Technology Replacing Us

 David Foster has a review of Peter Gaskell's Artisans and Machinery, which Tyler Cowen also recently reviewed (interior link). Gaskell is very worried about the social changes that are already under way that are destructive to jobs, to the family, and to morals.  In Great Britain in 1836. I picked up quickly what Foster highlights about the changes. Gaskell rhapsodises about the age of Squires and good fresh air.

Gaskell explicitly states that he does not mean to portray the pre-industrial times as any kind of Arcadian paradise, but to a considerable extent he does just that. His almost entirely positive portrayal of the Squire would, I suspect, have been roundly mocked by those living within the domains of a fair number of real-life squires. 

I thought of Dickens's London (and Blake's "dark satanic mills*"), which in detailing the horrible conditions of the poor in the cities neglects that people have come to these places of their own free will.  However bad conditions were, they preferred them to life in the country. Steam power may have been replacing the employment of weavers, but the weavers did not go back to the farm. 

We will naturally think of comparisons to our own day and the dire warnings about AI and robots. I'll not say that it won't be true this time just because it wasn't true then.  After all, the arrival of my ancestors in Europe in the 3rd Millennium BC wiped out a more advanced civilisation, as did the Sea Peoples in 1187BC.  It's not all upward trajectory. But David touches on that only briefly.  He stays put in the Industrial Revolution and its effects because there's plenty to reflect on there.  It's a fun read.

*In the popular understanding.  Blake's meaning is more complicated. 

Update:  Right on cue just after I hit "post," Aporia sent me Video: You're Going to Be Replaced I haven't looked at it, I only note the irony.