Preface: This is abstract and doesn’t make a lot of the necessary detailed connections – just coarse level connections.
It is clear that the ultimate expression and source of power, wealth, and privilege is the electron. All of the elements necessary to fulfill humanity’s known desires are abundantly available. With electrons and these elements, we can transform air into water and lead into gold. The mechanisms needed to direct electrons into particular forms are still in their infancy, but they are rapidly developing. Those mechanisms are currently controlled by those who possess today’s dominant currency — money.
The elements themselves are plentiful. What matters is the ability to manipulate them. At some point, control over electrons — the fundamental actuators of change — and the means to direct them may translate directly into wealth, power, and influence. Those who can wield them may become the new elite.
Strengthened Conclusion
This was generated in collaboration with ChatGPT
Historically, power was measured in land, gold, armies, or labor. Control operated at the visible and physical level of society. But as civilization advances, power appears to be migrating downward — into finer and more abstract layers of reality.
We are moving toward a world where influence may no longer depend primarily on controlling people or territory, but on controlling the invisible currents that reshape matter itself. If matter is abundant and transformation is the true constraint, then those who command the deepest layer of transformation command the future.
And if the ability to reorganize matter and simulate intelligence requires fewer and fewer human participants, a quiet question emerges:
When wealth and power no longer depend on broad human contribution, what role remains for the rest of us?
Additional perspective (developed in conversation with Claude)
The core insight is sound: if power shifts from controlling people to controlling transformation, and transformation becomes automatable, then the basis of the social contract evaporates. The traditional forms of leverage—withdrawing labor, boycotting products, economic interdependence—all assume the elite need the participation of the masses. But if technology enables complete autarky through automated systems, those assumptions break down.
This isn’t inevitable. Whether this concentration occurs, or whether the fruits of transformation are broadly shared, remains an open question of governance and choice. But the trajectory is real, and the question urgent: how do we ensure that abundance serves humanity broadly, rather than freeing a small elite from any dependence on—or obligation to—the rest of us?
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