[quickthrowman]

> What do these laid off warehouse pickers do instead?

What did all of the laid off agricultural workers do when farming was mechanized and industrialized? This isn’t the first time we’re facing technology taking jobs away from people.

[hkpack]

I see this thinking all the time, that if something worked ok in the past, then it is absolutely guaranteed to work next time.

And it is absolutely not. People live as they are protected by some divine power over the consequences of their collective actions.

[pc86]

Nobody is saying that it's a 100% certainty, but when this is exactly what has happened many many times throughout human history, the burden of proof that this time is different kind of falls on you, doesn't it?

You could absolutely be right but I see zero evidence that this technological advancement will be any different than the countless before over the last thousand years.

[hkpack]

We literally had world wars with millions dead because of the technological breakthroughs.

You should be blind not to see how technological advancements driving the increasing gap between classes and put pressure on governments in developed countries all over the world.

No one says that people will go extinct, but throughout the thousands of years you mentioned we had periods of very very bad times. It is very naive to think that high paying tech job will protect from the outcomes of other people losing their jobs en masses.

[pc86]

Were those wars caused by the technological breakthroughs, or did the breakthroughs just make them more devastating? Is it possible they would have been longer, and more deadly, without those breakthroughs to bring them to quicker ends?

You seem to be implying that these recent advances are somehow going to drive massive irrevocable unemployment and that that's somehow going to lead to some sort of - world war? Or at least "very very bad times?" Presumably at least one of those events is that none of these warehouse workers who stand to lose their jobs will be able to get work doing anything else, which seems extremely unlikely.

[hotpotamus]

> People live as they are protected by some divine power over the consequences of their collective actions.

I mean, most people in the world are religious, aren't they? I sometimes forget that fact working in tech where everyone seems to be an atheist (myself among them), but it seems like a very helpful psychological adaptation to living an uncertain and finite existence.

I do think it will eventually doom us however as we create problems beyond our ability to manage. I was thinking it would be climate change that will doom human civilization if not the species itself, but AI (even just the economics effects rather than some rogue intelligence) also seems like a contender.

[maxwell]

They got manufacturing, shipping, or warehouse jobs.