Automation will break the back of capitalism. That's a good thing. But it's going to get very bad before that happens. There are a ton of jobs that should be a

Automation will break the back of capitalism. That's a good thing. But it's going to get very bad before that happens. There are a ton of jobs that should be automated like working in an Amazon warehouse. Automation can go one of two ways: it can make all of our lives easier or it can displace the workforce and suppress the wages of those who remain so those are the very top can have $250 billion isntead of $200 billion. Those displaced will be told to find new jobs and that will work for a time with considerable personal hardship for those affected. We've seen the impacts of this with manufacturing jobs being shipped overseas from the Rust Belt, for example. But at some point we'll start to run out of jobs for people to go. And then things will get very, very bad. I imagine a distant future where food is grown with automation, houses will be built that way, robots will pick up the trash and so on. This will leave people to find more meaningful pursuits. But this will require the ultra-wealthy to share and history has taught us that this will get bloody. Instead we'll face a future where companies will fail because there simply aren't customers because nobody can afford anything. I welcome less labor intensive constructions but construction is a significant (~20%?) sector of the economy. The potential for negative impacts from such mass layoffs is enormous. and as others have mentioned: there's a ton of cost built in that really comes down to corruption and overcoming NIMBYism.