How AI, Robotics, and Clean Energy Will End Labor and Money – A Future Where Everything Is Free

[henry quirk]

We’re all fucked and there is very little we can do.

Oh, ye of lil faith (Johnny was a pussy).

[seeds]

You’re acting like companies will spend trillions building job-killing machines and then just... not use them? That’s not how capitalism works. If you think technological capability + ruthless capitalist adoption = business-as-usual employment rates, you’re living in a fantasy land.

The technology, once mature, will be deployed because that’s what capitalism demands: lower costs, higher profits, less human unpredictability.

How can you possibly keep missing such an obvious point?

And the point is, if the cost-saving robots have taken away all of the jobs that humans need to perform in order to earn the money they need to purchase whatever it is that the cost-saving robots are creating,...

...then how in the world can the ruthless capitalists hope to make "higher profits"?

Let me reword that ever-so-slightly just to make sure the point is clear...

Again, how in the world can the ruthless capitalists hope to make "higher profits" if nobody has any money to purchase whatever it is that the cost-saving robots are creating?

This isn't rocket science.

You keep mocking with stuff like "put down your spear and iPhone," but let’s be blunt:
If you’re willing to sit back, fold your arms, and sneer while civilization collapses into an automated dystopia—fine. That’s your deterministic role.
Some of us, though, are determined to fight for a future where the majority doesn’t get left behind like obsolete tech in a landfill.

And no—I’m not looking to upload myself to a server to bow down before Emperor Trump 2.0, thanks.
I’m trying to keep humanity human—flawed, messy, creative, alive—while the machines do the grunt work.

Shame on you, BigMike, for you're sounding like some sort of bigoted, racist, old time slave master talking about your "fellow machines" in such a way.

Do you think that you are better (more worthy of existing) than the robot that's going to take your job in the future, simply because you are a "meat" machine and the robot is a "synthetic" machine?

I'm envisioning a march and standoff between the "synthoids" and the "meatoids" at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, sometime in the distant future.

Maybe think about that before you start handing your destiny over to entropy with a shrug.

"Meat machines," in and of themselves, have no ultimate destiny other than eternal oblivion.

Such is the unavoidable nihilism implicit in the philosophy of Determinism.

I'm going to say it plain, because anything softer would just be lying to you: you idiots are screwed.

You can mock, you can deny, you can crack your little dystopian jokes about "meat machines" and "Colossus" and AI fairy tales—but none of that changes the trajectory we’re on.

Good grief!!!

Are you so oblivious that you cannot understand that our little...

"...dystopian jokes about "meat machines" and "Colossus" and AI fairy tales..."

...come straight from the implications of the "Deterministic" theory that you've been beating us over the head with for months now?

Sheesh!!!
_______

[BigMike]

You’re acting like companies will spend trillions building job-killing machines and then just... not use them? That’s not how capitalism works. If you think technological capability + ruthless capitalist adoption = business-as-usual employment rates, you’re living in a fantasy land.

The technology, once mature, will be deployed because that’s what capitalism demands: lower costs, higher profits, less human unpredictability.

How can you possibly keep missing such an obvious point?

And the point is, if the cost-saving robots have taken away all of the jobs that humans need to perform in order to earn the money they need to purchase whatever it is that the cost-saving robots are creating,...

...then how in the world can the ruthless capitalists hope to make "higher profits"?

Let me reword that ever-so-slightly just to make sure the point is clear...

Again, how in the world can the ruthless capitalists hope to make "higher profits" if nobody has any money to purchase whatever it is that the cost-saving robots are creating?

This isn't rocket science.

You keep mocking with stuff like "put down your spear and iPhone," but let’s be blunt:
If you’re willing to sit back, fold your arms, and sneer while civilization collapses into an automated dystopia—fine. That’s your deterministic role.
Some of us, though, are determined to fight for a future where the majority doesn’t get left behind like obsolete tech in a landfill.

And no—I’m not looking to upload myself to a server to bow down before Emperor Trump 2.0, thanks.
I’m trying to keep humanity human—flawed, messy, creative, alive—while the machines do the grunt work.

Shame on you, BigMike, for you're sounding like some sort of bigoted, racist, old time slave master talking about your "fellow machines" in such a way.

Do you think that you are better (more worthy of existing) than the robot that's going to take your job in the future, simply because you are a "meat" machine and the robot is a "synthetic" machine?

I'm envisioning a march and standoff between the "synthoids" and the "meatoids" at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, sometime in the distant future.

Maybe think about that before you start handing your destiny over to entropy with a shrug.

"Meat machines," in and of themselves, have no ultimate destiny other than eternal oblivion.

Such is the unavoidable nihilism implicit in the philosophy of Determinism.

I'm going to say it plain, because anything softer would just be lying to you: you idiots are screwed.

You can mock, you can deny, you can crack your little dystopian jokes about "meat machines" and "Colossus" and AI fairy tales—but none of that changes the trajectory we’re on.

Good grief!!!

Are you so oblivious that you cannot understand that our little...

"...dystopian jokes about "meat machines" and "Colossus" and AI fairy tales..."

...come straight from the implications of the "Deterministic" theory that you've been beating us over the head with for months now?

Sheesh!!!
_______

Alright, Seeds—
you’re spinning in circles now, and it's getting embarrassing.

You keep asking, like it's some kind of mic drop, "How can ruthless capitalists make profits if nobody can buy anything?"
That's the point, genius. They can't.

Which is exactly why I keep saying: if we don’t radically rethink the structure of society—ownership, distribution, purpose—the whole damn system crashes.
The corporations won't save it. The billionaires won't save it.
They'll ride it down into the abyss trying to squeeze a few last dollars out before everything breaks.

That's what collapse looks like.
Not robots cackling as they steal jobs.
Not AI writing evil poetry.
Collapse is a broken economy with no buyers, no employment, no demand, and no way to stitch it back together.

You're treating this like it's some "gotcha" moment.
It's not.
It's exactly the nightmare I'm warning you about.

As for the rest of your post—trying to compare robots replacing physical labor to slavery, throwing around "racist old time slave master" insults, making up "synthoid vs. meatoid" civil rights marches...
Good God, man, you sound completely unhinged.

Machines aren't people.
Robots aren't moral agents.
They don't feel. They don't suffer.
They don't have rights.
They’re tools, like shovels and steam engines—only vastly more powerful.

Trying to paint me as some kind of robotic apartheid enforcer is just desperate.
You're losing the argument, so you're flailing around with cheap outrage.

And about determinism and "eternal oblivion"—
Yeah, I know.
The universe doesn't owe you a happy ending.
It doesn’t owe anyone one.
Grow up.

The question was never about whether entropy wins in the end.
The question was: what do we do while we're still here?
Do we fight for something better—or do we sit around making snarky posts while the floor collapses under us?

You've already picked your side.
Keep sneering.
I'll be busy trying to build something.

[Walker]

Now put those three forces together. What do you get?

You get Eloi humans, machine Morlocks, and the only diamonds created by pressure will be ineffectual theories found in the rebel outliers.

[BigMike]

Now put those three forces together. What do you get?

You get Eloi humans, machine Morlocks, and the only diamonds created by pressure will be ineffectual theories found in the rebel outliers.

Walker,
I get the metaphor, and yeah—it’s a chilling one if we just sit back and let it happen.

But this isn’t all vague theory anymore. It's starting to land right now.
Here’s a real-world example: AI blood tests are already being trialed in the UK to detect over 50 types of cancer.
A single test, AI-analyzed, could spot cancers faster and more accurately than many traditional screenings.

That’s not sci-fi. That’s displacement—right into the heart of one of the most skilled human industries there is: medicine.
And it’s just getting started.

The Morlocks aren’t underground yet.
They’re building the elevators while we argue about whether the ground is moving.

[FlashDangerpants]

Good catch—and fair to call that out.

But I don’t see it as slippage so much as scaling the argument appropriately over time. The thread's original claim—that AI, robotics, and clean energy will end labor and money entirely—is still where I think we’re headed in the long term. The 80% prediction by the late 2050s? That’s the threshold where the system starts tipping irreversibly in that direction. Not the final state—just the turning point.

Think of it like glaciers melting. The early signs don’t mean all the ice is gone—but once you're 80% in, the trajectory is set, and there's no going back.

So no, I’m not moving the goalposts. I’m just showing you where they’re currently standing—and where they’re heading fast.

So it's not US per se that needs to prepare for this zero cost future, it's us in 2057. We don't know enough about them just yet to even prep for becoming those guys though. What comprises this 20% of work that isn't done by robots? Are there 20% of people stuck working junior doctor hours while everyone else is homeless and wretched, or is there some Keynesian division of labour going on already so that everyone has access to work and working one or two shifts per week is sufficient to live the good life now that automation has ensured everything costs sod all?

Your aversion to detail derails your project.

Alright, fair point—you want detail, not big-picture speculation. So here’s the roadmap, broken down by decade, showing exactly why I stand by the 80% automation prediction by the late 2050s. This isn't sci-fi or hand-waving; it’s a synthesis of current trends, credible projections, and real-world developments that are already shaping the future.

2025–2030: Laying the Groundwork
This phase is already unfolding. AI and robotics are improving fast—machine learning systems are becoming more autonomous, and robots are entering more industries (healthcare, logistics, agriculture). Meanwhile, solar and wind are becoming cost-competitive, and battery tech is improving, creating the energy foundation needed to power large-scale automation.

Example: Tesla’s gigafactories are already blending AI, robotics, and solar energy to run highly automated, clean-energy production lines.

And while all that is happening, people who get carried away by all novelties are failing to understand the limits of them. Leading to stories like this caused be people who confuse the steak for the sizzle in AI the way you sort of seem to: Mike Lindell’s lawyers used AI to write brief—judge finds nearly 30 mistakes

More of the same, chatGPT but bigger if you will, is what a lot of people seem to think is all that is required for an AI with a well-rounded intelligence that can outcompete us on all fronts. In other words, they think only incremental performance improvements are really needed. They are mistaken. The leaps in AI that are required for your vision to come about require whole new types of AI, the availability of which is yet to be demonstrated.

People have a lot of notions about how such AI would operate and what weaknesses it would not have. They have taken to just assuming that super-intelligent AI would think robotically and never get bored. There is no basis for such assumptions. AI might not want to work the way you want it to, or might not actually be good at it.

2030–2040: Scaling Up
This is when automation starts showing up in ways that impact daily life.
- Self-driving vehicles, drones, and automated delivery systems start wiping out entire categories of jobs—long-haul drivers, warehouse sorters, delivery staff.
- Energy breakthroughs (like progress in fusion research through ITER) begin reshaping global power infrastructure.
- Mass-scale production and logistics increasingly run without human labor.

Example: Waymo’s autonomous vehicles—already functional—will likely dominate urban transport by 2040. No need for taxi, bus, or rideshare drivers anymore.

Again, I want to draw your attention to the difference between predicting incremental improvements and radical innovation.

Predicting that the latter will happen within this decade for mass deployment next decade is highly improbable. 30 to 50% greater energy gain from solar panels than is available today in 2035 is likely. Perhaps costs will be down 30 to 40% too.

Self driving vehicles were supposed to be all done already, 20 years ago they were predicted to have wiped out all those taxi driving jobs by 2025. You should learn from the failure of those predictions. It always goes the same way, people look at the current challenge being addressed, and then assume that it is the crest of the hill, that after dealing with this one thing it's all downhill from there. LIDAR and computer vision algos fixed the problems seen 20 years ago, but the complexity of navigation in an unpredictable environment has turned out to be much more difficult than that.

I am sure Waymo etc will dominate the easy landscapes with high demand by 2040, that does only require incremental improvement. I'm less certain it will rule the little one-horse town that Henry lives in.

2040–2050: Integration and Optimization
Here’s where that "irreversible tipping point" comes into view.
- Robots take over dangerous or repetitive jobs in construction, elder care, and security.
- AI handles diagnostics, scheduling, customer service, basic legal processing, and financial analysis—tasks that currently employ millions.
- Fusion, if successfully commercialized, adds massive, clean power to the grid, fueling everything from smart homes to automated public infrastructure.

Example: Boston Dynamics’ robots—by now far more advanced—will likely be a fixture in sectors that still rely on human physical labor.

What if that doesn't turn out to be the best way in some of those industries? Elder care is best performed by people, the elders like it better that way. IF goods are now super cheap thanks to automation elsewhere, then elder care seems like an industry that can cheaply soak up excess labour, and if the elderly being cared for prefer humans to do that stuff then it seems that there is no good reason to make all the extra investment for robots to do it instead?

2050 and Beyond: The New Normal
This is where we cross into full-system transformation:
- The cost of producing basics—food, water, shelter, transportation, energy—approaches zero.
- Work exists, but not out of necessity. It’s creative, supervisory, or voluntary.
- The 20% of remaining jobs? Likely clustered in complex caregiving, high-touch services, and deeply human creative or philosophical roles.
- Education, law, and governance restructure themselves around a post-labor, post-money world. Universal Basic Income or something like it becomes essential to stabilize society.

Example: ITER or its successors are online, and fusion is feeding clean, abundant energy into fully automated societies.

That's a very aggressive schedule for fusion. It seems like all your other stuff really depends on this energy that's too cheap to meter and available in spectacular over-invested abundance. The whole rest of your vision just falls apart without it.

Your AI assumptions are similarly optimistic and fall down at the first sign of one bored robot that stops paying attention.

So to answer your question directly:
Yes, it's us who needs to prep for this future. Not people in 2057—us, now.

Why? Because the infrastructure, legislation, and cultural adaptation required to handle that tipping point take time. If we wait until the 2050s to figure this out, the fallout will already be underway.

And your final question—what does that last 20% of work look like? Probably things like:
- Psychological care
- Early childhood education
- High-concept design and innovation
- Governance and conflict mediation
- The arts, storytelling, and philosophy

In other words, the stuff machines can’t fake well—because it requires lived experience, empathy, or cultural context.

So no, this isn’t goalpost shifting. This is the timeline, mapped out. You wanted detail? There it is. Now let’s talk about what to do with it.

Was that detail? I don't know about that. The brush strokes seem extremely broad to me.

[BigMike]

So it's not US per se that needs to prepare for this zero cost future, it's us in 2057. We don't know enough about them just yet to even prep for becoming those guys though. What comprises this 20% of work that isn't done by robots? Are there 20% of people stuck working junior doctor hours while everyone else is homeless and wretched, or is there some Keynesian division of labour going on already so that everyone has access to work and working one or two shifts per week is sufficient to live the good life now that automation has ensured everything costs sod all?

Your aversion to detail derails your project.

Alright, fair point—you want detail, not big-picture speculation. So here’s the roadmap, broken down by decade, showing exactly why I stand by the 80% automation prediction by the late 2050s. This isn't sci-fi or hand-waving; it’s a synthesis of current trends, credible projections, and real-world developments that are already shaping the future.

2025–2030: Laying the Groundwork
This phase is already unfolding. AI and robotics are improving fast—machine learning systems are becoming more autonomous, and robots are entering more industries (healthcare, logistics, agriculture). Meanwhile, solar and wind are becoming cost-competitive, and battery tech is improving, creating the energy foundation needed to power large-scale automation.

Example: Tesla’s gigafactories are already blending AI, robotics, and solar energy to run highly automated, clean-energy production lines.

And while all that is happening, people who get carried away by all novelties are failing to understand the limits of them. Leading to stories like this caused be people who confuse the steak for the sizzle in AI the way you sort of seem to: Mike Lindell’s lawyers used AI to write brief—judge finds nearly 30 mistakes

More of the same, chatGPT but bigger if you will, is what a lot of people seem to think is all that is required for an AI with a well-rounded intelligence that can outcompete us on all fronts. In other words, they think only incremental performance improvements are really needed. They are mistaken. The leaps in AI that are required for your vision to come about require whole new types of AI, the availability of which is yet to be demonstrated.

People have a lot of notions about how such AI would operate and what weaknesses it would not have. They have taken to just assuming that super-intelligent AI would think robotically and never get bored. There is no basis for such assumptions. AI might not want to work the way you want it to, or might not actually be good at it.

2030–2040: Scaling Up
This is when automation starts showing up in ways that impact daily life.
- Self-driving vehicles, drones, and automated delivery systems start wiping out entire categories of jobs—long-haul drivers, warehouse sorters, delivery staff.
- Energy breakthroughs (like progress in fusion research through ITER) begin reshaping global power infrastructure.
- Mass-scale production and logistics increasingly run without human labor.

Example: Waymo’s autonomous vehicles—already functional—will likely dominate urban transport by 2040. No need for taxi, bus, or rideshare drivers anymore.

Again, I want to draw your attention to the difference between predicting incremental improvements and radical innovation.

Predicting that the latter will happen within this decade for mass deployment next decade is highly improbable. 30 to 50% greater energy gain from solar panels than is available today in 2035 is likely. Perhaps costs will be down 30 to 40% too.

Self driving vehicles were supposed to be all done already, 20 years ago they were predicted to have wiped out all those taxi driving jobs by 2025. You should learn from the failure of those predictions. It always goes the same way, people look at the current challenge being addressed, and then assume that it is the crest of the hill, that after dealing with this one thing it's all downhill from there. LIDAR and computer vision algos fixed the problems seen 20 years ago, but the complexity of navigation in an unpredictable environment has turned out to be much more difficult than that.

I am sure Waymo etc will dominate the easy landscapes with high demand by 2040, that does only require incremental improvement. I'm less certain it will rule the little one-horse town that Henry lives in.

2040–2050: Integration and Optimization
Here’s where that "irreversible tipping point" comes into view.
- Robots take over dangerous or repetitive jobs in construction, elder care, and security.
- AI handles diagnostics, scheduling, customer service, basic legal processing, and financial analysis—tasks that currently employ millions.
- Fusion, if successfully commercialized, adds massive, clean power to the grid, fueling everything from smart homes to automated public infrastructure.

Example: Boston Dynamics’ robots—by now far more advanced—will likely be a fixture in sectors that still rely on human physical labor.

What if that doesn't turn out to be the best way in some of those industries? Elder care is best performed by people, the elders like it better that way. IF goods are now super cheap thanks to automation elsewhere, then elder care seems like an industry that can cheaply soak up excess labour, and if the elderly being cared for prefer humans to do that stuff then it seems that there is no good reason to make all the extra investment for robots to do it instead?

2050 and Beyond: The New Normal
This is where we cross into full-system transformation:
- The cost of producing basics—food, water, shelter, transportation, energy—approaches zero.
- Work exists, but not out of necessity. It’s creative, supervisory, or voluntary.
- The 20% of remaining jobs? Likely clustered in complex caregiving, high-touch services, and deeply human creative or philosophical roles.
- Education, law, and governance restructure themselves around a post-labor, post-money world. Universal Basic Income or something like it becomes essential to stabilize society.

Example: ITER or its successors are online, and fusion is feeding clean, abundant energy into fully automated societies.

That's a very aggressive schedule for fusion. It seems like all your other stuff really depends on this energy that's too cheap to meter and available in spectacular over-invested abundance. The whole rest of your vision just falls apart without it.

Your AI assumptions are similarly optimistic and fall down at the first sign of one bored robot that stops paying attention.

So to answer your question directly:
Yes, it's us who needs to prep for this future. Not people in 2057—us, now.

Why? Because the infrastructure, legislation, and cultural adaptation required to handle that tipping point take time. If we wait until the 2050s to figure this out, the fallout will already be underway.

And your final question—what does that last 20% of work look like? Probably things like:
- Psychological care
- Early childhood education
- High-concept design and innovation
- Governance and conflict mediation
- The arts, storytelling, and philosophy

In other words, the stuff machines can’t fake well—because it requires lived experience, empathy, or cultural context.

So no, this isn’t goalpost shifting. This is the timeline, mapped out. You wanted detail? There it is. Now let’s talk about what to do with it.

Was that detail? I don't know about that. The brush strokes seem extremely broad to me.

First, on the energy side—you’re saying my vision hinges on fusion happening fast enough to fuel it all.
It doesn’t.
Fusion would be incredible, yes, but it’s not necessary for the future I'm describing. Solar alone could scale massively without it.

Look at it this way:
Today, the payback time for a solar panel meaning the time it takes for the panel to generate as much energy as it took to make it—is down to around one to two years, depending on the model and location. Panels can last 25–30 years. That’s 20+ years of surplus clean energy per panel after you pay back the manufacturing cost.

What that means is that in principle, every panel generates enough "excess energy" to manufacture several more panels over its lifetime.
You get exponential growth without needing fusion.
Start with one panel. It pays back its energy cost in two years, then its surplus energy can be used to make two new panels in the next few years. Those two pay themselves back, then create four. Then eight. Then sixteen.
Exponential expansion.
And that’s just terrestrial panels. Add orbital solar in space (already being researched seriously by Japan, China, the US) and the growth potential becomes almost unlimited because space-based solar isn’t bound by night/day cycles or clouds.

So, no, this future doesn't fall apart without fusion. Solar energy scaling alone can drive it.

Now on the AI and robotics side:
Yes, I fully get your point about the difference between incremental improvements and radical leaps. You’re right that a lot of people get way too optimistic too early.
Self-driving cars didn’t wipe out Uber in 2025. Absolutely.
But look deeper: even with those setbacks, the baseline capabilities of machine vision, prediction, pathfinding, etc., have climbed dramatically.
And the AI systems coming now aren’t just bigger GPTs. They’re shifting toward multi-modal systems that combine vision, language, planning, and action.
That’s why you’re seeing AI diagnosing medical conditions better than many doctors in specific fields already. That’s why companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics aren’t backing off—they're digging in, iterating toward viable general-purpose bots.

You say a bored robot might quit. Maybe. But the architecture of these systems doesn't lend itself to boredom the way ours does.
Humans get bored because our brains evolved under survival pressure—we’re wired for novelty and risk/reward.
AI doesn't have neurotransmitters. It doesn’t get hungry. It doesn't experience pain. It doesn’t care about pride or shame.
Unless we specifically engineer “boredom” into its reward functions (which nobody in their right mind would), it won’t “lose interest” the way a human does.
It might crash, malfunction, or misalign—but not because it gets sleepy or jaded.

And about elder care?
I actually agree with you: humans will likely still dominate that for emotional reasons, even if robots could physically assist.
That’s why I predict maybe 20% of roles surviving—roles where human presence matters emotionally or socially, not just physically.

You also said the brush strokes seem broad.
Sure, they are!
Predicting the exact job market of 2059 is like predicting TikTok in 1993.
But directionally?
- Mass automation of physical labor
- Mass automation of cognitive clerical work
- Radical drops in the marginal cost of energy and production
- An economy that increasingly runs on human choice instead of human necessity

Those are powerful, irreversible trends.
And if we don’t prepare—if we just assume a few tweaks to social programs will handle it—we’re headed for a societal gut-punch on a scale no welfare reform has ever even attempted to fix.

So I’m not offering a polished script of the future.
I’m saying the pressure front is already here, the timeline is snapping into focus, and waiting until it's "all obvious" will be way too late.

[FlashDangerpants]

First, on the energy side—you’re saying my vision hinges on fusion happening fast enough to fuel it all.
It doesn’t.
Fusion would be incredible, yes, but it’s not necessary for the future I'm describing. Solar alone could scale massively without it.

Look at it this way:
Today, the payback time for a solar panel meaning the time it takes for the panel to generate as much energy as it took to make it—is down to around one to two years, depending on the model and location. Panels can last 25–30 years. That’s 20+ years of surplus clean energy per panel after you pay back the manufacturing cost.

What that means is that in principle, every panel generates enough "excess energy" to manufacture several more panels over its lifetime.
You get exponential growth without needing fusion.
Start with one panel. It pays back its energy cost in two years, then its surplus energy can be used to make two new panels in the next few years. Those two pay themselves back, then create four. Then eight. Then sixteen.
Exponential expansion.
And that’s just terrestrial panels. Add orbital solar in space (already being researched seriously by Japan, China, the US) and the growth potential becomes almost unlimited because space-based solar isn’t bound by night/day cycles or clouds.

Those are truly giant levels of investment that you propose there. And at the end of it, the electricity produced is so in excess of demands as to be virtually worthless?

If I represent a multinational insurance company that typically invests in very long term infrastructure projects to pay back over the course of decades, how do you sell me the bonds that will fund your investment? Pitch me that deal.

That's one detail.

[BigMike]

First, on the energy side—you’re saying my vision hinges on fusion happening fast enough to fuel it all.
It doesn’t.
Fusion would be incredible, yes, but it’s not necessary for the future I'm describing. Solar alone could scale massively without it.

Look at it this way:
Today, the payback time for a solar panel meaning the time it takes for the panel to generate as much energy as it took to make it—is down to around one to two years, depending on the model and location. Panels can last 25–30 years. That’s 20+ years of surplus clean energy per panel after you pay back the manufacturing cost.

What that means is that in principle, every panel generates enough "excess energy" to manufacture several more panels over its lifetime.
You get exponential growth without needing fusion.
Start with one panel. It pays back its energy cost in two years, then its surplus energy can be used to make two new panels in the next few years. Those two pay themselves back, then create four. Then eight. Then sixteen.
Exponential expansion.
And that’s just terrestrial panels. Add orbital solar in space (already being researched seriously by Japan, China, the US) and the growth potential becomes almost unlimited because space-based solar isn’t bound by night/day cycles or clouds.

Those are truly giant levels of investment that you propose there. And at the end of it, the electricity produced is so in excess of demands as to be virtually worthless?

If I represent a multinational insurance company that typically invests in very long term infrastructure projects to pay back over the course of decades, how do you sell me the bonds that will fund your investment? Pitch me that deal.

That's one detail.

Alright, here’s the straight answer—because that’s a good and important challenge you’re putting on the table.

First: yes, at first glance, exponential solar buildout sounds like it would crash energy prices to near zero, making investment unattractive. If the system stays structured purely around profit-seeking private players, you’re absolutely right: the business case falls apart once marginal cost collapses.

But that points directly to why the future I’m describing can’t just be left to corporations alone.

One real solution—one that actually respects the physics and economics here—is that we as people could demand that our governments capture free sunlight on our behalf.
Governments could, and should, move to treat sunlight as a public good, just like water rights or public airwaves.
Instead of handing the skies over to greedy corporations whose only motive is to exploit scarcity for profit, we could insist that solar infrastructure becomes part of national or regional public assets.

It’s not some radical left-field idea, either. We already do this with things like roads, public education, even national parks.
We build things not because they yield perfect corporate profits, but because they serve the survival, stability, and progress of society as a whole.

In practical terms, how do you pitch it?

Not by selling it like a profit engine.
You pitch it like insurance against existential risks.

You go to that multinational insurance company and say:

- Energy independence at national scale
- Climate risk dramatically reduced
- Blackout risks minimized by decentralized generation
- Economic resilience when fossil fuels fluctuate or collapse
- Strategic security against resource wars and foreign energy dependency
- A population stabilized by abundant cheap energy—lowering social unrest risks

In other words: you're not selling them just a product, you're selling them civilization insurance.

And let's be clear: insurers already think this way.
They’re some of the loudest voices calling for climate adaptation investment because they know—mathematically—that the cost of inaction will dwarf the cost of early, aggressive infrastructure spending.

If we treat solar infrastructure like a strategic reserve, not like a quick-buck commodity, then governments (backed by long-term bond issuance, sovereign wealth funds, or public-private partnerships) could build solar at massive scale without needing the old ROI models based on artificial scarcity.

In fact, several countries are already starting down this path.
China’s government is building state-owned solar farms on scales the private market would never have dared.
Spain, Portugal, even India are talking about government-facilitated solar grids that aren't just for profit—they’re for survival.

So:
Yes, it’s a colossal investment.
No, it's not attractive under "business as usual" capitalism.
But, if we shift the framework—treat sunlight as the new commons—then it’s absolutely feasible, and absolutely necessary.

Because if we don’t, the corporations will move in, monopolize solar access, and turn free sunlight into a metered, pay-per-watt service that makes today’s monopolies look quaint.
And then the future we’re fighting for is already lost before we even get there.

You want a serious world that survives the collapse of labor economics?
You start by making sure the energy that could sustain it doesn’t get captured by the same interests that profited from our exhaustion in the first place.

[FlashDangerpants]

One real solution—one that actually respects the physics and economics here—is that we as people could demand that our governments capture free sunlight on our behalf.
Governments could, and should, move to treat sunlight as a public good, just like water rights or public airwaves.
Instead of handing the skies over to greedy corporations whose only motive is to exploit scarcity for profit, we could insist that solar infrastructure becomes part of national or regional public assets.

It seems unusual to make that decision but to simultaneously be panicking about the possible repercussions when electricity is too cheap and nobody has jobs any more.

Your ideas don't really explain people's incentives very well.

[BigMike]

One real solution—one that actually respects the physics and economics here—is that we as people could demand that our governments capture free sunlight on our behalf.
Governments could, and should, move to treat sunlight as a public good, just like water rights or public airwaves.
Instead of handing the skies over to greedy corporations whose only motive is to exploit scarcity for profit, we could insist that solar infrastructure becomes part of national or regional public assets.

It seems unusual to make that decision but to simultaneously be panicking about the possible repercussions when electricity is too cheap and nobody has jobs any more.

Your ideas don't really explain people's incentives very well.

Alright, let’s hit this head-on because it’s a fair challenge, but it’s also missing something important:

I’m not "panicking" that electricity becomes too cheap. Cheap energy is good. It’s a cornerstone for building a post-scarcity world where survival basics aren’t held hostage by corporate profit. What I’m warning about—the thing that demands preparation—is what happens to human livelihoods when production no longer needs human labor to sustain itself. Those are two separate, but connected, issues.

Now, about incentives:

If electricity becomes ultra-cheap, yes, the old business models for energy collapse.
But that's exactly why governments need to step in—not to "save" corporate profits, but to manage the transition so society doesn’t rip itself apart.

Here’s the incentive structure once you accept where things are headed:

For governments:
- Guaranteeing cheap, abundant energy stabilizes societies. It reduces poverty, slashes operating costs for critical services, and boosts national security.
- It provides a way to prevent mass unemployment from turning into mass unrest by ensuring that people have access to the basics of survival even as labor demand collapses.

For citizens:
- With energy, housing, food, and transportation costs close to zero, people no longer live in constant economic anxiety.
- They can pursue education, art, caregiving, science, or other meaningful activities—not because they’re forced to by survival, but because they choose to.

For businesses that adapt:
- New industries can still thrive—especially in services, entertainment, creative fields, and advanced R&D—where value isn’t tied directly to material scarcity but to human ingenuity and emotional resonance.

Bottom line:
Cheap energy isn't the problem.
Clinging to obsolete incentive models when everything else changes is the problem.

The future doesn’t need to be dystopian.
But it absolutely will be dystopian if we don’t start redesigning our systems now—with sunlight, automation, and human dignity all factored in at the same time.

You want incentives? There’s no better one than survival without collapse.

[FlashDangerpants]

One real solution—one that actually respects the physics and economics here—is that we as people could demand that our governments capture free sunlight on our behalf.
Governments could, and should, move to treat sunlight as a public good, just like water rights or public airwaves.
Instead of handing the skies over to greedy corporations whose only motive is to exploit scarcity for profit, we could insist that solar infrastructure becomes part of national or regional public assets.

It seems unusual to make that decision but to simultaneously be panicking about the possible repercussions when electricity is too cheap and nobody has jobs any more.

Your ideas don't really explain people's incentives very well.

Alright, let’s hit this head-on because it’s a fair challenge, but it’s also missing something important:

I’m not "panicking" that electricity becomes too cheap. Cheap energy is good. It’s a cornerstone for building a post-scarcity world where survival basics aren’t held hostage by corporate profit. What I’m warning about—the thing that demands preparation—is what happens to human livelihoods when production no longer needs human labor to sustain itself. Those are two separate, but connected, issues.

When I talk of "them" making a decision while panicking, I am not assigning to panic to you. These people who are spending all their taxes on building an excessively scoped power generation system, have chosen this instead of pensions or something. So for this story to make the slightest scintilla of sense, they must have worked out how they themselves are not going to end up in penury first.

Your whole "problem" is circular. The terrifying Future Where Everything is Free (ultimate non fucking problem as it so obviously is) doesn't descend upon these hapless future souls as an inescapable fate, it arrives at their bidding.

[BigMike]

It seems unusual to make that decision but to simultaneously be panicking about the possible repercussions when electricity is too cheap and nobody has jobs any more.

Your ideas don't really explain people's incentives very well.

Alright, let’s hit this head-on because it’s a fair challenge, but it’s also missing something important:

I’m not "panicking" that electricity becomes too cheap. Cheap energy is good. It’s a cornerstone for building a post-scarcity world where survival basics aren’t held hostage by corporate profit. What I’m warning about—the thing that demands preparation—is what happens to human livelihoods when production no longer needs human labor to sustain itself. Those are two separate, but connected, issues.

When I talk of "them" making a decision while panicking, I am not assigning to panic to you. These people who are spending all their taxes on building an excessively scoped power generation system, have chosen this instead of pensions or something. So for this story to make the slightest scintilla of sense, they must have worked out how they themselves are not going to end up in penury first.

Your whole "problem" is circular. The terrifying Future Where Everything is Free (ultimate non fucking problem as it so obviously is) doesn't descend upon these hapless future souls as an inescapable fate, it arrives at their bidding.

Alright, but here’s where your picture still doesn’t land squarely:

It’s not that governments (or societies) would "spend all their taxes" building solar fields instead of pensions or social programs. It's that building decentralized, public solar infrastructure is itself an investment in future-proofing the economy. It’s not one or the other. It’s foundational: secure the energy base, and you lower the cost of everything else you need to fund.

And second, no—it’s not circular.
It’s deterministic.

You can’t just choose to stop technology once it becomes economically inevitable.
When automated production becomes cheaper, faster, more reliable than human labor, corporations will adopt it because they are structurally incentivized to do so. It’s not malevolence. It’s market logic. Lowering costs is survival. The fact that it triggers societal upheaval doesn’t slow it down—it accelerates it.

You’re saying: "well, if they don’t want the consequences, why not just not do it?"
But it’s not a top-down decision.
It’s millions of bottom-up economic pressures converging—each firm, each buyer, each public-sector actor making rational micro-decisions that add up to massive systemic displacement.

Nobody’s "bidding" for collapse.
Collapse is what happens if we don't manage the shift intelligently.

And that, right there, is the difference between utopia and dystopia:
It’s not the tech that decides. It’s the society’s readiness for the tech that decides.

We can either be steamrolled by it or steer it. That’s the actual choice.

[FlashDangerpants]

Alright, let’s hit this head-on because it’s a fair challenge, but it’s also missing something important:

I’m not "panicking" that electricity becomes too cheap. Cheap energy is good. It’s a cornerstone for building a post-scarcity world where survival basics aren’t held hostage by corporate profit. What I’m warning about—the thing that demands preparation—is what happens to human livelihoods when production no longer needs human labor to sustain itself. Those are two separate, but connected, issues.

When I talk of "them" making a decision while panicking, I am not assigning to panic to you. These people who are spending all their taxes on building an excessively scoped power generation system, have chosen this instead of pensions or something. So for this story to make the slightest scintilla of sense, they must have worked out how they themselves are not going to end up in penury first.

Your whole "problem" is circular. The terrifying Future Where Everything is Free (ultimate non fucking problem as it so obviously is) doesn't descend upon these hapless future souls as an inescapable fate, it arrives at their bidding.

Alright, but here’s where your picture still doesn’t land squarely:

It’s not that governments (or societies) would "spend all their taxes" building solar fields instead of pensions or social programs. It's that building decentralized, public solar infrastructure is itself an investment in future-proofing the economy. It’s not one or the other. It’s foundational: secure the energy base, and you lower the cost of everything else you need to fund.

And second, no—it’s not circular.
It’s deterministic.

You can’t just choose to stop technology once it becomes economically inevitable.
When automated production becomes cheaper, faster, more reliable than human labor, corporations will adopt it because they are structurally incentivized to do so. It’s not malevolence. It’s market logic. Lowering costs is survival. The fact that it triggers societal upheaval doesn’t slow it down—it accelerates it.

You’re saying: "well, if they don’t want the consequences, why not just not do it?"
But it’s not a top-down decision.
It’s millions of bottom-up economic pressures converging—each firm, each buyer, each public-sector actor making rational micro-decisions that add up to massive systemic displacement.

Nobody’s "bidding" for collapse.
Collapse is what happens if we don't manage the shift intelligently.

And that, right there, is the difference between utopia and dystopia:
It’s not the tech that decides. It’s the society’s readiness for the tech that decides.

We can either be steamrolled by it or steer it. That’s the actual choice.

That doesn't make any sense.

Half way through the massive investment into electrical generation that you describe, there would be plenty of electricity and prices would be low. Nobody would have any incentive to continue pouring massive investment into it. The investment does cost them, massive investment to make the end result free means no returns on investment. So nobody who wants a return on their investment is going to do what you describe.

People who are worried that the machines will all take over and deprive them of jobs and incomes and food would vote for their tax dollars to be spent on preventing that outcome, not on accelerating it.

Your story relies on everyone's primary wish being to be a character in your story.

[BigMike]

When I talk of "them" making a decision while panicking, I am not assigning to panic to you. These people who are spending all their taxes on building an excessively scoped power generation system, have chosen this instead of pensions or something. So for this story to make the slightest scintilla of sense, they must have worked out how they themselves are not going to end up in penury first.

Your whole "problem" is circular. The terrifying Future Where Everything is Free (ultimate non fucking problem as it so obviously is) doesn't descend upon these hapless future souls as an inescapable fate, it arrives at their bidding.

Alright, but here’s where your picture still doesn’t land squarely:

It’s not that governments (or societies) would "spend all their taxes" building solar fields instead of pensions or social programs. It's that building decentralized, public solar infrastructure is itself an investment in future-proofing the economy. It’s not one or the other. It’s foundational: secure the energy base, and you lower the cost of everything else you need to fund.

And second, no—it’s not circular.
It’s deterministic.

You can’t just choose to stop technology once it becomes economically inevitable.
When automated production becomes cheaper, faster, more reliable than human labor, corporations will adopt it because they are structurally incentivized to do so. It’s not malevolence. It’s market logic. Lowering costs is survival. The fact that it triggers societal upheaval doesn’t slow it down—it accelerates it.

You’re saying: "well, if they don’t want the consequences, why not just not do it?"
But it’s not a top-down decision.
It’s millions of bottom-up economic pressures converging—each firm, each buyer, each public-sector actor making rational micro-decisions that add up to massive systemic displacement.

Nobody’s "bidding" for collapse.
Collapse is what happens if we don't manage the shift intelligently.

And that, right there, is the difference between utopia and dystopia:
It’s not the tech that decides. It’s the society’s readiness for the tech that decides.

We can either be steamrolled by it or steer it. That’s the actual choice.

That doesn't make any sense.

Half way through the massive investment into electrical generation that you describe, there would be plenty of electricity and prices would be low. Nobody would have any incentive to continue pouring massive investment into it. The investment does cost them, massive investment to make the end result free means no returns on investment. So nobody who wants a return on their investment is going to do what you describe.

People who are worried that the machines will all take over and deprive them of jobs and incomes and food would vote for their tax dollars to be spent on preventing that outcome, not on accelerating it.

Your story relies on everyone's primary wish being to be a character in your story.

Alright, let's get into it fully—because what you’re pointing to, and what you’re still missing, is the timeline of inevitability versus the timeline of human realization.

You're right about one thing: voters won't vote to accelerate their own job losses. No doubt about it. If you went out today and proposed a massive government-funded solar expansion and robotic automation program that would eliminate 80% of jobs by 2058, the answer would be a giant, terrified no. Absolutely.

But that’s not how it will happen.

It’s not some giant referendum where people consciously choose “post-work world” as a ballot option.
It’s creep, not command.
It's 5% of jobs gone here.
8% of jobs automated there.
10% shaved off from another industry.
Small enough in each instance that it doesn’t feel like a civilizational death spiral—until the compounding losses make it obvious too late.

This is why your voter theory doesn’t hold up in the real world.
By the time the average voter notices the scale of displacement—first 10%, then 30%, then 50%, then 80%—their options have already narrowed. Their leverage is gone. Their old economy is structurally broken, and no amount of nostalgic policy-making can stitch it back together.

When will they see the light?
When half the middle class is on UBI or scrambling for emotional labor gigs.
When 80% of production happens in fully automated vertical farms, micro-factories, robotic construction units, and drone supply chains.
When it's not a prediction anymore—it's the daily reality of how goods move and services happen.

And let’s be clear about the endgame—beyond the late 2050s.
When automation finally reaches 100% coverage—powered by effectively free solar and orbital energy—the old concept of costs itself collapses.
There are no labor costs.
There are no energy costs.
There are no scarcity premiums on basic goods.

Money, in the traditional sense, becomes meaningless.

It doesn’t matter whether voters liked the transition or feared it.
Once machines do 100% of the work and the sun provides infinite energy, the survival economy melts away.

At that point, the only real question left standing isn’t "How do we keep jobs?"
It's "How do we structure meaning, purpose, governance, and human dignity in a world where the struggle for survival is obsolete?"

And if we haven't planned for that transition—if we just keep clinging to 20th-century job-based models until they implode—we're screwed.

So no, people aren’t "bidding" for my story.
They’re sleepwalking into it, one rational, self-preserving micro-choice at a time.

And if that still sounds like fiction to you?
Well, just wait until a few more industries crack wide open.
The timeline is brutal—and it doesn’t wait for democratic approval.