It's not a crazy theory but I wouldn't ascribe consciousness to it. It's probably more of an accident. It echoes the fact that 0% unemployment is also bad, beca

It's not a crazy theory but I wouldn't ascribe consciousness to it. It's probably more of an accident. It echoes the fact that 0% unemployment is also bad, because then no one would be available to take jobs, and all jobs would have to poach, massively increasing costs and crippling the economy. Of course no politician would ever run on a platform of, "make more people unemployed!" We are seeing some of the consequences of abundance now with the FIRE movement. Many people in the U.S. are able to retire early. That's great for them, but a society with too few people working quickly runs in to labour issues. My pet theory on this revolves around the G. Michael Hopf quote: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times". When society is too comfortable and the average person experiences too few challenges, they become weak. Physically but particularly mentally. They lose touch with those truly in need. They even begin to secretly despise them. They adopt bourgeoise values and policies which are quite detrimental to society but feel good to declare. Toxic empathy is associated with this. People end up voting for bad policies which lead to worse times. Human societies appear to like to repeat this cycle.