IMHO there is one fault in this extrapolation (I hope).
Governements, at least democratic ones, are not
autonomous-entities-that-have-no
relation-with-the-populace-other-as-a-resource. They are representing their
electorate in creation and excuting of policies. If their policies are
undesirable for the populace these will get themselves a new set of
representatives (I think this is how it works).
Besides that there are certain safeguards like a constitition (most western
countries have one) that guarantees certain basic rights (such as not to be
killed and such). As long as a democratic, consitution abiding governement
is in place and there is a general consesnsus that people should not be
left to rot on the streets (even if they are ecnomically marginalised) I
believe we'll be OK more or less.
The proces of marginalization is already going of course, in the future
more and more work will be done by machines, economic growth does not help
here because the new products and services will also be created in an
automated fashion. I know of no democratic country where unemployed people
are killed or something, it seems to be working out ok so far. IMHO it is a
question of reallocation of a growing amount of resources in a manner that
ensures a minimum existance for every one (I realize that resource
re-allocation is not a popular subject here). If anyone has better
solutions, or finds faults in my reasoning....
Greetings,
Arjen
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Arjen Kamphuis | "Here Be Dragons", read the ancient maps
mountain@knoware.nl | in all the white spots that seemed large
enough to hold the fabled creatures.
let's go dragon hunting.
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