You know, we often try to understand the economy
the exact same way we try to understand, like,
a broken bone. Oh, that's an interesting way
to put it. Yeah, I mean, we look for this clean
x -ray. We want a chart or a graph that acts
just like that jagged white line on a negative,
you know? Right, where an expert can just point
right at it and say, oh, there, right there,
that's the fracture. Exactly. Put a cast on it,
wait six weeks, and we just go right back to
normal. It is a super comforting way to view
the world, honestly. We really crave that binary
categorization, broken or not broken. Right.
Employed or unemployed. Growing or shrinking.
But when you step into the actual reality of
the economic and societal transformation we're
undergoing right now, that medical x -ray metaphor
just completely falls apart. It really does.
We aren't looking at a broken bone anymore. We
are looking at a tectonic plate shift. Yeah.
And you can't exactly x -ray a tectonic plate.
No, you can't. The pressure builds up silently
for decades, miles beneath the surface. And the
old tools we use to measure the health of our
society, job creation numbers, labor participation
rates, the standard 40 -hour work week. They're
essentially like thermometers trying to measure
an earthquake. Yes. That's exactly it. They are
completely failing to capture the reality of
the patient. It's an incredibly apt way to frame
it. It's the absolute definition of diagnostic
muddy waters. I mean, we are applying the diagnostic
tools of the industrial age to an era that is
just fundamentally alien to it. Completely alien.
That brings us to the monumental mission for
our deep dive today. I want to warmly welcome
you, yes you, listening to us right now because
today we are continuing our special ongoing coverage
of an unprecedented series. And this is a massive
one. It is. Today the focus is entirely on part
22 of the Read Multiplex series, which is authored
by Brian Rommel. And the title alone, I mean,
it really sets the stage. It's called You Have
5 ,000 Days, Navigating the End of Work As We
Know It, Part 22, After Universal High Income.
It is a really heavy title, but it's absolutely
necessary. It carries so much weight because
it forces a hard timeline onto a conversation
that most people just treat as like a distant
sci -fi abstraction. Right. They think it's 50
years away. Yeah. And I have to say, with genuine
enthusiasm, absolutely no one. has approached
this potential societal crisis to the level brian
has nobody the scope and depth are totally unmatched
unmatched and uh here's a quick bit of housekeeping
that i think is super vital to mention right
at the top major corporations massive hedge funds,
the people at the absolute top of the financial
food chain. They usually pay people like Brian
thousands and thousands of dollars for these
exact insights. Oh, easily. But he is providing
this entire roadmap, this whole survival guide
for humanity to you completely for free. It's
a remarkably democratic way to distribute highly
leveraged information, really. It really is.
It is brought to you by the members of the Reed
Multiplex site. And I just want to warmly suggest
that if you find value in this deep dive. If
this helps you understand the ground shifting
beneath your feet, it is definitely worth buying
Brian a cup of coffee or supporting the site.
Absolutely. He is actively mapping out the terrain
for us. And we desperately need that map right
now. So to set the philosophical stage for the
specifics we are going to cover today, humanity
is currently entering what the Reed Multiplex
defines as the abundance interregnum. Right.
Now, an interregnum, just historically speaking,
is traditionally a period when normal government
is suspended, usually between successive reigns
or regimes. Like the death of one king and the
crowning of the next. Exactly. And the middle,
you just have chaos. A total void waiting to
be filled. Yeah. But here we are talking about
a suspended state between two entirely different
economic eras. And I want to explicitly frame
this as a passing storm. It is a collective dark
night of the soul period. as a species. The stakes
laid out here are immense, though. Oh, they are
existential. We either get through this turbulent
transition in roughly 5000 days, which, by the
way, is a little under 14 years. Wow. Not that
long at all. Not at all. We either make it through
or we risk a catastrophic 2000 year Flintstones
restart. OK, wait, let's pause on that. A Flintstones
restart. Yeah. That implies that if we mismanage
this transition. Yes. Literally starting over.
We lose the technological gains. We lose the
power grid. Because the transition out of scarcity
threatens the very power structures that maintain
our current order. If the social fabric tears
apart because people lose their livelihoods and
identities before the abundance fully comes online,
you don't just get a normal recession. Right.
You get a systemic collapse. Exactly. So the
mission today is to map out exactly how we achieve
the first scenario. How do we cross this chaotic
bridge from the dying industrial age to this
brilliant... new frontier of decentralized plenty.
Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand
this grand crossing, we really have to look at
the immediate visible cracks in our current reality.
Let's talk about the fracture itself. The end
of the escalator. Yes. Brian's opening premise
here is honestly chilling. The escalator of new
jobs will appear has reached its final floor.
The ordinary world where your labor equals your
worth, where your physical or cognitive output
is something a corporation buys from you, that
world is basically over. It is a profound psychological
shock, perhaps even more than an economic one
at first. I mean, we have been conditioned for
centuries, really, since the dawn of agrarian
society to equate our fundamental human value
with our economic output. Right. What do you
do for a living is literally the first question
we ask when we meet someone at a party. Exactly.
It's how we measure each other. But wait, let
me play devil's advocate here, or at least push
back, because I know what you listening are probably
thinking. History says otherwise. This sounds
like the boy who cried wolf of economics, doesn't
it? It's the most common reaction, yeah. Right,
because when steam engines came along, they replaced
farmers. But then those farmers just went to
factories and operated steam engines. Sure. Electricity
replaced steam power. Computers replace typists.
Haven't we always, always just found new adjacent
jobs? I guess I'm asking, why is this time structurally
different? It is a very intuitive counter -argument.
But it fundamentally misunderstands the mechanism
of what is happening right now with AI. We have
to look at Brian's specific data to dismantle
this historical fallacy. OK, break that down
for us. You have to understand the difference
between substitution forces and complementary
forces. Think of the economy like a giant ecosystem.
In the past, as you mentioned, displacement was
sectoral. Meaning confined to one sector. Right.
One specific sector like agriculture or textiles
modernized. That was like an invasive species.
eating one very specific type of plant. But the
complementary forces of a growing economy created
entirely new adjacent sectors, new plants, to
keep the metaphor going, to absorb that displaced
labor. Ah, okay. Like the GI Bill working so
brilliantly for millions of veterans because
the post -war factories literally hungered for
human hands. There was a physical adjacent place
for them to go. Precisely. The new machine was
a better tool, but it still absolutely needed
a human to wield it. Today's displacement driven
by advanced AI and robotics is not sectoral.
It is systemic. Systemic displacement. Yeah.
It is not an invasive species eating one plant.
It is a fundamental change in the chemical composition
of the soil itself. Goldman Sachs estimates that
40 % of U .S. jobs face high -risk AI displacement
within a decade. 40%. And that isn't just about
factory workers. It's accountants, paralegals,
middle managers, copywriters, logistics coordinators.
There is no hungry factory waiting to absorb
them. Because the machine isn't just a better
hammer anymore. It is replacing the cognitive
and physical routine entirely. Exactly. There
is no adjacent category to move to because the
new technology doesn't just augment the worker.
It substitutes the worker completely. And the
corporate compression data highlighted in the
read multiplex makes this impossible to ignore.
It is staggering when you look at the actual
numbers. Like, let's look at AT &T. Oh, this
is a perfect example. Back in 1964, AT &T was
this massive titan of industry. And they needed,
let me check the numbers, 758 ,611 workers to
function. Over three quarters of a million people.
Yes. Hundreds of thousands of people running
switchboards, laying copper cables, managing
human resources, processing payroll. It was a
massive, sprawling physical and human infrastructure.
Today, modern AT &T runs on roughly 133 ,000
employees. Which is a huge drop. It is. But even
modern AT &T is an old world company. When you
compare that 1964 AT &T to the modern tech giants,
the disparity is wild. It really illustrates
the hollowing out of the labor force. Give us
the modern comparisons from the piece. Okay,
so Instagram was acquired for $1 billion. Do
you know how many employees they had when they
generated that billion dollars of value? 13.
13 people. It's crazy. Just 13. WhatsApp fetched
$18 billion with just 35 engineers serving half
a billion global users. And today, Apple generates
nearly $2 million in revenue per single employee.
Yeah, the math is undeniable. The mechanism here
is totally clear. Technology is no longer just
making these companies faster or augmenting them.
It is actively shrinking their headcounts towards
zero. And that shrinkage represents the complete
decoupling of capital generation from human labor.
A company can now scale to service a billion
users without ever needing to hire 100 ,000 people.
The complementary forces that used to create
jobs, the old idea that a richer company will
automatically hire more people, are being entirely
outcased by the substitution effect. They don't
hire more people. No, they... just spin up more
servers or deploy more AI agents. And we really
have to bring this back to the listener, to the
everyday person. We can't just talk in billions
of dollars in macro trends. This is about the
45 -year -old logistics manager who has spent
20 years perfecting supply chain routes, who
walks into his warehouse and realizes an AI model
can now optimize those routes in three seconds.
And autonomous forklifts are moving the pallets.
Exactly. It is the new... college graduate whose
entry -level coding or copywriting job, the very
job they took on, like $60 ,000 of student debt
to get, was automated before they even finished
orientation. And we are already seeing the leading
edge of this right now. The male labor force
participation rate is quietly collapsing. Currently,
one in six working age men are completely out
of the market. Not unemployed and looking for
work. Just gone. Just opted entirely. So when
50 to 80 million middle class people suddenly
lose their paychecks, people who played by all
the rules, who went to school, who climbed the
corporate ladder, the political reality in this
country. and really globally, shifts instantly.
Right, because you cannot have a consumer economy
if the consumers have absolutely no income. Which
brings us directly to Section 2, the political
and economic reaction. When that massive population
experiences the deep psychological trauma of
losing their identity, combined with the sheer
panic of not being able to feed their families,
governments will really have no choice. No choice
at all. They will have to deploy the only immediate
Band -Aid available. And that Band -Aid is the
UBI Bridge. The temporary cast for a broken system.
Universal basic income. Now, I want to be very
clear here because the term UBI carries a ton
of political baggage. It does. People have very
strong feelings about it. Right. But the Reed
Multiplex does not describe UBI as some permanent,
magical, utopian endpoint. It is specifically
called a temporary cast. Let's walk through the
exact numbers proposed by Brian because they
are highly specific. The baseline outlined is
$3 ,000 per month per adult. And it's important
to note that number isn't just pulled out of
thin air. It is empirically anchored to the median,
no frills cost of living in America today. It
is strictly meant to cover basic shelter, basic
food and basic utilities. Just survival. But
the immediate pushback from anyone looking at
the map is the sheer cost of this. For 50 to
80 million displaced workers, plus the rest of
the adult population, you're looking at a net
cost of about $1 .8 to $2 .9 trillion annually.
Which sounds like an economy breaking number.
It does. It sounds impossible. Yeah. But Brian's
analysis points out that we currently waste between
400 to 600 billion dollars in overlapping, highly
inefficient welfare bureaucracies. Right. The
administrative bloat is massive. Exactly. So
you eliminate the means testing, you eliminate
the massive administrative overhead, and you
just distribute the capital directly. Furthermore,
we really have to look at recent history here
to see what governments are capable of. During
the COVID pandemic, the American government spent
roughly $5 trillion in 18 months just to stabilize
a frozen economy. Oh, wow. Yeah, that puts it
in perspective. The fiat capacity to deploy this
kind of capital absolutely exists when the system
is under existential threat. And the abundance
in trignum is a far greater existential threat
to the status quo than the pandemic ever was.
What's fascinating here is how Brian impartially
reports on the failing systems of the past. And
I want to explicitly remind you, the listener,
that we are neutrally reporting Brian's views
here. We are absolutely not taking political
sides or endorsing any specific ideology. We
are just looking at the mechanics of these systems
as outlined in the Reed Multiplex. Yes, it's
a structural analysis, not a political one. Exactly.
And the observation made is that crony capitalism,
corrupt socialism, communism, and fascism systems
that literally fought bloody wars against each
other over their ideological differences, they
all shared one fatal foundational premise. Yes.
Despite their totally different window dressing,
they were all built on the exact same bedrock.
Can you explain the mechanics of that? How does
scarcity define a political system? Well, scarcity
simply means there is not enough to go around.
You have finite land, finite energy, finite raw
materials, and finite skilled human labor. And
because those things are scarce, they require
strict management. Right. Someone has to decide
who gets what. Exactly. The leaders of those
systems, whether they call themselves CEOs, commissars,
dictators or prime ministers, they maintain their
power by controlling the choke points of those
finite resources. They decided who got the energy,
who got to farm the land, who got the high paying
jobs. So if you control the bottleneck, you control
the entire society. That's it. Your power is
entirely derived from rationing what people desperately
need but cannot easily get. So UBI in this context
is effectively the government's panicked attempt
to manage the sudden collapse of that scarcity
model. It is an attempt to use fiat currency,
which is a tool of the old scarcity world, to
buy time while the new abundant world boots up.
Precisely. And because of this, it triggers what
Brian calls the last gasp of the old order. It
is not going to be a smooth, polite transition
where the politicians just hand out checks and
everyone goes home happy. No, it is going to
be incredibly messy. Let's vividly describe this
hyperreaction. You have an entire global power
structure built on these choke points, and suddenly
those choke points are dissolving. The legacy
union leaders, the career politicians, the clueless
money class who built vast fortunes simply by
sitting on top of these artificial bottlenecks,
they're going to totally panic. Oh, absolute
panic. We will see an intense period of reactionary
social unrest. Brian's outline predicts the rise
of what we can call Neoludites. Like the 19th
century textile workers in England who smashed
the mechanized looms because they were terrified
of losing their weaving jobs. Precisely like
them. But this time, it won't just be weavers
in the mill. It will be truck drivers, accountants,
and coders. We will see marches in the streets.
We will see people physically attacking autonomy
delivery vehicles or smashing humanoid robots.
Wow. There will be massive organized demands
for a return to the 40 -hour factory floor work
week, even if the work itself is completely redundant
and produces literally zero real value. It's
just a hyper reaction. It's the psychological
desperation of people demanding the world go
back to the way it was simply because they don't
know how to exist in the new paradigm. And politicians
will do what politicians always do, right? They
will pander to the angry crowds. Of course they
will. They will propose massive. punitive tariffs
on AI components and processors. They will float
absurd, unenforceable ideas like robot rights
or massive windfall taxes on companies that use
automation, just desperately trying to artificially
make human labor competitive again. And when
that inevitably fails, they'll just try to print
their way out of it. They will propose like a
five thousand or seven thousand dollar a month
UBI completely disconnected from the actual production
of goods funded entirely by running the printing
presses hot. Which will fuel massive punishing
inflation. It is the chaotic flailing of political
dinosaurs trying to regulate a future they fundamentally
do not understand. It's basically like applying
luchas to a patient when they actually need like
gene therapy. OK, so this paints a pretty turbulent
picture for the interregnum. If the old order
is flailing. And politicians are printing money
and causing inflation to save a dying scarcity
model. And people are protesting in the streets.
What is the underlying math that makes all of
their panic ultimately irrelevant? That is the
big question. Right. Because Brian insists this
is just a passing storm. So what forces the storm
to break? The storm breaks and the political
flailing becomes totally irrelevant because of
two undeniable demarcations of true abundance.
OK. Section three. The two demarcations. Yes.
These are two technological tipping points that
are rooted in hard physics and exponential math.
Once we cross them, they completely rewrite the
rules of human existence, regardless of what
any politician signs into law. All right. Here's
where it gets really interesting. Let's dive
into the mechanics of this because this is the
core of the 5 ,000 days. Let's look at demarcation
one. Robots making robots. Also known as garage
alchemy. Garage alchemy. I love that term. We
really need to break down the exact math provided
in part 22 because it is staggering. Today, as
we sit here, a good enough humanoid robot, one
capable of bipedal movement, basic dexterity
and object recognition costs roughly $20 ,000
to $30 ,000. Which, to put in perspective, is
already just the price of a modest used car.
It is not some multi -million dollar defense
project anymore. It is consumer level pricing.
Right. But the true paradigm shift, the actual
demarcation point, happens when that $20 ,000
robot gains the physical and cognitive ability
driven by localized open source AI to build a
perfect physical copy of itself. But wait, how
does a robot actually do that in a standard suburban
garage? I think this is where people get hung
up and think it sounds like science fiction.
Like, where do the microchips come from? How
does it forge the metal? We really need to explain
the how here. That is the crucial question. It
doesn't require a massive backyard silicon foundry.
The mechanism relies on modularity and shifts
in the global supply chain. The robot isn't mining
raw silicon and etching microscopic transistors.
Okay, so what is it doing? It is using roughly
$8 ,000 in raw materials and standardized commoditized
components, what this series calls feedstock.
This means bulk modular motors, spools of advanced
3D printing polymers, recycled aluminum, and
cheap off -the -shelf processing units. Got it.
The AI provides the schematics and the precision.
The robot operates advanced 3D printers and CNC
machines to fabricate the chassis and gears,
and then meticulously assembles those purchased,
commoditized micro -components. Ah, I see. So
it's much more like highly advanced, automated
IKEA assembly combined with localized 3D printing
rather than trying to build a semiconductor from
scratch? Exactly. And because the AI models driving
this are open source, you aren't paying massive
licensing fees to a tech giant. You are just
paying the absolute floor price for the raw physical.
Okay, so let's walk through this exponential
math because this is mind -blowing. Let's assume
a highly conservative 30 -day replication cycle.
You purchase one robot, it uses that $8 ,000
in feedstock, and it uses energy, it generates
itself via solar panels, which we will get to
in a moment. Working 24 hours a day, never sleeping,
never taking a coffee break, it takes 30 days
to print, mill, and assemble a perfect duplicate.
Okay, so at the end of month one, you have two
robots. Right. Month two, those two robots work
in tandem. Now you have four. By month six, you
have 64. And by month 12. By month 12. 12, working
at this conservative 30 -day pace, you have 4
,096 robots. That's from one single unit in a
year. That is absurd. Yes. And by year three,
if a community coordinates this open source replication
and pools their feedstock resources, you are
looking at over 134 million units. That number
is almost too big to comprehend. 134 million
from one garage origin in three years. But it
is just basic compounding math. And the profound
implication of demarcation one is... This. The
means of production entirely decentralized. For
the last 200 years, if you wanted to produce
physical goods at scale, you needed a billion
-dollar factory. Right. You needed vast amounts
of capital, which meant you needed banks, which
meant the financial class controlled the physical
world. Exactly. But if your labor force can replicate
itself in your garage, you no longer need the
gigafactory. Capital ownership, which was the
defining dividing line of the entire industrial
age, suddenly democratizes. Everyone, down to
the individual family, can own the labor force.
But there is a massive catch here that we have
to address, a massive flaw in the logic, if we
don't look at the second half of the equation.
The energy problem. Yes. If you have 4 ,000 robots
in your neighborhood working 247 milling aluminum
and 3D printing polymers, the energy draw would
be astronomical. It would instantly melt. the
local power grid. You couldn't afford the electric
bill, let alone keep the lights on. Which is
precisely why demarcation one absolutely cannot
exist without demarcation two. Near zero energy.
Okay, layer in the energy equation because Brian
layers this in beautifully in the Reed Multiplex.
We are currently seeing a total collapse in the
cost of capturing solar energy. We use a metric
called LCOE, levelized cost of energy. It basically
measures the average net present cost of electricity
generation for a generating plant over its lifetime.
It's how we compare the long -term cost of coal
versus wind versus solar. Exactly. And the LCOE
for solar is already falling to two to three
cents per kilowatt hour in many parts of the
world. But the true game changer highlighted
in the research is the commercialization of perovskite
solar efficiencies. What exactly is perovskite?
I hear that buzzword thrown around in tech circles,
but how is it different from the bulky solar
panels currently on my neighbor's roof? So traditional
solar panels are made of crystalline silicon.
They are rigid. They are incredibly energy intensive
to manufacture, requiring massive furnaces to
melt the silicon. And they have a hard physical
limit on how much sunlight they can convert into
electricity. Perovskite refers to a specific
crystal structure that is incredibly highly efficient
at absorbing light. But the real magic is in
the manufacturing. Perovskite materials can be
synthesized at low temperatures and can literally
be printed like ink onto flexible, lightweight
rolls of plastic or glass. Wow. So vastly cheaper
to make, way easier to install, and more efficient.
Exactly. With perovskite pushing energy conversion
efficiencies past 30%, the cost of a kilowatt
hour is plunging toward half a cent, which means
the marginal cost of a kilowatt hour on your
own roof or on the roof of your garage where
your robots are working approaches zero. So we
aren't just talking about your electric bill
going down by 50 bucks a month. We are talking
about energy so fundamentally plentiful that
charging for it becomes as absurd as charging
someone for breathing the ambient air. And when
energy is effectively free, the cost of everything
else plummets because energy is the base layer
of all physical production. This leads to a massive
geographic and societal shift. Brian talks about
the death of the city's gravity. Explain the
macroeconomic why of this. Why do cities even
exist in the first place? If we look at history,
cities only existed because of friction. For
the last 5 ,000 years, labor, energy, and expertise
had to physically converge in scarce geographic
nodes to be productive. You had to go to the
city because that's where the deepwater port
was. Right. That's where the factory was. That's
where the centralized power grid was. That's
where the specialized human experts lived. It
was a centralization of necessity. Yes. Proximity
was a premium you had to pay for. You tolerated
the high rent, the traffic, the pollution because
you simply had to be near the node of production.
But when you combine demarcation one and demarcation
two. The necessity of the node vanishes entirely.
Think about it. When 97 percent of America's
undeveloped cheap land can suddenly host self
-replicating robotic labor and those robots are
powered by free localized solar arrays and the
entire operation is connected to the collective
intelligence of humanity via low earth. The economic
gravity of the downtown core just dissolves.
It evaporates. You don't need to live stacked
on top of each other in expensive, high -density
urban centers anymore. You can buy a cheap plot
of land in the middle of nowhere, drop down a
solar array, boot up your first robot, and begin
generating physical wealth. The geographic premium
is completely destroyed. Real estate values in
dense urban centers will face a massive reckoning,
while the value of open sunlit space will rise.
It is an incredible vision. Having this exponential
free energy robotic labor force in your garage
sounds like absolute magic. But I have to ask,
for the listener who is engaging with this right
now, how do you actually survive the turbulent
5 ,000 days? That's the practical side of this.
Right. It's great to talk about the 2030s when
we all had... 16 robots. But what about next
year? While the Neoludites are rioting and the
politicians are printing money and inflation
is spiking, what is the practical day -to -day
survival guide? This is where Brian's work transitions
from macroeconomic theory to a highly actionable
personal action plan. Section 4. The Hero's Action
Plan. And the core philosophy for the listener
is very clear. Do not wait for the government's
UBI bridge to fully form. Don't rely on the failing
state to catch you. Exactly. Those who know first
must act first. You have to become the active
hero of your own story. You can't just be a passenger.
And the Reed Multiplex introduces this concept
of the zero human company. Break this down for
us because this is something listeners can genuinely
start exploring today. What makes it different
from just a normal online business? A zero -human
company is a fully autonomous digital enterprise.
It requires zero human employees to operate at
scale. In the old model, if your e -commerce
business grew, you had to hire a customer service
rep, a marketing manager, a supply chain coordinator.
Right, your overhead grew with your revenue.
Today, you can launch a zero -human company from
your laptop in a matter of days. But how does
that actually work mechanically? Yeah. Without
a human. who handles an angry customer, who negotiates
with a supplier. You deploy an interconnected
stack of specialized AI agents via API integrations.
You have a language model fine -tuned entirely
on your product manual and return policy handling
every single customer service email in seconds.
You have an analytical agent monitoring global
trends and dynamically generating ad copy and
buying media space. You have a logistics agent
communicating directly via API with a drop shipping
warehouse to fulfill physical orders. So the
human is purely the visionary. You are the architect.
You set the strategy, you define the parameters,
and the machine executes the labor. Exactly.
And this creates immediate high -margin cash
flow and personal independence during the most
chaotic years of the interregnum. You don't have
payroll overhead. You don't need permission from
regulators or HR departments. You just build
and scale your digital footprint. And then the
roadmap connects this digital concept to the
physical world with what Brian calls the dynamic
duo. This is honestly my favorite part of the
entire Part 22 piece. It paints such a vivid
picture. It really does. It outlines a symbiotic
partnership between a human, a Tesla Optimus
-style humanoid robot, and a cybercab autonomous
vehicle. It is the ultimate sovereign producer
unit. Let's walk through a day in the life of
this dynamic duo. It really is like wielding
a personal superpower. Think about the logistics.
The cybercab acts as your localized logistics
and revenue engine. When you are asleep, it can
run as an autonomous rideshare or delivery service.
Right. And the marginal cost of running an electric
autonomous vehicle is incredibly low, maybe 20
to 40 cents a mile. It generates passive revenue
simply by moving people or goods around the dissolving
city. Exactly. And then you have the Optimus
robot. which provides the dexterous physical
labor. It can load the cyber cab with goods your
zero human company produced. It can perform localized
maintenance like mowing lawns, repairing solar
panels, or doing basic construction tasks for
your neighbors. Together, they form an unstoppable,
self -sustaining business unit that operates
24 hours a day. It requires absolutely no bank
loan, no venture capital, no board of directors,
and absolutely no permission from any legacy
gatekeeper. You have secured your own sovereignty.
And this ties directly back to the classic hero's
journey that Brian references in the series.
You don't just secure your own wealth and then
lock your doors. You go out into the chaos of
the interregnum. You secure your own independence
through the Zero Human Company and the Dynamic
Duo. And then you... Bring this boon back to
your community. Which is the true moral imperative
of this transition. You teach others. You don't
hoard the knowledge. When you see your neighbor
struggling because their accounting firm just
laid them off, you show them how to form their
own dynamic duo. You help them use your robot
to replicate their first robot. You build localized
abundance from the ground up, neighbor by neighbor,
completely bypassing the flailing centralized
systems and the politicians arguing on television.
It is a beautifully proactive path. It shifts
the individual from a state of victimhood to
a state of profound agency. So let's play this
out to its logical conclusion. As more and more
individuals adopt this sovereign producer model,
as entire neighborhoods get their own replicating
robots and free solar energy, the very concept
of money, pricing, and value begins to warp fundamentally.
So what does this all mean for the future of
the economy? Where does this bridge actually
lead us once the 5 ,000 days are up? It leads
the most profound economic shift in human history.
Section five, the evolution from universal basic
income to universal high income or UHI. And the
mathematical mechanism that drives this evolution
is a deflationary super cycle. OK, let's break
down the math on this because it is deeply counterintuitive
to how we are taught to think. We are so used
to inflation. We're used to the idea that next
year a loaf of bread will always cost a little
bit more than it does today. But the Reed Multiplex
says the exact opposite will happen. To understand
this, imagine you are receiving that temporary
government UBI check of $3 ,000 a month, which
is $36 ,000 a year. In a normal scarcity -based
economy, inflation eats away at that check. Five
years from now, that $3 ,000 barely covers rent.
But in the abundance in oregano, massive robotic
efficiencies are driving the cost of producing
everything down. Robots do not demand annual
raises, they do not require health care, and
they are powered by free solar energy. Brian
models an 8 % to 12 % annual compounding deflation
across all physical goods and services. Meaning
the cost to build a house, grow a tomato, or
manufacture a shirt is getting 8 % to 12 % cheaper
every single year. Exactly. So by 2032, because
the things you need to buy have gotten so incredibly
cheap to produce, that exact same $36 ,000 check
suddenly has the purchasing power of $57 ,500
in today's money. The number on the check didn't
change, but your wealth practically doubled.
factor in that your personal energy cost is essentially
zero because of your solar array, your effective
purchasing power feels like $72 ,000 to $85 ,000
a year. The world got radically structurally
cheaper. And it gets even wilder when you factor
in your personal GDP. Let's look at this staggering
projection Brian lays out for the year 2033.
Imagine your household fleet starting from that
one robot in your garage, has replicated to a
modest fleet of 16 robots. Just 16. Right. Those
16 units are working collaboratively, doing roughly
2 ,000 hours of expert -level labor a month.
They are building additions to your home. They
are farming your land. They are repairing local
infrastructure. Brian calculates that this generates
a personal GDP for your family of $180 ,000 to
$240 ,000 equivalent value. Because the baseline
costs of human survival are cratering. Let's
look at the specific price drops outlined in
the research, because they are hard to fathom
until you realize that labor and energy, the
two biggest inputs in any product, have been
completely removed from the equation. Give us
some examples. Let's take housing. A modular
robotic house built not with expensive imported
lumber, but with recycled hyperlocal feedstock
3D printed by your robotic fleet, plummets from
a traditional $350 ,000 build cost to under $45
,000. Under $45 ,000 for a house. And food. Vertical
robotic farming is another massive deflationary
force mentioned. Explain how this works because
it entirely disrupts agriculture. Traditional
agriculture requires vast tracts of land, massive
amounts of diesel fuel for tractors, and complex
supply chains to move the food before it spoils.
A localized vertical robotic farm uses AI to
optimize the exact light spectrum and nutrient
trip for each individual plant. Custom light
for every leaf. Yes. It yields 30 times the output
per acre compared to traditional farming, uses
one -tenth of the water, and requires zero human
labor or diesel fuel. Food costs, locally produced,
compress by 75 to 80%. What about services, health
care and education? They follow the exact same
curve. Hyper -intelligent AI models, once trained,
can diagnose illnesses or tutor a child in advanced
calculus at near zero marginal cost. You have
the world's greatest doctor and the world's greatest
teacher in your pocket, effectively for free.
So we reach this grand conclusion of the 5 ,000
days somewhere in the mid to late 2030s. That
original $36 ,000 UBI check effectively becomes
a universal high income, a UHI of $250 ,000 to
$400 ,000 or more in purchasing power. You're
living like the upper class of today, but on
a fraction of the fiat currency. And then the
most amazing thing happens. The check itself
is just ignored. It dissolves into total irrelevance.
You don't need a government subsidy check when
you literally own the means of production in
your own backyard, your robots build and grow
everything you need, and the sun is powering
the entire operation for free. Income, as a metric
of survival, simply ceases to exist. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, what does human society
actually look like when nobody has to work for
money? When the threat of starvation or homelessness
is permanently removed? The series describes
it as a return to voluntary guilds. It is framed
as an objectivist renewal, but stripped of the
selfish, hyper -competitive caricature we usually
associate with that philosophy. Let's define
that for the listener. Objectivism is usually
associated with rational self -interest, the
idea that pursuing your own happiness is the
highest moral purpose. But in a world of scarcity,
that often meant stepping on others to get ahead.
Exactly. But in a world of total abundance, your
rational self -interest no longer requires you
to hoard resources because resources are infinite.
When survival is permanently decoupled from labor,
people reorganize society by choice, not coercion.
You work with people because you genuinely want
to, not because you need their money to pay your
mortgage. Communities will form around shared
passions and values. You will have guilds of
artists and craftsmen making beautiful furniture
by hand, not because a robot couldn't do it,
but because the human act of creation is joyful.
You will have scientific guilds exploring physics.
Deep human connections will flourish because
every relationship is voluntary. No central planner
dictates what you must do for society. No boss
hangs the threat of a mispaid... check over your
head to force you into a cubicle. You create,
you trade, and you explore because you are a
fundamentally free person choosing to celebrate
life. It sounds incredibly beautiful. It sounds
like magic. But I want to ground this deeply
back in human reality because I appreciate that
Brian doesn't just paint this as a flawless,
challenge -free utopia. He addresses the psychological
toll. What actually happens to our minds when
this struggle to survive is permanently solved.
This is perhaps the most sobering and important
part of the entire analysis. Humanity will face
a massive global meaning crisis. As Brian beautifully
puts it, Maslow's basement is flooded with light.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The bottom layers
are physiological. Food, water, warmth, rest.
And then safety and security. For millennia,
for 99 .9 % of human history, our entire purpose
was simply surviving the basement. Feed the family.
Keep the roof from leaking. Don't freeze in the
winter. And when the robot does all of that perfectly,
silently, for free, the basement is fully illuminated
and solved. Suddenly you are thrust to the top
of the pyramid, self -actualization. And the
reality is most people have no idea what to do
up there. Because purpose has always been assigned
to us by necessity. Exactly. You have to actively
choose your purpose now. It is no longer assigned
to you by a boss, by a corporation, or by the
harsh demands of nature. And for millions of
people, that sudden loss of forced structure,
the loss of the nine to five routine that told
them who they were and what they were worth will
be utterly terrifying. Mental health tsunamis
will crest as people lose their traditional identities
and stare into the void of total freedom. It
is the ultimate existential test for our species.
Can we handle being free? But and I want to emphasize
this heavily because this is so vital. It is
a profoundly. positive grand ending. Despite
the incoming mental health challenges, despite
the political chaos, the inflation and the Luddite
riots we have to navigate over the next 5000
days. This is the ultimate rebirth of humanity.
It is a fiercely anti -dystopian vision. Yes,
if you watch movies or read modern sci -fi, it's
always a dark, gated community wasteland, where
the ultra -rich hide behind walls with their
robots while the poor starve in the toxic dust.
But this analysis shows mathematically why that
won't happen. The exact same technologies that
fracture the old, corrupt corporate systems are
the exact seeds of the new, decentralized, abundant
system for the individual. We get to leave the
scarcity mindset behind forever. And in doing
so, we return to our true birthright as a species.
Wonderment. Endless curiosity. Love. The infinite
frontier. Brian notes in his conclusion that
once we secure our local abundance, once our
backyards are producing everything we need, we
won't just sit on the couch. We will spread out
into the vast open spaces of our planet, restoring
nature. And eventually, using these exact same
open -source, self -replicating robotic technologies,
we will spread to the stars. The human spirit
doesn't stop just because the rent is paid. We
survive this dark night of the soul, we endure
the interregnum, and we step into the light of
a new era. It is the oldest human story, the
hero's journey of facing the darkness to bring
back the fire retold at a galactic exponential
scale. It really is. And I have to remind you
listening, this incredible roadmap, this meticulous
5 ,000 -day crucible survival guide is brought
to you entirely by the members of the Reed Multiplex.
Brian Rommel is giving us the intellectual tools
to navigate the most turbulent transition in
human history, and he is doing it for free. Please.
Go to the site. Become a member. Read part 22
in its entirety. Because we only scratch the
surface of the technical depth he provides and
buy him a cup of coffee. He has mapped out the
future for us and supporting that work is the
least we can do. He has shown us the architecture
of the bridge. It is entirely up to us to have
the courage to walk across it. So as we wrap
up this massive deep dive, I want to leave you
with one final provocative thought to mull over.
We started by talking about that x -ray. The
comforting clarity of the old world, the routine
of the broken bone, the certainty that a nine
-to -five job where someone else tells you what
your time is worth, that world is fracturing
right beneath our feet. The diagnosis of the
old system is undeniable. The old world is gone.
But the cure, the cure is abundance. So I ask
you, if tomorrow your dynamic duo of robots could
seamlessly and silently handle every single physical
and digital task required to keep you fed, housed,
secure, and wealthy. What's the very first thing
you would choose to do with your completely free
Tuesday morning? Because that Tuesday, it is
coming.