Yeah, their idea doesn’t work. Property is power. Inequality past a certain point isn’t just a “lock-in” thing, it leads to escalating inequality, as those who have more use their stuff to take stuff from those who have less. (Can be completely legal, e.g. the rich spending money to get the right laws passed, which will in their majestic equality force the poor to pay more fees or whatnot. Or could be more brazen than that. The world is full of examples.) The only good future is the “equality” attractor, where things are equal enough that a society-wide commitment to prevent further catastrophic inequality remains feasible. It’s a tiny basin of attraction but it’s the only chance we have.
I agree; it’s absolutely very possible for the permanent underclass scenario described in this post to devolve into something even worse. This post is more arguing “even if somehow there wasn’t escalating inequality, and things like property rights did remain, even for the poor (i.e. the scenario as described in AI 2040: Plan A), a permanent underclass would still be really bad even then.”
Yeah, their idea doesn’t work. Property is power. Inequality past a certain point isn’t just a “lock-in” thing, it leads to escalating inequality, as those who have more use their stuff to take stuff from those who have less. (Can be completely legal, e.g. the rich spending money to get the right laws passed, which will in their majestic equality force the poor to pay more fees or whatnot. Or could be more brazen than that. The world is full of examples.) The only good future is the “equality” attractor, where things are equal enough that a society-wide commitment to prevent further catastrophic inequality remains feasible. It’s a tiny basin of attraction but it’s the only chance we have.
I agree; it’s absolutely very possible for the permanent underclass scenario described in this post to devolve into something even worse. This post is more arguing “even if somehow there wasn’t escalating inequality, and things like property rights did remain, even for the poor (i.e. the scenario as described in AI 2040: Plan A), a permanent underclass would still be really bad even then.”