just enough to keep people content, but also fully dependent on the handouts from the elite who own the automation (it won't be socialized).
Hopefully the ice age and comets will happen soon after. But anyway, this is just a thought I had about how they could get from where we are now to no paper currency and microchips. It may be done via an engineered financial collapse, but they are slick, they like to make things "make sense" and not be completely out of the blue with no plausible explanation. Then people are left shrugging thinking well we knew it was coming, it was inevitable, it wasn't some freak incident no one saw coming. And using automation as a catalyst just makes sense - it's growing exponentially, many famous people are seriously concerned, it's bound to lead to an economic crisis, and all they have to do is gently guide it and manage the outcome in their favor. No need to "engineer" it arbitrarily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU - "Humans Need Not Apply"
Seems like a real possibility (in many ways it's already happening in many industries), though hard to say how "smart" these machines will be and how much they will be able to ultimately automate. But let's say smart enough to render billions unemployed and unemployable. What happens to all the unemployed? A very popular solution commonly proposed for this chaotic period is Basic Income. Here is a good video that explains that concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQXxcjJ5ODw - "What is Basic Income and why do we need it"
On the other hand we have a very real prospect of economic collapse as well as a total elimination of paper currency. All transactions will be done digitally, probably with some sort of chips as the C's said here:
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,25981.0.html
C's said:
It seems like Artificial Intelligence, automation, and basic income concepts are starting to gain a lot of attention and popularity. It is happening incrementally but already people like Bill Gates, Steven Hawking, Elon Musk have talked about the dangers of AI, and because of their popularity, this is bringing it into mainstream consciousness. Many countries are starting to take the idea seriously:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world
Notably, Finland is starting a trial on it:
http://www.demoshelsinki.fi/en/2016/08/30/thousands-to-receive-basic-income-in-finland-a-trial-that-could-lead-to-the-greatest-societal-transformation-of-our-time/
France might try stuff too:
http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/europe/2016/02/24/push-for-basic-income-in-france
There is a push to run the experiment in many other countries as well. Anyway, it seems like automating jobs away will push the PTB to consider their options, if this is indeed on the agenda. What to do with the vast majority of unemployed humans?
So here's my suspicion for what might be happening here:
Automation increases corporate productivity dramatically, allowing the rich to get dramatically richer while the majority are jobless and broke as they are not the owners of the machines/facilities to benefit from them. Of course, this means we don't have any money to buy stuff either. So in the initial stages of automation, companies who are laying people off and replacing them with machines will benefit by saving money. What they haven't considered is the economic effect overall - people without jobs can't buy whatever these companies are selling. But of course those few companies who do think of the larger context and are loyal to keeping people employed will be driven out of business due to narrow-minded competition automating and out-competing them on price and quality. This results in the inevitable social and economic collapse - people without jobs can't buy anything, big shocker! What now?
Just as the riots are starting, the government implements basic income. This gives everyone an allowance and purchasing power. But this is where they drop paper currency in favor of fully controlled electronic-only currency. They will insist this is the only way basic income is possible on a truly large (possibly global) scale - to curb corruption/money laundering/etc that might compromise it. They will find a way to link paper currency as part of the reason the collapse happened or whatever else they need to say to get this done. People will be desperate so no one will really argue too much, they'll just be happy to get money again.
Ultimately of course if machines produce all goods money is actually completely unnecessary anyway. But our social mentality doesn't allow for that idea just yet, and controlling money (and retaining the concept that it's necessary) means controlling people. This time much more directly and much more profoundly. People won't work for a living - but they will literally only live if their digital money handout isn't cut off. Who will rebel then?
Anyway, automation COULD offer a utopia - there is nothing wrong with letting machines do the annoying drudgery and allow humanity to stop laboring at pointless and stupid soul-crushing jobs and instead focus on whatever fulfills them in life - travel, reading, writing, friendships, families, whatever! But the elite won't just let us be free - any beneficial technology that SHOULD liberate us will actually enslave us even more. We might not be working for a living, but they will still get 9999% of all the benefits from automation and we will get the "free" scraps - just enough to keep people content, but also fully dependent on the handouts from the elite who own the automation (it won't be socialized).
Hopefully the ice age and comets will happen soon after. But anyway, this is just a thought I had about how they could get from where we are now to no paper currency and microchips. It may be done via an engineered financial collapse, but they are slick, they like to make things "make sense" and not be completely out of the blue with no plausible explanation. Then people are left shrugging thinking well we knew it was coming, it was inevitable, it wasn't some freak incident no one saw coming. And using automation as a catalyst just makes sense - it's growing exponentially, many famous people are seriously concerned, it's bound to lead to an economic crisis, and all they have to do is gently guide it and manage the outcome in their favor. No need to "engineer" it arbitrarily.
