the useless class -- economics of the 21st century and what the Evangelicals pray for.

This is an interesting projection The meaning of life in a world without work.

Think about the heart of Evangelical visions of the future -- everyone sitting around in "a Heaven" where their only job is to praise a deity.  No work, just sit and waste time feeding the ego of their deity with absolutely no purpose -- and worse, doing something the deity could have created at the very beginning and so avoided all the "good vs evil" nonsense of history.

In "Biblical Prophecy: Are we in the Revelation Era" {March 2014} we looked at dating the prophecy in terms of the Calendar System the Hebrew authors would have used.  The said, as a round number estimate, 2000 years from an undated start of the prophecy, and regardless of the date of any rationally justifiable the starting point, this would be that era.

To test the system, the concurrent book "Death Over Life: A Prophecy of America's Destruction" {Amazon, March 2014} focused on the idea that people would say "Babylon the great city has fallen", and that the likely calculated date fell in 2015, so was concurrent with the 2016 election cycle in which America serves as Babylon.  BINGO We have "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" and the inference that America has fallen.

Now we have the projection of a time when there would be a class of individuals as defined in the article: "By 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable."

OK!  We are working toward a Star Trek society -- where nobody needs to work and everyone can simply "explore" ... explore the universe or just something that interests them.

The article's author, Yuval Noah Harari, looks at it in terms of religion... but might well miss the point:  There is no reason people should work.  If we can have robots do everything which provides the basic necessities for human survival. !WHY WORK! as opposed to doing something that we find interesting and worth our time and energy?   

There is a LUDDITE idea of work which opposes progress.  It is, at its heart, the core of the Republican MOST HARM TO THE MOST PEOPLE agenda which makes the Republican right-wing so alluring to Christian Evangelicals and conservatives:

1.  Force people to conform.

2.  Make them believe as you do.

3.  Destroy them when they do not.

4.  Impose artificial and arbitrary rules derived from rational and meaningful ones ... and then denounce the meaningful scientifically supported concepts, which also include economic concepts which actually function in a growing and prosperous society.

That it is set in 2050, when the timeline calls for war in 2033/35 and leaves open events after 2045, is rather interesting.  But for now,...

The Republican MOST HARM TO THE MOST PEOPLE agenda seems to be spreading and growing in various places on earth.  the timeline seems to be on track -- with only the question of the American role in the survival, or destruction, aspects of those predicted events as yet undetermined ... that comes in 2018.

Before that, it would be wise for people to understand that having people do nothing (as is expected of those who retired or are disabled) can be very beneficial to society.  Every good team knows the value of those who sit on the bench awaiting to be called in IF NEEDED -- you do not pace more people on the playing field than the team needs, or the other team and the rules will allow.  OBEY the natural rules -- do not oppose them.  There is a reason behind everything in nature... do not distort it, strive to understand it.  The useless class is not really useless, it is simply not being recognized for what it is and what purpose it will serve in the future.