Most of the admired and undoubtedly remarkable technical advances that have transformed industries, transportation, communication, and everyday living would have been impossible if more than 80 percent of all people had to remain in the countryside in order to produce their daily bread (the share of the US population who were farmers in 1800 was 83

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I hear the “automation is destiny” argument all the time—especially in Silicon Valley, where people tend to talk about technological progress as a speeding train we either have to climb aboard or get run over by—and I get why it’s tempting to believe. For a long time, I believed it myself. But it’s wrong. And deep down, we all know it’s wrong. From... See more