Billionaire techies like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Eric Schmidt of Google have been using the COVID crisis to meet U.S. military and other federal officials, as well as governors like Andrew Cuomo of New York in an attempt to create a high-tech future where technology will make human beings ever more expendable.
Sound like a dystopian novel? Unfortunately, it’s not fiction. After meeting Gates one day and Schmidt the next, Cuomo said about education that the pandemic has created “a moment in history when we can actually incorporate and advance [Gates’s] ideas”… “all these buildings, all these physical classrooms – why with all the technology you have?” In other words, the federal government and many state governments are planning to hand over many of their core services to Silicon Valley tech giants. Teachers? No more need for them when you can fit 100 students in a class virtually. Nurses? Artificial Intelligence and robotics can take their jobs. Other humans? Same thing.
Now ask yourself how many times you’ve met with a governor? Not once, right? But if you were a billionaire, you could talk to a governor at your convenience! Gates, Schmidt, Bloomberg and other billionaires are shaping our future without any discussion, except the ones they have with officials behind closed doors.
This is the ruling class in action – unlimited access to politicians, the belief that their wealth means they’re smarter than everyone else, and the constant drive to accumulate higher rates of profit, more wealth and more power. The capitalist ruling class also knows that it’s easiest to advance their goals in times of crisis, when large numbers of humans are disoriented, uncertain, and fearful. They have a saying: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
They’ve done it before and they’re doing it again. The question is: will we let them?
Featured image credit: Wikimedia Commons
