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When German politics shift to the Right, the world gets nervous. German’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party came in second in parliamentary elections, largely on the strength of German anger over the economy and anti-migration nativist sentiment. Has AfD peaked out? Does this presage results in France and other European countries? How should we feel and respond to the right of the German Right?
On today’s episode of “The TMI Show,” Ted Rall and Manila Chan discuss the AfD’s victory in Germany.
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It’s very unpalatable, but a lot of the trends seem to point to a Trumpian borderview being the “correct” one. In the U.S. we have a lot of people who have fallen for the marketing. We’re a shining city on a hill, offering opportunities and freedum to the masses. This is, of course, complete nonsense. The U.S. has only welcomed people when they could be pressed into cheap labor to enrich the few.
Now, thanks to technology, we’re finally arriving at the point where all the cheap labor jobs can be done more cheaply by non-human sources: robots, computer-controlled efficiencies, microassembly, predictive supply chains run by AIs, etc.
“Computer: Give me a drawing, in the style of Ted Rall, of a cartoonist starving to death because computers can make the illustrated laughing squares at a faster, cheaper rate than the cartoonist.” Surgeons don’t want to admit it, but the day’s coming where computer-controlled microsurgery will make the most skilled surgical techniques in use today look like someone hacking at a body with a butter knife. The robots to pick fruit are already in beta testing. Teachers? 2026 is the year the colleges start imploding as the number of students starts shrinking the pool of applicants to the point where there literally won’t be enough capable students available — watch those mid-range schools start to shutter until all that’s left will be the state schools and the Ivies. The former will be necessary to keep the masses tricked into thinking things are still okay. The latter will be needed to allow the 1% to know who “deserves” access to the controls — mustn’t have any class traitors near the end.
All the people in the Third World? “Useless” mouths to feed. What’s the “necessary” population in a post-scarcity “Star Trek”-style world where labor is no longer the fuel of the world? How many people can a dwindling technological population carry when those people are scientifically illiterate, innumerate, and can’t speak the native language of their new “home”? As I said, it’s unpalatable, but every lifeboat has a capacity. I don’t think the First World will figure out a way to finesse a soft landing to this, so I expect the walls and barricades and entrenchments to start going up. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of my life.