Ar> I am not optimistic because we have historical precendents of what
Ar> happens whena culture becomes so rich it can make other cultures work
Ar> for them in exchange
Ar> of money while the rich culture sits on their lazy asses. It usually ends
Ar> badly.

I'd say this has already happened many times, call it slavery, feudalism, whatever.. money, food, shelter.. there were always lords and peasants.. these times are just calling the ladder with different terminology.

I'd say there is no peak time now. just a milestone. What I find interesting that many people haven't noticed or don't comprehend is that we're now shifting between historic eras. They are usually connected to some major economic crisises and armed conflicts as a natural follow-up that can also change many borders and just like 100 years ago with two World Wars and Great Crash in the 1920s we just experience similar thing, we just don't have another WW yet...

But that is still not the major era change I think of. Basically end of XX century and the high-tech revolution causes something similar to Industrial revolution from the end of XVIII century.. what then happened in XIX century is called industrialism.. and then what we maybe still like to call a modernism is just very well developed industrialism all of us were still born in.

In the industrialism who had the machines and factories and was responsible for the production lines was the richest and the most influential.

Now we live in the informational not industrial revolution and the richest and the most influential are those who possess data and know how to use it.

And this is just the beginning.. so I don't believe that production of physical items will be the most important thing while the biggest economic value defined by today commercial value is connected services attached to already produced items.. this way production without these services generate no value and that's the dependency link.

Ai + Robotics, Metaverse... continual redevelopment of communication technologies and interactive media are the tools to control habits.. not a bulb with a switch to have the lights..

I don't care about the mass production that much if many things massively required yesterday, today can be 3D printed at my local scale and need easily and without all the factory/assembly line defined complexity.

I believe global knowledge transfer management and local micro production is what may very soon come back as a part of the trend. And again who controls the information flow will redefine financial aristocracy in the XXI century and beyond.

-h1

.... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.