Dish to close 300 Blockbuster stores, 3,000 jobs may be lost

[Spike89]

9. Great observation. That is reality.

I hear lots of people railing against the loss of jobs and they always (almost) point to offshoring as the culprit, but won't look at the deeper issue--we are hurtling toward a "black box" (in this case, a Red box) future where human labor/interaction is minimal.

On a macro scale, this can be a great thing--just as the industrial age allowed people to do more than just struggle for the basics, the post-industrial age will allow people even greater freedom. Of course, the industrial revolution didn't immediately bring in the 40-hour work week, near universal literacy, and higher standards of health and social justice. It took the better part of centuries for significant progress once the world began shifting from agrarian models--and no one can say it is anywhere near complete even in the best societies.

There is hope that an "age of plenty" can only benefit the human race and give us the opportunity to get past the economics of scarcity (why is gold worth more by weight than even the Mona Lisa?) Realistically, it isn't going to be a smooth transition and as always, the poor and the uneducated are going to suffer the most during the upheaval.

We need to begin planning for a post-industrial society. It isn't enough to throw labels on it, like "the service or knowledge" economy. We've got to start reevaluating our priorities.