We must admit that there has been an "elite" in every human culture throughout the collective history of our species. This elite has, until the past two centuries, been generally isolated to particular cultures or regions. In recent history, these elite have merged and aligned to create a global venue for their control systems.
Until recently, this elite has relied heavily on the rest of us "useless eaters" to perform the drudgery of daily life. The non-elites have been the maids and nanies, butlers and chefs, and the button-pushers and lever pullers that made the elites' lives comfortable and trouble-free.
If one played by the elite rules, one could advance to the point of being very close to that inner circle. One would be allowed to become famous and wealthy. The rewards have flowed generously to the corporate leaders, court jesters, intellectual justifiers, and middle managers of the human race, as long as they pleased the elite and advanced their agenda.
The human race being what it is - desiring to be free, but burning to serve - it has slowly evolved over the centuries to demand workers' rights, equality, opportunity, and so on. The elites have obliged by throwing the occasional bones, but those only last so long.
So, when technology finally advances to the point where "electronic persons" are possible, suddenly there is a big push to create and distribute them. There is no discussion, no public discourse, no debate on the morals and ethics involved. Just push them out the door at break-neck speed.
To me, the goal is clear: create a "race" of beings completely subservient and tireless that can serve the elite in the way, and without the trouble that humans bring, they are used to. The rest of humanity is disposable, as long as the elites are not inconvenienced in any way. They want to live in the clouds, high above the rabble and dirt and grime. They want to hand down their edicts on humanity and otherwise not be disturbed by our wants and needs.
Enter the robots.
Obviously, the rest of humanity will not put up with this forever. Eventually, enough robots will replace humans, and enough jobs be lost, that humanity will rise up and cast off the technological utopia that the elite are building for themselves. It is a race against time now. Can the elite build and deploy their mechanical servants faster than humanity wakes up?
What is quite apparent, at least to me, is that these elite are setting up a civilization apart from the rest of us. They are putting their vast wealth, accumulated over centuries, to work building the means to finally and completely severe themselves from the writhing masses of unwashed humanity. At some point, and rather soon I think, they will have the ability to either get rid of the rest of us, or leave this planet altogether, and robots are the key to that final schism.
We are seeing a splintering of our race into an elite group completely divorced of its need for lower classes, and the lower classes who have developed a need to serve the elite in order to survive. The elite class has, until now, needed the rest of us to carry out the daily drudge of running the infrastructure of society that keeps the elite in their places. The rest of us have needed the elite to pay us and grant favors to us so that we can rise above the squalid masses, if even just a little.
History is full of the elite treating the rest of us as slime, and the rest of us rising up and demanding equality. For the entirety of history, the elite have granted small increments of freedom and self-determination in order to calm the masses back into subservience, but what will happen when the elite have an entire class of beings - electronic persons - who don't require basic amenities to feel human? How will the elite react when, in fact, us useless eaters are truly useless to them?
There are two clear options ahead. The elite must either wipe out the rest of humanity in order to finally possess the Earth for themselves, or they must leave and take up residence elsewhere.
In the first case, we seem to see quite a bit of evidence that the elite are trying to eradicate the rest of humanity. Conspiracy theories aside, vaccines, geo-engineering, chemical toxicity, food quality (GMOs), and many other programs in concert appear to be a massive effort to sterilize, if not kill outright, the remainder of humanity. If we, for a moment, put ourselves in the mindset of the elite who wish to "cleanse" the Earth of an infestation that is inconveniencing them, then multiple programs on many different fronts, each with plausible deniability alone, but in total adding up to a mass extinction effort, would seem to make a kind of Faustian sense.
On the other hand, if we the elite had decided to blow this Popsicle stand, then an all-out program to find habitable planets elsewhere, combined with programs to reseed other planets in our own back yard would likely be the signs of this kind of effort.
Since we see both going on, it would seem that the elite are hedging their bets. On the chance that they can't find some place more to their liking within reach, then cleansing the Earth is the backup plan.
Either way, they need a servant class that is compliant and servile to see to their every need. Enter the robot.
There is one problem with all of this, and it highlights the weakness of the elite. They cannot survive without servants. They have bred and coddled themselves into a genetic corner. They have everything they could possibly want, except the ability to survive without 24/7 servants seeing to the more difficult aspects of living.
This is a true and deadly weakness. Most of the masses have done so much with so little for so long, that surviving in adverse conditions is second-nature, and the elite know it and they fear us for it. They have lost the ability to do even the most basic tasks because they have never had to learn. Not just since birth, but for generations, they have never had to face true adversity. To them, a dip in the markets due to Brexit is about as difficult as life gets.
What all of this boils down to is that we masses have a choice. They cannot live without servants, and they are trying desperately to create a new class of mechanical entities to replace us troublesome humans. Either we let them, or we don't. Simple.
Throughout history, the elite have always had new places to run. First, it was regions of the EurAsian continent, then the New World, but the places to hide are getting slim due to the unbridled breeding of humans. Creating a class of beings they think are more controllable is their solution, and we will all suffer for it, one way or another, if we allow it.
The EU decision to create "electronic persons" is the first shot in what will become, sooner or later, the battle of Humanity, and quite possibly the Earth itself.
Perhaps you accuse me of hyperbole, but an honest and profound examination of history, plus a serious and clear pondering of the near future given the facts hidden in plain sight, will inevitably lead to the same conclusions.
Other writers and researchers have focused on finances, or space technology, or other aspects of this growing war to come to the conclusion that there is an increasing separation, or breakaway of civilizations. I have chosen to focus on robots as one of the key means by which the separation will be achieved. And it is coming fast.
We masses have been responsible for our own education for a long time. The public systems are nothing more than sorting pens for the elites purposes. It is time now to turn our intellects to being proactive. We must education ourselves on the legal and technological issues facing us right now. Will we allow an artificial race to be created? One that relegates the majority of humans to third-class status, even completely disposable?
When you see robots presented as cute, cuddly fun, you should be horrified and indignant. It is time to react appropriately to our own demise.
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