

Quad-rotors: How the 1% will control the 99% in dystopia  - rrggrr
http://qz.com/185945/drones-are-about-to-upheave-society-in-a-way-we-havent-seen-in-700-years/
The author posits (melodramatically) one very  compelling economic question, which is: How will the 99% provide economic value when the 1% do not need them and do not fear them.
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thesteamboat
Parts of this, especially the democratizing nature of guns as the primary
weapon, read similarly to [this essay]([http://www.george-
orwell.org/You_and_the_Atomic_Bomb/0.html](http://www.george-
orwell.org/You_and_the_Atomic_Bomb/0.html)) by George Orwell, "You and the
Atomic Bomb". It's an interesting read, and somewhat prescient.

While no country that possesses atomic bombs has attempted to use them as
weapons of repression, drones are surely far more tempting to tyrants with
much less collateral damage.

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summerdown2
A very scary premise, but it's also possible that the future will be more
egalitarian, with technology liberating us into an age of abundance.

I also wonder if the future of armed conflict is really going to look like
robot warfare. In the near future, it probably will be the case, but if I was
one of the fortified 1%, I'm not sure I'd feel all that secure. I suspect
there's a coming age of biological engineering that will completely transform
warfare away from robots and into things like targeted viruses.

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ph0rque
There's one counter-argument that I thought of right away, that kinda dispels
this whole scenario:

What if there's one hacker in the 99% who is smart enough to re-program the
killer robots to kill the controlling part of the 1%? There's a good chance at
least one will be found...

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zabouti
Maybe it's because I'm a grumpy old man, but I really do think that our
species is doomed to unhappiness and poverty.

