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i think a core beef that i have with a lot of this "automation is bad" sentiment lately is that there is no inherent moral good in laboring the story of humanity is one of invention, where we improve our conditions by building things that help us do more things more easily

So, the social context we are in is one in which people's access to the essentials of life are contingent upon their labor. If you automate someone's job, they might not have a roof over their heads. This is not because there's an inherent moral good to laboring, but because our society is like that

and our society is very much not well-positioned to change that right now, because reactionaries are ascendant. Automation in this context is therefore more likely to lead to a number of people becoming non-people in the eyes of the economy, and less likely to lead to easier lives.

but some people have an object-level vs meta-level issue and think this is because automation is inherently bad in a universal way that isn't contingent upon anything, which is a bit silly. It's a problem entirely because of where and when we are.

yes. i do not fault anyone who is upset because their job may no longer exist due to changes in how society works. it's up to us as a society to handle this appropriately. but we also can't use those instances as a reason to hold the rest of humanity back

The problem is, the number of people cast aside grows rapidly as the automation becomes more generalize-able. after a while "the rest of humanity" ARE the people evicted from the economy.

I might be a little too close to the issue: My parents aren't rich and programming was my only employable skill so the idea of getting automated out of a job leading to homelessness, a lack of medical care, and death before age 40 is not a hypothetical to me.

growing up poor has tons of weird effects, including that i think about "what am i gonna do if i become homeless" like, way more than i should, objectively