Are you an "automation denier"?

[bhikkhu]

19. What surprises me is how many people are oblivious to the past

This is one of my favorite picture examples:

Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building, on the floor where bookkeeping and so forth was done. The building was designed for a small army of workers, in 1903. The same volume of work today is performed by a single PC. The building is often given as an example of obsolescence in architecture, torn down in the 80's.

Another good example is agriculture. When the US was formed a farmer, on average produced enough food to feed 2 or three people, and 50% of our population was involved in agriculture. Now a farmer produces enough to feed 2 or three hundred people, and only 2% or so of the population is involved in agriculture.

Living in a semi-rural area, that history is right in front of me. The economic base here is still agriculture, but it requires very few people. In the 20's and thirties we had a large population out in the fields, lots of outbuildings and worker's quarters, and they'd come into the busy downtown and fill the bars and theaters on the weekends. Now we still have the farms, but you rarely see anybody working, and the bars and theaters are mostly empty or gone as well.