alt Hacker News> And that argument is always doomed to fail, because you can’t freeze society in amber. Whether it’s the lamplighters, the mule-drawn barge operators, or the scribes… we would do much better to have a social safety net and distributive taxation system so that we all win in Industrial Revolutions.
Agreed.
I don't think it's the out-of-work "skilled artisans" who are to blame though, esp in the US.
Obviously there is no “blame” in complex systems, but over and over, folks with financial leverage tend to move immediately from a position of libertarian meritocracy to a position of regressive intervention at exactly the moment when their skill becomes automated.
A society that promotes risk, plans for failure, and facilitates starting over, all while minimizing wealth inequality is a society that can sprint headlong into every new technology in a way that everyone benefits.
The lining factor I see time and time again, is that folks see the world, philosophically, as static even though in one lifetime we start at the invention of the light bulb and end on the moon, and in the next, we start with the moon landing, and we’ve created artificial thinking with 23 years to spare.
It’s a sad state of affairs. But what do I know, I live in a city with a massive housing crisis because one group finds construction of more homes as ruining their nice static lives.