Robots

People used to be concerned about computers taking their jobs. Whipple had Robby. Kirk had M5.  For a while now, it’s been more about immigrants of various sorts, as robots were consigned to eating old people’s medicine. So it’s a bit of a surprise for an article about losing jobs to robots to be coming around. It's like these cycles repeat, or something. 

One way to look at it is a reaction to stress in general, that if the world is going downhill then the jobs must be going with them. Or perhaps improvements in automation are happening at this same time, one small part of overall technological improvements. Another option is that the strong institutions of the Fourth and First are returning, and people subconsciously externalize the loss of freedom as the inevitable control of cold, logical, unhearing machines. 

As always, if a generational explanation is given, something similar should be evident in previous Saeculums as well. And it appears that we can find something very similar in the lead-up to the American Civil War, where folks can be found who opposed slavery because they thought slaves were going to take their jobs.  As well as in the aftermath, when folks could be found who thought former slaves were going to take their jobs.