We’re already there, in a sort of way. Products aren’t built to last, aren’t built to be repaired. Buy a new phone, computer, washing machine, every year! You wouldn’t want the social embarrassment of not having the latest gadgets! And if that fails, we’ll just release a patch that prevents the irreplaceable battery from lasting a full day.
Plus after computers made it so one person could do the job of 100, entire new industries popped up to do meaningless jobs shuffling digital money around. Some of the most comfortably-paying upper-working-class jobs are entirely pointless. But it keeps educated people from questioning the system. As long as they get a cushy paycheck twice a month they’ll happily make another B2B web 3.0 cloud-based KPI tracking analytics platform and not question if their job is meaningful.
Etterra@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Well I mean Orwell hit on the same concept with 1985, with the major powers just rotating who was blowing up who at any given time in order to keep the proles in line.
SparrowRanjitScaur@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You accidentally added a year. The book is 1984.
bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 4 months ago
I believe the full title of the book he was referring to is 1985: The Revenge.
Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Then we had 1986: Commando