Couldn't agree more. I've been voicing this for the past decade. Its crazy how the system is setup for eventual failure. Its a race to the top, or bottom, depending on who's looking, but for most, the bottom. Companies have to either consolidate by buying all their competitors, and customers, or find a way to deliver the same goods/services for less. Its always less. At some point, not everything can be made with love and good intentions... You can't cut all corners without destroying the integrity of the original product. You can't outsource all the manufacturing without affecting job markets. Manufacturing is already mostly outsourced, now they're going to outsource a lot of the cognitive labor to AI. The never ending chase for consistent quarterly growth numbers has really messed us up and they're not really planning for whats to come. Not that they could plan for AI progressing as quick as it is and replacing jobs as quick as they are, but they're not ready.
We're already seeing governments shaming and gaslighting their citizens as they try to find ways to pay for programs to support as many as possible, saying they don't want to work anymore, they're lazy and have to be given everything, pre-chewed.... When you make it nearly impossible for humans to find worth and purpose by exchanging labor for pay, you devalue any contributions they could have and are racing to a future where most of what humans have to give, outside of original creative thought, and art, which AI can do too so it depend on others willing to find value in it, then you're not left with a whole lot. Most of the population aren't self starting entrepreneurs with an infinite drive for wealth and who want to sacrifice everything for a job. Many just seek stability and want to find something they can be at least ok at and can repeat and provide for themselves and their family. By making jobs that much harder to get, you're adding barriers for most to find work. Many countries have been spoiled by stability for so long, their populations don't view survival as a "fight", maybe a struggle, but not a fight for life. Soon it'll be a fight, if not all out war, and almost no one will be ready for that. IF the economy and government (under whatever system and name you want to call it) was setup to provide for all, knowing all the wealth was centralized and they had a mandate to redistribute resources so all could be comfortable, it would be a different story, and even then, but its not the case. A time is coming soon where companies will start losing customers because customer's spending power will disappear. Companies will have optimized themselves out of a path for future growth by destroying their customer base.
Younger generations are already looking at a future vastly different from the one we saw or thought we'd see. Most things older generations took for granted are literally out of reach. Some older people literally expect younger people to just toughen up and just work hard and make it happen, since they did. Easy to say when their education cost them a couple summers worth of income + maybe a side job. The next generation paid their student loans over years, then decades, some pretty much for life. Now its not just education, owning a home is now out of reach of a lot of people. So now if you have the guts to take on an education, you're dealing with potentially decades of student loans, average homes in the US have gone from around $140,000 to $500,000 over the past 20 years, while incomes adjusted for inflation has grown roughly 12.7% between 2003 and 2023, or roughly 0.6% a year. Add on to that the extra cost of other new necessities the picture is looking very different. Life is more and more equating to financial slavery. Used to be any job enabled you to provide necessities for a family, now unless you live in the middle of nowhere, its harder and harder to even get started. AI is already causing cuts to entry level lobs, thinning out the pipeline for future senior employees..
Its going to be fun they said... Its going to be glorious they said...
One thing for sure, its the people who will pay the price during the adjustment period.