Andrew Yang is one of us. He's from the startup community, and has seen up close how disruption works. He understands technology, and he understands numbers. An

Andrew Yang is one of us. He's from the startup community, and has seen up close how disruption works. He understands technology, and he understands numbers. And what he sees as a result of this understanding is grim - tens of millions of working-class and middle-class jobs slated for obsolescence in the next couple of decades, and no real alternatives in place for those about to lose their livelihoods. The social implications are terrifying. Don't like his UBI solution? Come up with something else, or commit to ignoring the problem until there are bread riots. You could also just disagree with him about the problem. As a developer and founder, I think that most of what people are worried about with regard to automation putting everyone out of work in a decade is overblown. It’s essentially the exact same thing that’s always been said when fearmongering about how innovation and growth is about to destroy everything: “this time it’s different!” Maybe, but I’ll pass on implementing a huge, untested, disruptive “cure” for a problem that people have been saying is around the corner for 150 years. Not that there’s any real option of doing that. We can’t pass boring things that have widespread support, but we’re going to somehow magically pass things like UBI or single payer or the green new deal that would reshape the entire American economy and culture in unpredictable ways? OK. Climate change and automation and the health care crisis are great examples of how we politically cannot get ahead of big problems that require big solutions. It’s basically impossible politically. The best we seem to be able to do is react way too late. Or maybe I’m just cynical. But I’d love examples of big things we solved in advance that required big political constituencies to be built and were costly to voters.