Moving Forward!

There are some things that are truths but which some people don't want to admit.

For example, progress, while benefitting most people doesn't benefit all.

For most improvements in history there were winners and losers.

Generally the winners outnumbered the losers, but if you were a loser, that's not much consolation.

I'm not being complex here, we used to have elevators that required operators, now they don't, no more elevator operators.

There is a long list of jobs we no longer need, and in most cases the people who lost those jobs simply had to move on.

Sometimes the changes are more dramatic than others.

As farming was transformed with the introduction of tractors and other equipment that could replace field workers we saw a migration from farm to city. It was disruptive but in a generation is was absorbed.

We have seen a similar disruption in manufacturing as robotics and international trade has eliminated many high paying low skill manufacturing jobs.

The adjustment is ongoing and mitigated somewhat by our demographics.

However it isn't going to revert to what it was.  It has to become something new.

What will that be?  Well predictions of that sort are generally wrong because we don't know what we don't know.

We just need to move forward and be ready to meet the challenges.