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Comment by chailatte | Hacker News Reader

My theory from before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906769

- In 20 years, 80% of the people in will be kept alive by welfare, supplemented by their hourly job. Enough to get a small apartment, utilities, cell phone, cheap but unhealthy food, and shopping at the dollar store. And free tv/movie/music/book/sports entertainment via the internet.

- 15% will be the middlemen, extracting value from the others via service or thievery. They will be the new middle class. They can afford the sometimes luxury.

- the other 5.5% will be specialized knowledge workers. They will be the one maintaining the software/hardware to make sure nothing goes wrong. They can afford lots of luxury, but will be taxed heavily, as they are the only workhorse left in the society.

- 0.1% will be entertainers. They will make sure that people are entertained well enough not to riot.

- and the 0.4% will rule everyone.

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One thing that would really help such scenario become an affordable reality, is seeing the cost of living rapidly decline for people living with low wages.

For them , the major living expenses are housing, healthcare, food and energy, and a car(when there's no decent public transportation).

Those areas mostly doesn't see big cost reductions. Some of it is because high barriers to entry, regulation, dislike of low-end disruptive innovation by people(in healthcare and probably in housing), low investment in r&d (in construction) and other reasons.

On the other hand, if you look at the third world, those are exactly the ares they out innovate the west:

1. low cost housing(Tatas to build world's cheapest home for Euro 500[1], cost of residential buildings made with reinforced concrete to average of less than 1,500 yuan($235) / square meter[2])

2. low cost healthcare(Dr. shetty, reducing the cost of heart surgery to $2000 and working towards $800[3], program that trains lay people to treat depression in india[4] , and many many others)

3. low cost transportation : the famous TATA nano.

4. while u.s. is really innovative in this field, china is probably leading this field throught huge investments and low labor costs.

So this leads to an interesting situation: In 20 years , when automation might take hold(here and in the third world), who will be better prepared for it?

[1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2770956 [2]http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/01/45-more-buildings-to-follow... [3]http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-06/world/india.health.cities... [4]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/world/asia/11iht-depress.1...

As hated as Wal-Mart is, they have cut the cost of living for people with low wages. The after effects are up for debate.

The after effects would have happened anyway. If you look at countries that don't have a Wal-Mart , you see the same effects of imported Chinese goods, lack of unions, and "death" to main street. At least Wal-Mart passed a good chunk of the savings to people.

> But there are some things which make poverty more tolerable. Wal-Mart for one. I’d moved to Louisville with not even a fork or a spoon. Wal-Mart sells all that — hamper, dishes, utensils, dish rack, sheets, telephones, you name it — for prices so incredibly low that I was genuinely grateful. I thought about Wal-Mart’s union busting, its abused work staff of geriatrics and economically desperate wage slaves, its stocks of Third World products which in turn further destroyed America’s manufacturing, its aesthetic Sovietization of America… and then I thought about my own shitty fiscal situation. Conclusion: “Fuck ‘em.”

http://exiledonline.com/elite-versus-elitny/

I love that article. One of the most unappreciated pieces on America today IMHO.

Sorry this comment doesn't really contribute anything but I'm thrilled to see someone else remembering this little gem.

I don't mean to sound condescending (although I'm sure I will), but your theory about the future has already happened, and collapsed, in other countries: USSR and China being two prominent recent examples.

If anything, those examples prove that it really could happen.

Not could. Did. Many times.

China didn't collapses, only USSR did. China learnt from USSR collapse and now showing the world how to grow while maintaining control.

Chaillete's future seems a possibility. Provide a basic level of necessities but beyond that you will need to earn your way. Isn't that's what Chinese are doing?

Whether communism or capitalisms, both extremes are bad as both results in concentration of power in the hands of a few

China's structure of wealth absolutely did collapse. Now people who were in charge of vast sections of China are no longer in charge, and although still technically communist in spirit, they move farther from it every day.

Further... that's what the article was suggesting, too, although without the totalitarian overtones: "We start by accepting that food and shelter are basic human rights."

USSR was different where everyone was eligible or provided with the same whereas the poster talks about providing some basic livelihood to all and allowing those who can earn more to continue to earn more and live better.

Except for the ones who were killed off.

'where everyone was eligible or provided with the same'

Provided with the same...what? Certainly not housing, food, imported goods, freedom to travel, etc...

Those all varied dramatically with your station and connections.

Neither USSR nor China never had 80% of the population on welfare, not even fucking close. USSR didn't have welfare, only pensions that had to be earned.

That's 101%

Not 100% sure I agree with you, but if this scenario did happen, the ruling class would probably be closer to 0.01% or less.

I believe there will be a lot more entertainers if you include all the people who create movies, music, games, etc.

I also think there will be an army of people caring for others - the elderly, children, the sick.

I do not believe that the 6% of people you think will have all the money will just buy more stuff with their money. They will buy other people's time instead and that's why your 80% group will be more like 25% in my view.

Sure there's alot of entertainers, but most of them will struggle without making decent money (just like today).

There's a reason I said 20 years. In 20 years, most of baby boomers wealth will have disappeared. And so the eldercare/health industry will collapse then.

And remember there will also be alot more robots/vending machine/teleremoting help desk doing services, reducing human needs.

That actually looks fairly positive - hopefully the 0.1% won't come up with a genius/subtle way of getting rid of "the other, useless" people en masse. As resources get scarce that's the greatest and very real threat.

The last three are pretty much in place. The friction and unrest we've seen around the world recently comes from the first two not being calibrated correctly enough.

20 years is way too soon for this to happen, and long before it does a Gattaca type situation would have arisen.

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