Societies and governments throughout history have tried this same scheme again and again.
Reaching the “bread and circuses” stage is not a sign of a healthy society.
is it something beyond ‘Bread and Circuses’? Bread and Circuses was a distraction from the problems, perhaps we have the technology to solve the problems, what does that mean for the people that are not engineers or programmers. Do we invent jobs for them to do? I’m reminded of Vonnegut’s Player Piano. I don’t know the answer but I do know we have constantly gathered more food out of less space, more power out of less fuel. Soon we will reach a point where the ease of gathering these makes most of the population’s labor irrelevant. How do we handle that in the crazy near future?