A bit of discussion · 7:57am Aug 12th, 2018
From chapter seven:
“There’s a new wave of automation coming,” Bundt whispered while her eyes darted about. “The factory owners have seen just how profitable it is to have a unicorn run stuff and now they’re aiming to get rid of the workers altogether. I’ve heard it said that the tech from the Great War will allow for a new level of mechanisation. I’ve even seen some of it with my own two eyes. They have these machines that loaded giant bullets as big as your head into cannons and they’re modifying those to load soup cans onto a conveyor. All that war time tech is being repurposed and millions of earth ponies working in Equestria’s factories are gonna be out of work soon.”
And then from chapter fourteen:
The revolving buffet seemed as complicated as it was simple: a truly enormous circular conveyor belt laden with food moved at a slow, glacial pace, and you grabbed what you wanted from it as it passed by. In the middle was a staging area where a group of unicorns kept the plates flying to fill the available empty spaces on the conveyor belt. Everything was made of chrome, shiny plastics, and gleaming glass, a stunning display of beautiful ultra-modern neo-futuristic art-deco that Twilight was certain Rarity would have something to say about.
So... Twilight is aware of what the problem is, but fails to actually notice it when it is smacking her right in the face. This mirrors real life and illustrates how certain problems continue unnoticed until they become a crisis. Here, it didn't affect Twilight in a negative way; not at all, not in the slightest. In fact, it offered convenience, a bit of novelty, and perhaps a bit of wow-factor. To drive home the point even further, Twilight and her friends meet a pretty terrible waitress not all that long ago in a traditional server-based diner. That experience turned out rather awful and was intended to act as contrast.
So... anyhow... discuss. Or not. That's fine too.
Tis the problem with progress: to move forward, we must leave behind the means by which we arrived at our present point. If left unchecked, things, inevitably, turn into a revolving door of events... Unsure, though, how a repetitive history plays out in the Weedverse, though, lol
4918787 Death by zombie goat apparently, since Grogar took advantage of this to gain power through Mariner.
My response depends on the nature of the universe in question. IRL, there's the issue of "pulling up the ladder behind you so you can climb even higher". A repeat of the Carrington Event wouldn't just knock out power for a few weeks. It'd destroy equipment that takes years to replace, and that in a functioning economy. Now do it with no electricity, no supply chain, no raw materials.... Most of the satellites are dead (we might even kick off Kessler syndrome), the non-fiber-optic communication lines are cooked, and the remaining communication channels are overloaded. The internet is gone. Nobody has local warehouses anymore, it's all just-in-time delivery. How do you organize logistics and get stuff from A to B?
How do you get things going again? We don't just dig a hole and get iron, coal, oil, etc. anymore. More and more, it's deep-water drill rigs going through 2km of ocean and 4km of rock to get oil, or tar sands and shale oil that take a hell of a lot of refining, and remote-operated excavators mining low-grade ores from depths that are too hot and too hard to ventilate for human operators, or huge mechanized open-pit mines moving tons of rock to get ounces of ore.
Nobody in the local weather office can generate a reasonable forecast without real-time satellite data anymore. Your local Walmart can't order in groceries if the internet goes down. If your local doctor can't just write you a prescription for the modern-miracle drug that fixes you up and send you to the pharmacy, they're in deep trouble. All you professionals, tradespeople, service workers: stop and think about what happens to just your industry or field if your infrastructure gets kicked back to... 2000? 1950? 1900? 1850?
TL;DR: Lots of people starve, freeze, or die of diseases you last heard of when playing The Oregon Trail in elementary school. Rebuilding is very hard, and it takes a lot longer to get back to where we are now than it did the first time, if we can even manage it at all before our civilization is dead and gone for longer than the Romans have been today.
Does this apply in the Weedverse? I'm not sure. Maybe Equestria works more like the techno-utopians of our world claim, and you can produce such a huge surplus indefinitely that some sort of UBI is an option. Hell, maybe you get the "crystal spires and togas" of the Future-of-the-70s, and everypony goes back to grazing while having magitek marvels in "FREE! Take One!" bins on the street corner.
Or maybe Equestria's on a collision course with Bad Times, when the earth ponies say "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
It's not uncommon for people to be able to see problems at a distance, but miss them up close. It's often easier to see that a friend is struggling with...say, a bad relationship or job, than it is to see that in your own life.
As far as the problem goes...its the same problem we humans are facing - convenience by its nature means there is less work. Less work equals less jobs equals what are we going to do? The Earth Ponies are being hit the hardest because the first jobs to fall are the hard labor ones that seem to be their bread and butter.
I havent got the socio-economics of the weedverse down - it's not my area of expertise and I suspect some important details are buried in The Chase somewhere - but I've gathered there is currently a revival of feudalism from...some kind of capitalism? The question then is which one is better suited to dealing with a sudden increase of laborers with no labor to do. Morally as well as economically, I might add - I'm not going to entertain Pony Soylent Green as a solution. What can Earth Ponies still do? If there is nothing they can do that can't be done better by other means, would they accept being on some form of welfare, acting as a kind of "seed bank," ready to rise again in case of a greater collapse? Would they all be placed in administrative positions, feudal lords and ladies, as the labor force shifts from their backs? How would any and all of that be received by the population at large?
I dont know the answer to those questions. In this case it might actually be easier to handle a human version - compared to Ponies, our differences are minor - no country or class or caste has telekinesis or wings - but it's still a daunting issue.
So I guess I'm saying I'm interested to see where this goes. Good luck, to you and your characters.
4918904
The Chase is completely and utterly unrelated.
I just had to clear that up. Carry on!
4918906
Ah, okay - where might I find anything substantial on Skyreach, then? I assumed it was in there because The Chase is huge and I've seen people mention details I havent seen established - but admittedly your whole verse is expansive and there are a number of smaller pieces I havent got to get. But I get the feeling understanding Skyreach would help.
4918910
Turn on mature stories and search for Skyreach.
4918910
The Chase is a seperate story and verse.
Skyreach is it’s own story. (Can’t link it cause mature yo)
But you can find a lot of stuff Here and Here.
Where can things go from here with that level of automation? Granted this world doesn't have the problems with our citizens like theirs do( the tribe physiology differences) so it can be hard to get a completely clear picture, but millions being replaced by machines that need far fewer operators is something that is happening here and has been happening. but one issue there that ins't prevalent here is the ability of future generations to adapt to the new world. Earth ponies can't suddenly develop fingers able to grasp things delicately. So still jobs will be in favor of the unicorn touch. One bubkis answer to this from someone might be " Just get farm work you lazy idjit" but I think it's clear that earth ponies without agricultural cutie marks would be at a disadvantage then those who do, and also for all earth ponies to have a farm job the position would need to pay bubkis, or something even worse, like a model of slavery that seems to exist in Windia in the story. There'd be similar problems with ponies joining the military to fight Grogar and malicious forces abroad.