The Future Unveiled : You will die poor.

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The Future Unveiled : You will die poor.

In my generous wisdom I have decided to share some highlights of the future with you, so you can know beforehand what shitty fate awaits you, and can proceed to amuse me by trying to squirm your way out of it (and not succeeding).

You will get poorer and poorer. It is indisputable. It is actually obvious, if you weren't so blinded and intoxicated by all your owner's buzz. But since you are the intoxicated pea brain creature that god, through no fault of your own, made you to be, I am forced to spell things out, so you can follow.

Consider basic economics. Any commodity has a value assigned by the market, based on the supply and demand for that commodity. The work you do, your skills and knowledge are a commodity. And in this particular market, things look really bleak. Fact of the matter is, for all of human history, there was never a shortage of demand for work, but always a shortage of supply. In the time of the roman empire, cutting all the world's forest, for instance, would have been an impossible task, even if the entire population did nothing else. During the industrial revolution, you could only open smelters and mines as fast as you could find people to work there. Things like strikes and minimal wage and women in the workplace only prove how work was historically in short supply and high demand.

It used to be that people had to do most labor. That has changed, gradually, and engines replaced people doing the hard work. That's what the industrial revolution was all about. People would just control the machinery, and suddenly the concept of “quality of life” emerged. Because, if you don't need to sweat in the field or in the mine anymore, but instead you just sit somewhere and push buttons, nicely insulated from all the dirt and stench of labor, you get ideas. Like, for instance, the idea you matter, or that anyone gives a shit.

Sad news is, computers came along. Now, for most control machinery tasks, computers are a lot better than humans. Because they never get tired, they never make mistakes and they are fast. Darn fast. Their only limitation is they handle poorly systems with many complicated rules. They do best in systems with a few rules and many complicated implications. However, it is a mathematical fact that there's no real difference between the two. It's just that people suck at programming, and they particularly suck at programing systems with many complex rules. Not the computer's fault.

The problem that this spells out however, is that you are entirely useless now, economically. An engine is stronger than you, and for all accounts and purposes a computer is smarter than you. And you no longer have a grasp on the economical production cycle. The only thing still in your yard is consumption.

Understand this properly, think about economy as if it were a foreign country. It takes raw materials and combines them into finished products, be it wood for a table, or stewardess smiles and planes for an airline. You inescapably need the table, and the flights, and the food, and the detergent and everything else. However, it doesn't need you. It will use an engine for power, and a computer for direction. The Japanese already have factories that employ just a few persons per square mile. That is pretty low density, isn't it ? People just don't belong in there anymore.

And if it doesn't need you, but you need it, you are going to get screwed. Are you ? Yes you are. Big time.

Bullshit, right ? Just another guy on a psychotic rant, right ? Wrong. Well then, I see you ask, if I'm being screwed that badly, how come I don't see it ? That is because you are an idiot, simple as that. You are still meaningful to the economy for as long as you still have some money. But as soon as it runs out, that's it, you will be packed away and left to rot. Just consider your standing, for a second. Do you own any real estate ? But is it mortgaged ? Do you have an income ? But do you have loan installments to pay ? Do you have any money in the bank ? But are your credit cards maxed ? Are you, all in all, worth more than five years ago ? But is it still a negative value ?

It owns you, simply because it makes what you need, doesn't need you and then uses money to pretend like you had a chance to begin with. But that's not really the bad news.

The bad news is things are only getting worse. As time goes by and the production process becomes more and more automated, less and less people are needed to produce more and more stuff. Eventually, a fraction, a tiny fraction of the entire population will be employed to produce everything everybody can possibly need. What if you aren't amongst that fraction ? Oh, I know. You did everything to ensure that you are in there right ? Got yourself good qualifications, work experience, a resume, all that. You're home free. All the other idiots who didn't, who screwed around and lazed out at work and never went to college may well be in the spot, but not you.

Actually, if you ever considered you might not be in (and yes, doing things specifically to ensure you will be in qualifies as considering you might not be in) you're out. Simple as that. If you ever wrote a resume, you are out. If you ever went to an interview, you are out. If you ever smiled when you had the cramps, if you ever passed on a night of drinking cause you had to go to work the next day, you are out. Out of the question, forget about it, not in that picture.

Only way you are in is, either you are rich enough to never have had to work, or smart enough that they are practically begging to lick your arse. Anything else is out.

Well, having arrived this far, I can almost hear the more perceptive of you trying a bit of the old tollens, so let me humor you.

If indeed my contentions were true, we should see something like “Containment” where the more turbulent of the useless are kept. I don't suppose the sharp rise in prison population would serve as experimental collaboration of that implication, would it.

Further, we should see something like a speedy disappearance of the middle class. Also, we should see an important increase in the complexity of labor laws. And we should see a serious anti-everyone sentiment, as people tend to blame any visible group for all the ills they don't understand. Further yet, we should see any possibility of meaningful dialog between social groups (like, for instance, political parties) dwindling to extinction.

So look around. And when you're done, maybe you will get it. It's not the Mexicans. It's not the Canadians. It's not the French. It's not the big corporations. It's not the democrats. It's not the republicans. It's definitely not Bush. It's nothing and nobody in particular. It's just that we have finally reached a threshold. And you aren't even invited past it. So, kindly go cuddle somewhere and die.

14 people died poor already.

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