I think that I’m on the side of the futurists on this one: jobs for production and many services have been declining steadily. Between the unions driving up the cost of US labor, the worldwide competition in production, and our insistence on the lowest prices rather than buying American, the jobs are being automated or sent overseas or given to Latin American “migrants”. Robots don’t strike, don’t steal, don’t cost more than initial investment, maintenance, and power. They also work very precisely, removing more and more sources of error.
It’s not like we did ask for it: I remember watching my fellow workers at Lockheed steal tools and material, goof off, stretch jobs out to get overtime hours, and generally get away with everything thanks to the unions.
All of this begs the question - what are we going to do with those parts of our population who used to fill those blue collar and service jobs?
Exactly half of the population has an IQ less than 100 and what will we do with them when automation gets more firmly entrenched? Will we have to pay them off so they don’t get violent? Chances are, they’ll be violent anyway - so what do we do - make bigger prisons?
“Survivor” meets “The Running Man” with “Call of Duty” and so forth thrown in the mix of sponsored teams. Add home participation of strategy gamers input to the narrative for mass market appeal.