"However I am not going to complain about people smashing the machines meant to replace them." Imagine coming home and finding your car wrecked and your home a

"However I am not going to complain about people smashing the machines meant to replace them." Imagine coming home and finding your car wrecked and your home appliances such as washing machine, vacuum cleaner and microwave smashed into pieces. What happened is that a guy who could have been your horse guy and a bunch of people who could have been your domestic help (a maid, a butler) in 1900 got angry at the machines which displaced them. Also, a now-unemployed phone exchange operator from the 1930s smashed your phone; why should you be able to connect a call to another city without going through her first? After all, as a programmer, you are likely a solid middle class, and middle class homes once used to support numerous manual workers to clean, cook etc. for them. Thus, they acted as important job creators. By adopting machines, you destroyed their living and sent them on the dole. Unfortunately, they didn't have unions strong enough to nip microwaves and washing machines in the bud. From the point of view of 2024, an absurd scenario, right? Because this development is over and we are used to its consequences. Employing people to cook and clean after you is even considered a bit gauche. The most successful automation usually displaces workers all over the globe, not just in a few factories. Having a phone that connects you from Texas to New York without living people in the middle is a result of many people acting in "naked self-interest".