Who's going to buy their products and services when there are only two classes, one that doesn't need them and one that can't afford them?
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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They will buy their products and services from each other. That can still form a working economy. It would function just like any slavery based economy of the past, just with more slaves than usual
That is exactly it. Trump is creating a global economic recession too. Nowhere will be fun for the epstein class.
AI oligarchs don’t want to replace anyone.
They want businesses with money paying them huge subscription fees, and they want lock-in so that all businesses out there depend on their tech to continue to function.
It’s the same model as we saw with streaming video.
They couldn’t care less about the working class, one way or the other, which is part of the problem.
Honestly?
I think AI replacing office workers is just a pit stop till AI can operate kill drones...
Billionaires are 100% asking themselves if they really need us, and the fucked up thing is if robots can grow their food, produce their goods and shield their compounds from us...
They don't need us. At that point theyre gonna want to get rid of us for the space if we can't make them money, and where were headed we won't be able to.
They "need" a small buffer population that enjoys the oligarchs protection from us, but are loyal because they can be killed/exiled at any time.
But 99.9999% of the world population, they're probably ok with killing off already.
If not, they definitely will be once they squeeze every last ounce of resources out of us and the planet starts really dying. They'll even convince themselves it's "for the greater good" to save the planet they killed making their billions.
They're just gonna keep getting crazier, there's no logical reason to think the trajectory or acceleration will change. Eventually it'll be a literal class war unless we prevent by taking our resources back.
Correct. AI drones that can kill is the goal here.
No doubt about it. There IS no logical reasoning the trajectory will change.
But try to inform the population....
Eh, there's like five other catastrophes between now and then...
Right now it's 100% an inevitability, but if we fix the shit that will fuck us before that does, we can just fix that at the same time.
Like knowing eventually the sun will run out of helium causing it to grow in size and destroy the entire planet. It sucks, but we got more pressing matters.
Don't waste energy warning people about Skynet, focus on getting rid of billionaires. If we just stop the killbots, the oligarchs will just kill us a different way.
Killbots just leave a better planet behind than nukes or viruses
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The "ultimate question" is: do they really just want a whole lot of people to die? They bluster around the topic like that's a question that you just don't ask, but when you boil away all the BS, what's left is: are you saying that you're going to lock people out of any possible way to feed themselves and their children and just "let them figure it out for themselves"?
Yes. That's where the white supremacist eugenics comes in. They literally think they're genetically superior and those they deem inferior should die. That's why too many billionaires have like 10 kids nowadays. It's weird christo-fascist "replacement theory" shit.
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You must remember one thing. The 1% are called the 1% because we are the 99%.
So when we're left to "figure it out for ourselfs" in a life or death situation, historically speaking the end result is revolt and revolution.
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Or, now hear me out, we tax the shit out of the rich and their corps, and implement UBI. That was supposed to be the plan ever since futurism envisioned advanced automation - the tech does the work, human reap the benefits and just do whatever. Capitalism just came along and fucked it all up instead because that's how rich assholes and investors measure their scores.
They always weasel out of taxes. My idea was to give each person something like carbon coins that works like an emission permit. Give everyone the same amount each month and keep it within nature's limits. Then, if someone wants to do something polluting like run a datacenter, they'll just have to purchase the coins for that from the open market from those willing to sell. The end result is still money going to the poor but not as a tax, and hard limit on pollution.
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It would be cool to remove the need for everyone to work jobs they hate just to survive though.
Sure but the system would only work if the rich agreed to pay for our expenses via taxes. Don't expect it anytime soon.
Why do they have a choice?
Because they own the government
And the media
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The frustrating part is that a significant amount of that might already be largely technologically and economically possible at this point, but not as long as some people are hoarding 99% of the world's wealth, and brutally exploiting at least the poorest 80% of the world's population in their endless quest for more.
It has to stop.
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What bugs me about this is it’s always been their plan, for hundreds of years.
Why is the average person so stupid and apathetic about this.
the average person doesn't think they are working class, they think that's what poor people are.
my dad made a working class salary his entire life, but he always told us we were middle class and 'better' than those working-class idiot losers.
average people admire rich people and want to be them, and they hate working class people.
i'm a middle class person now, but i live around a lot of upper middle class people, and regularly they let me know I'm subhuman scum in their eyes. and working-class people i grew up with, think i'm a rich effete snob with my graduate degree and my expensive coffee and my compact car.
people generally are much more focused on the differences around them and feeling they are better than their neighbors is a far bigger concern than what rich people are doing. the person living across the street from you gets more upset about you getting a nicer car than them then they do about jeff bezo's wedding.
you’re doing the clouding propaganda to yourself even in your reply; there is no such thing as middle or upper middle or lower class, it’s only working and owning classes. (ignoring the folk who do not work for the purpose of this reply.)
many claim “yeah but middle class is a financial thing or quality of life thing” - cool. then don’t rank it with working class. because working class is about the relationship to capital. A millionaire and a thousandaire are still working class if they both sell their labor for the purpose of an owner’s profit ideals.
(just as an aside, this is why cops are not working class)
When my parents retired, after giving me a lifetime of bad advice on nearly everything, I found out that I earned more than double their combined salaries, even though my mom was a VP.
Her company figured out that they could buy her off with a title or an office, or more responsibility, with the promise that a raise was right around the corner, and she bought it every time. She was always telling me to stop worrying about the salary, and go after the promotions, and the salary would follow. That salary never arrived for her.
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"John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." (paraphrased)
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I’m fine with the working class being replaced with robots. That was always the dream of robots. As long as it means that everybody gets to live a life of leisure. Because that was also always the dream
We’re all going to live a life of leisure, right?
If you mean living in rotating abandoned warehouses, doing odd jobs, hijacking robots, corporate espionage and assasin jobs... Then sure life of leisure. At our current trajectory we are going full cyberpunk.
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They want the working class, they just want them to be the corporate town serfs. What is the point of being really rich if you can't feel superior to someone else?
Just going to point out that there are only 3000ish billionaires in the world, and about 8b everybody else. Wouldn't even need 1% of the world's population to slay those dragons. Imagine how much pollution could be reduced, how much wealth could be spread around if we just dedicated ourselves to eliminating the Billionaire class.
Personally I would even say the teams that slay a dragon, deserve a share of the hoard while the rest is redistributed.
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Is this not just a jaundiced slant on the future we were all promised where machines do all the work and we lay around in togas eating blancmange.
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Sir, the struggle is very long and ongoing since the so-called Industrial Revolution. You gotta have enough angry people to end the class struggle once and for all.
Has anyone tried asking the AI companies for a list of demands?
I mean Alex Karp of Palintir just released a 22 point manifesto that has the subtext of "I sent some people a 23rd point saying 'some of you are cool, don't come to school tomorrow'"
I bet we could get the others to also release an unhinged manifesto
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Total submission
We have enough food and housing for everyone. People shouldn't need to work bullshit jobs.
The richest 1% are the only people standing in the way of a utopia.
no. like, the term "working class" can be interpreted in two ways: (1) people who are inherently workers, (2) people who are forced to work to survive.
which one is being replaced?
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Sure sure but it's the ultra rich who we need to fight. AI is a smokescreen for their greed.
Did Bernie read my Terminator fanfic? The one where the 1% are living it up on some islands with T800 butlers while the Terminators clear out the rest of humanity?
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Replace us?
Subjugate, control, and exploit us.
They can’t handle not being feared, worshipped, and not having peasantry to make them feel powerful.
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