Judging from efforts in the US to make health care harder and harder to obtain, I'm betting on the former, especially if other countries follow suit. Slowly letting people die from untreated chronic diseases may be seen as more humane than outright mass slaughter.
I don’t understand the endgame. If everyone is poor and dying who is buying all the useless/social credit shit until there are 100m “wealthy” people left? And if “they” (whoever they are, I think we all give “wealthy” people far too much credit, many that I’ve known are pretty empty, insecure people lacking any real self awareness) want everyone else dead, why are all “developed” countries pushing for higher birthrates and encouraging immigration from less developed countries?
The rich wants maximum survival, the poor less so, or that's how "their" world model looks to me.
Most cutting edge technologies like advanced rocketry are not requirements for a century- to millenium-scale survival at all-around medieval technology level.
