No future, no Future for you and me

These are tough times. It's not really survival of the fittest though, is it?
Survival of the most adaptable perhaps. Or survival of those lucky enough not to
have been figured out by a machine yet.
I saw a bunch of people using those
self-service check-outs the other day in a supermarket and it brought me back to
my thoughts on why the future will fail. As it is, there just isn't enough for
us all to do in terms of actual chargable work. Some of the crazy dumbass
businesses people set up and call work don't survive a recession. Sure, they can
often make people's lives easier or, more usually, make other businesses more
efficient or stronger or, alternatively, less accountable for their actions
simply by creating more links in that chain.
But, when things get tight, many
of those not-really-businesses get dumped.
And, as this is going on, there
are a lot of people out there whose business it is to try to find ways of
putting other people out of it. Like the people who invented the self-service
check-out machines.
But what future does that lead to?
A future where,
eventually, most people are replaced by machines, computers, efficient systems.
Those people are waste. They will be piled upon more waste until whole cities
will become ghettos. Maybe all cities, except for small areas of London, Tokyo
and a large chunk of New York. And it's not like those people are going to have
fantastic lives either. Yes, they'll have lovely houses in the Hamptons. Caviar,
assuming all fish aren't extinct. They'll have power, something not guaranteed
to the waste class when the fuel sources run out. And, with a good deal of
fertility treatment, perhaps a child. Even two.
But they'll live in fear.
Fear that the waste class, the filth, will get so angry one day and have so
little to lose that they'll just snap. And they'll take the world
back.
That's the future.
What happened to those futuristic dreams of
living in a nirvana? Silver cities in the sky? Well, those were built on a
premise that turned out to be false. The idea that, when we are replaced by a
computer or machine, that we then get to live in paradise, exploring art, music,
philosophy together. But, as it happens, when a person is replaced, he is dumped
on that scrap heap. Someone at the top rubs his hands, having just got that
little bit richer. He smiles, not seeing that dark future hurtling towards him.
And, quite honestly, if he does see it, he doesn't give a fuck.
He'll die
rich. Let the rest of the world fend for itself.
Who cares about the future?

Link.