Four Futures

What Hacker News says

1. shimmanJun 2026
   The US government has two political parties that are both entirely opposed to expanding the welfare state. Both parties are against medicare for all [1]. Both parties are against universal childcare [2]. Both parties are against free student school lunches [3]. Both parties against free higher/tertiary education [4]. Both parties are against a universal jobs program [5].

   All these programs poll above majorities in the US (see citations below) and yet both political parties are against these programs. The US government is already seeing that people not only stay uncomfortable, but you have to pay for the privilege too.

   If you haven't heard of the book "Four Futures" by Peter Frase I'd check it out. There is one future that is extremely prescient is the "Exterminism" future. It's exactly what you think, a group of elites decide that "Hey! Maybe we are better off with 30% less people."

   It sounds extreme but if you take a few moments to truly think about it is very believable, some already governments have it as its end goal for various policy positions.

   Now imagine a scenario where the elites are openly disdainful of humans (they even believe that the human race shouldn't exist; or that the end goal of humanity is to turn humans into computers), now they have the means to not only control production + its consumption but also have the military means to enforce it. Is that scenario really science fiction? That a few dozen people would forcibly slaughter and enslave others for personal self gain, is that truly confined to the realms of science fiction and not history (both lived and present)?

   People need to wake the fuck up and realize that solidarity may be the only thing that saves the human race.

   [1] 65% https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2025/11/medicare-for-al...

   [2] 82% https://www.ffyf.org/2026/01/28/new-national-poll-shows-stro...

   [3] 60% https://www.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/7/23863415/polls-support-un...

   [4] 60% https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/11/democrats...

   [5] 60 https://jacobin.com/2024/05/cwcp-job-guarantee-poll

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2. shimmanJun 2026
   You should check out "Four Futures" by Peter Frase. This would be the "extermination" future and like you I think it's the most likely one without extreme counteraction.
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3. erentzDec 2018
   > “Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal.”

   I don’t think there is a lack of vision out there, see the book Four Futures for example. In the case of the Soviet Union speaking out about things not working was a good way to get punished. Most of us have experienced the same thing in corporate america. Everyone around the cooler says “this is broke” one guy says as much and loses his head.

   It seems we are just incapable now of agreeing to collective visions, which require compromise, and supporting each other in making that happen. Something has caused us to become incapable of compromise. Everyone is beaten down by the past century and no longer want to trust each other, or something like that.

   Perhaps communication now is just too impossible to allow this to happen. It’s become seemingly much much easier to attack and divide people than bring them together. Hard to see how to change that without some really low level change happening.

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4. rexpopOct 2018
   ...are stupid even to contemplate while we're still increasing carbon emissions. If you actually cared about the impact — and weren't just cynically cashing in on environmentalism's recapitulated caché — you'd be shorting big markets. The biggest threat to the world is unbridled capitalism, which VC's like you are incapable of abandoning. May as well ask a fish to bicycle.

   This post is a pitiable joke, whose highest purpose is to stand in a museum, one day, as a testament to how blindly we charged into the apocalypse. I only hope that museum's curated by our children, and not whatever species finds our remains.

   For a good, hard look at why I believe this, read Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything," and Peter Frase's "Four Futures."

   If you're daring enough, you can follow those with Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash," and Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets" and "Witches, Midwives, & Nurses" for a deep look at how and how long we've been going wrong.

   If that all doesn't make you straight up suicidal (let alone quit maintaining your startup pyramid scheme), I have more reading suggestions for how to turn this ship around.

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5. erentzJun 2018
   Brings to mind a good book by Peter Frase called “Four Futures”. It’s a quick read. But sums up very well something we seem to have real trouble with - imagining the possible futures we could have. And importantly what we seem incapable of doing these days, based on that deciding to take actions that put us on a course for the future we prefer. There’s a disheartening lack of vision out there.

   Edit: because of its short nature the audio book version is a good use of any built up audible credits.

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6. rexpopFeb 2018
   For a fun, fairly thorough look at four possible answers to this question, check out this book on Goodreads: "Four Futures: Life After Capitalism"

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22551901-four-futures

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