Originally Posted by
YuvalNoahHararri
Again, I think the biggest question in maybe in economics and politics of the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people?
The problem is more boredom and how what to do with them and how will they find some sense of meaning in life, when they are basically meaningless, worthless?
My best guess, at present is a combination of drugs and computer games as a solution for [most]. It’s already happening. Under different titles, different headings, you see more and more people spending more and more time or solving their inner problems with the drugs and computer games, both legal drugs and illegal drugs.
You look at Japan today, Japan is maybe 20 years ahead of the world in everything. And you see all these new social phenomena of people having relationships with virtual; virtual spouses and you have people who never leave the house and just live through computers.
I think once you’re superfluous, you don’t have power.
Again, we are used to the Age of the Masses, of the 19th and 20th centuries…We saw all these successful massive uprisings; revolutions, revolts. So we got used to thinking about the masses as powerful. But this is basically a 19th century and 20th century phenomenon.
I don’t think that the masses, even if they they somehow organize themselves stand much of a chance. We are not in Russia of 1917 or in 19th century Europe.
What we are talking about now is like a second Industrial Revolution but the product this time will not be textiles or machines or vehicles or even weapons. The product this time will be humans, themselves...
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