Isnt AI going to be the "all seeing eye" that keeps tabs on our every action and if we "sin" (have bad credit, basically) - we will be prevented from entering the pearly gated communities.

This occurred to me. With a few generations raised on propaganda with the idea that AI is actually god, it seems plausible. I still think you'd need a severe totalitarian government and a highly compliant population to make this happen.

buddhist countries had feudalism

Just look at what the "buddhists" are doing in Myanmar

ouch for jongjong's argument

Ok. I stand corrected about a god specifically but I stand by the idea that there needs to be a strong supernatural narrative. If there is no god, there needs to be some kind of future reward for accepting a low rank in current society. Buddhism provides a nirvana/afterlife narrative to justify why people should accept/embrace suffering in the current life so it serves the same purpose as a god.

gulags were invented by a country professing state atheism

There is still the promise of potentially being freed after some time and most people who were there believed to some extent that they deserved to be punished for being a bad communist.

If the class difference is big, the narrative to justify the difference must be strong; even under serfdom or slavery, there were uprisings when the narrative was weak. The lowest class has to be (to some degree) content with their situation.

> Buddhism provides a nirvana/afterlife narrative to justify why people should accept/embrace suffering in the current life so it serves the same purpose as a god.

And now you are making a gross mischaracterisation of nirvana. It is nothing like Heaven (Buddhism has heavens and hells too, or higher and lower planes of existence). And no, nirvana does not 'serve the same purpose as a god'.

What is the concept of the invisible hand if not another blind faith in an ineffable force?