QUESTION: Hello, Mr. Armstrong.
Let us say that the future turns out OK-ish (post crash and burn), that we avoid another dark age. 3D printing, AI and robots do a lot of the work for humanity. The amount of available mundane jobs are reduced and replaced by our inventions.
Have you had any thoughts about a society where technology makes most humans obsolete? I would not know if that would be a dystopian or utopian way of life. Probably neither.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
-Arild
ANSWER: Let us hope that we do not go into a Dark Age. I certain do not think we are going all the way to a Dark Age. The reason I warn about that is to hopefully make people aware that this is one of those times when such events take place. I do not believe that the cycles can be altered. What I do believe is we possess the power to understand and reduce the volatility.
What we face is rising tension and dysfunctional government. It is always government that causes the Dark Age. Their greed and obstinate desire to maintain power results in them turning against the people to retain control. If we understand what they WILL do, we can intelligently counteract those measures. The army will be a key component. If some divisions support the government and others the people, there is your civil war. Then we have the Marxists who are in a clear trend to retake government. So this is the battle we will have to confront.
If we can neutralize government then we can save the future. Trump was elected because the silent majority can no longer survive not because he was this wonderful person. They wanted a non-career politician to reform Capitol Hill. So under the surface, the resistance is starting to rise. We still have the Marxists to deal with and these people are just as hateful as the White Supremacists. We are caught in between these two extreme groups and this raises the potential of a civil war as each side attempts to take control and subjugate the other.
Of course, theses two extremes are really rising because of the fact that their life styles are being diminished by taxes. The Marxists point to wealth inequality as if taking all the toys from the rich will make their life better. They tried that with Communism – it too failed. The White Supremacists see their life style diminishing and blame immigrants, minorities, and the Jews because of their dominance in banking. The problem is always government. It consumes more than 50% of the GDP which is just wasted. That reduces the standard of living for everyone. Hunting the rich causes them to hoard and invest less so you then have economics also declining and today 2% growth is hailed as fantastic. The larger government becomes, the lower the economic growth, the higher the taxes, and the lower our standard of living since government produces nothing.
This idea of 3D printing, AI and robots do a lot of the work for humanity eliminating the available mundane jobs is grossly overstated. Workers are being replaced because of taxes. I helped restructure companies and assisted them on where to locate when they wanted to move into Europe. I put the manufacturers in the UK not France or Germany because the taxes on labor was 40% less in the UK. If there was a need for office type jobs and low tax rates, I moved those to Ireland. The deciding decision was TAXES – not the hourly wage of a worker.
Therefore, if we hit the control-alt-delete button on government and do a reboot, the first thing we do is certainly replace judges with AI and eliminate the “opinion” and corruption thereby reestablishing an honest rule of law. There should be term limits, and direct democracy where the people vote on each bill from their computer. Each bill must stand alone – not tacking things on the clean water bill that have nothing to do with water. Eliminate all government pensions – no career jobs. Any agency that needs workers is outsourced so pensions are real not promises from politicians.
Workers are being replaced ONLY because of taxes and healthcare costs. We may have been created equal by God, but that is purely in rights not talents. I am a very good trader, but that does not mean I could be a great brain surgeon. We all have our talents so it is not one-size fits all.
The mundane jobs will be there. AI cannot replace that segment. But AI can make the world much better and help to advance society to the next level. We have to reboot government for that is what is destroying society. Fix that, and we can advance in society rather than go into a Dark Age because they turn against the people as has been the case throughout history – i.e. let them eat cake.
