You are wrong. First of all, I do not "celebrate" anyone, and your antagonism is out of place. Re-read my posts. Secondly, whatever your feelings, you can not impute the widespread endorsement of right-wing policies to people's evil and selfishness. If you do, not only you depict a huge amount of people wrongly, but you also miss the point, the actual reasons for their endorsement. You will continue to object things that will just polarise all discussions, and that will be shot down as irrelevant by the people in question.

In reality, most people, voters, even politicians, support policies in good faith. You have to take this in consideration, and accept that there is a logic, a rationality, on the other side, that allows people to vote differently than you for what they consider the benefit of all (or, at least, the benefit of the morally worthy, which is a distinction we all do to some extend). If you actually discuss with people from opposed sensitivities, and if you actually try to comprehend their logic, you'll realise that they can't be reduced to a selfish "i care about me and i vote for what benefits me at the expense of the society". Not only this, but that is how they percieve your stance.

This doesn't mean everybody is right. But their drives and self-representations are more similar than they think when they oppose each other. And what tires me a huge lot is the efforts they put in convincing themselves, on each side, that they are the only ones caring for society, morality and justice.

The interesting thing is how these cross-accusations are possible. And how actual self-righteousness can be felt on all opposed sides simultaneously. Because this is what actually happens, and not one side going "hah, justice ? society ? who cares !". This is only the convenient depiction they make of each other.

I don't follow. There will always be, until we run out of external power sources, a march of technology. There will always be technology that breaks. Thus there will always be a need for someone to dive into the down-and-dirty - be it software, electrical, or mechanical - to fix the stuff and get the rest of the giant wheel turning again. Not sure how this creates a fix-it caste, any more than the nurses who help doctors become a caste that provides health services, and farmers become a caste of food-providers. Whatever society evolves into we'll need people who keep things, and people, operating.

Stuff breaks. The Guy fixes it. People go back to work. The alternative is... what?

Maybe we're looking at it from two different directions. I skipped most of the rest of the conversation and was answering just the original post, which asked what we thought about that constant march and what it means for each of us to find employment in the ever-evolving job environment. Based on the original question, I know that no matter where technology takes society there will always be a need for those who can fix stuff.

Gotta say, your post did make me think of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMhrGf2ylw

Orcishgamer points at the fact that the quantity of collective human work needed for technology maintenance doesn't "replace" the bigger quantity of collective human work economized by that technology. So, fulfilling the function of "fixing" technology will be a role reserved for a smaller amount of people than fulfilling the functions that technology replaced. Being the "technology fixer" is the privilege of a smaller caste.

In a word: Bullshit. I know you may not personally be "for" certain principles that people I find to be selfish are "for". But regardless, I'm not fucking interested in how people rationalize their selfish and egocentric bullshit to themselves. The real reason people do those things is that they aren't actually for equality or for the basic welfare of all. Don't give me this "they're well meaning" malarkey, it's fucking bullshit. It may even be bullshit that they themselves believe, on the surface, but that's really just a rationalization for selfish and inconsistent behavior that doesn't stand up under scrutiny.

And why should I be nice? Why should I try and have a dialog? Dialogs and meeting halfway have failed to produce fuck all in actual changes. So I'll just continue to call selfish bullshit exactly what it is: selfish bullshit. Many people are actually not in favor of prosperity, progress, sustainability or freedom for anyone but themselves and those in which they happen to be emotionally invested (which for the normal human being is a relatively small number of people). Pretending that this greedy, self aggrandizing, and destructive behavior is what it is not is self destructive and pretending otherwise can't but help to perpetuate the behavior.

I don't really have a well thought out alternative and it's 4AM but there are two things I'd like to note.
1* This is a fairly haphazard collection of values. You might as well have people believing in "order, honor, property and tradition" or "pleasure, dubstep, equality and DRMlessness".
I will agree, though - just because we can have doubts about what is socially or morally right in many cases, it doesn't mean everyone should just... "agree to disagree" (which is one of the phrases I personally loathe).
2* I'm willing to believe that there are people who have faith in courses of action that, were they set in motion, would end terribly, perhaps even for believers themselves. You're arguing that people are smart yet selfish, I'd like to add that there are also those well-meaning but full of unshaken faith in some nonsense or another.

Not everyone can afford to walk out on that minimum wage job that just barely pays the bills, regardless of if they "have" the freedom to do so. FYI I'm not left or right, I'm a moderate independent. I see both sides and the value in both perspectives; there has to be some middle ground, and frankly, I don't see how you can make someone see reality the same way you do. Especially here in the US, where the democrats and republicans put on a show every two years and polarize the country.

I didn't pick that list of values, that list was picked by Telika, who wrongly asserts that everyone wants those things, they just think there's differing paths to get there. This is, on the face of it, untrue.

I am most certainly not arguing that most people are "smart but selfish", I'm arguing that there is a significant number of selfish and not all that introspective people and that, as far as the US is concerned, no, they are not evenly divided among the political parties. As I'm neither a Democrat or Republican, yes, I'm calling the (R)s more selfish and less introspective, but hell, there's plenty of that to go around.

I'm simply taking very big issue with the idea that folks all want prosperity for everyone, it's fucking laughably untrue in the US. Maybe elsewhere where this is a core value with which everyone is raised, sure, but not here.

I'm simply taking very big issue with the idea that folks all want sustainability, it's fucking laughably untrue in the US. Maybe elsewhere where this is a core value with which everyone is raised, sure, but not here. There are untold motherfuckers willing to rape the earth and our collective future to collect 200 dollars and pass go one more time.

Freedom means, for many here, freedom for those who already fucking agree with me, instead of freedom for that motherfucker that I hate.

And finally, fuck progress, if it goes against what "I" believe or doesn't help the "right" people, that's traveling backwards, not progress. That could be the motto of about half the US right there.

We've had the technology and power to feed and cloth everyone for decades AND WE HAVE NOT!

No I'm sorry, our species and cultures most certainly do not value these things.

It's moot, then, since this caste already exists. Crap already breaks, certain people already fix it. Been that way for decades, if not centuries. The aforementioned march of technology will continue to make it so. Even a return to an un-automated society will come with castes, since a lack of automation creates in its place a need for craftsmen and women, along with a general unskilled labor pool.