[ippisl]

First, at the start of the industrial revolution, people who had to leave their home in the country and come to the city to look for work, had to work very long hours for subsistence pay.

This has only changed with the rise of the labor movement, and a general shift in democratic societies towards a welfare state.

So for a huge positive technological revolution, societal change is needed.

In fact, i think that today we have the right technologies to solve many of the world's problems, just the wrong politics and societal order(globally). Just look at education,healthcare,global hunger, the subprime crisis. The biggest barriers there are political, legal and societal.

And yes, "Humans are a bottomless pit of wants". But that didn't helped the loyal employee - the horse. After the industrial revolution they were left unemployed and sadly went to the glue factory.