So there is a long term problem that shouldn’t be discussed because:
- It won’t be happening any time soon
- Proposed solutions won’t solve everything, immediately
- Talking about it is for “doomers”
- Unsourced “experts” say its not a threat
- Effects of the problem happening right now are just conspiracy
- This kind of problem has happened before and the world survived
Like climate change, concerns that a universal income might be required to offset automation go back a long way — for instance see this link to Martin Luther King Jr. Also like climate change there are any number of well researched explanations of the threat — for instance see this link to The Technology Trap.
We are not suffering from just one long term threat; we are suffering from a refusal to discuss almost any future problem until it is imminently upon us. Essentially
future generations are disenfranchised in the same way that slaves or women were in the past
But like previous disenfranchisement this practice benefits only a very small minority while the vast majority of lives would be greatly enriched by taking the future into consideration.
This disenfranchisement is the real major issue of this election cycle. Are we as a society able and allowed to plan for the future or do we live from one tweet to the next?