It's interesting how intelligence is political, though. You see it in cats as well as monkeys.

That and the discussion of horses helps bring two arguments together:

* There may not be as many people around. (This is pointed out multiple times- you're not in the underclass unless you are alive.)

* The one really human activity that can only barely be automated away is sex.

Therefore sex work will be still exist. Whether it is lucrative or not is TBD.

There is little chance of Mars being profitable. Every colonization (and we have a rich history of them) is "successful" if it is profitable for the backers. But unlike North America or South Africa for the Europeans, there are no resources there worth bringing back. It's a cool vanity and possibly scientific project but not an interesting business.

Renting out all the GPUs stockpiled by Musk sort of is, unless they get constrained by power, water, etc. Launching them into space may be worthwhile for the short term. That's a business that can be profitable, but not in a way that matches the cost of the equity (with Elon strings attached all over it).

Practically, if you didn't like the idea of Iran threatening cables under the Strait of Hormuz, wait until your Starlinks (and your zero-G factories producing incredibly important whatevers) are threatened by a hostile nation. For commercial applications in space to become normal, military protections in space need to become normal. Now you've bought an interesting new world.

Really, SpaceX is Musk 3.11 for Workgroups and you have however long til he expires to find out how good that is.

Anyway, a future AG can just say "agreement is over". No justice has blessed it, it's no more than a promise by this administration.

And yet fascist leaders don't serve workers any better, they serve work. I suspect the descent into facism is not because of the workers' sentiment about democracy, but because of the forces that are severing the service too.