"We are moving to post-scarcity, and the future is bright."

If you are the king, why do you need to keep those billions of loud, dirty, polluting, dangerous, depleting the natural resources, and now UNNEEDED serfs around? When you could gain by exploiting them, great. Someone had to do the hard work. But now / soon, they have nothing to offer, besides problems. Problems, are to be ..exterminated.

Imo, the (near) future, is either paradise, or total hell. Nothing in between. And history isn't offering reasons to be optimistic.

(PS: Yes, I totally understand that the above stands on the pov that there are some "kings", and we are the "serfs". It's a pov that's easy to dismiss. Personally, I don't.)