History shows endless peasant and slave revolts - all of them total failures. Until the invention of gunpowder and handheld firearms which evened up the odds a little. Basically it takes at least 5 years to make a good archer and 10 years to make a good knight - and an awful lot of investment. Peasants didn't have the time or the money to compete.
After the invention of gunpowder and Prince Maurice of Nassau's reinvention of drill in the late 16th century, it took 6 weeks to teach a peasant to use an arquebus. The entire process of cleaning, loading and firing the gun was broken down into 44 steps which any peasant could memorise in 6 weeks. This meant that peasant armies became soldiers quickly, which meant that even after a devastating defeat you could recruit and train many more soldiers quickly - as Washington did in the fight against the British, for instance.
By no means all the peasant revolts were successful - but after this time, some of them were - for instance, the American Revolution and the French Revolution. It was a very new thing.
Despite new technology and bombs, it's still possible for an army of ordinary people to defeat the elite - although it's getting more difficult.
Yes, entire peoples can become hypnotised by aristo flannel. Eventually however they do see through it as they become more and more immiserated by the demands of the aristos.
Humans are naturally egalitarian, not hierarchical. In hunter-gatherer times, hierarchy was simply impossible because there were so few resources to hoard. We had 100,000 years of more or less egalitarian hunter-gatherers.
It's true that most farming societies since Ancient Sumer about 5000 years ago, have been hierarchical - but not all of them. Which ones are remembered for their creativity? Ancient Athens, Republican Rome.
Just as technology helped Renaissance and 18th century peasants kill their aristos, I believe it could help the serfs of the modern world wake up from their trances and take out the billionaires, despite their turbo-powered bullsh*t.
If it doesn't, humans will go extinct and we'll deserve it.
