Killing Us Softly

Since time immemorial humans long for a life of freedom and ease, to do what brings us pleasure and joy without the responsibility of actually doing the necessary work to keep us alive while pursuing said pleasure and joy.

Agrarian societies needed large families to operate family farms, thus spreading the work load. When the industrial revolution kicked in, society needed large numbers of laborers to do the actual work as well as provide the consumer base to make capitalism hugely successful.

But we haven’t need a large labor force for either industry or agriculture for quite some time now. A huge percentage of jobs are what the late David Graeber called “bull shit jobs” that exist only to bolster mid-level managers by giving them something to manage.

Even before AI broke into the public consciousness we as a species needed to face the reality of a future where meaningful employment is rare.

The true function of government may be to supply bread and circuses for the bulk of humanity.  Logic would dictate the bulk of humanity should be discouraged from reproducing.

Humans striving to reduce the population typically take draconian measures to achieve their goal in their lifetime but AI has no life expectancy, it will be here forever and can take a millennium to smother us with a satin pillow.

© Buzz Dixon