I think you misread my point because I'm not arguing that technological advancement is inherently bad or should stop. What I am arguing about is that we as a society need to decide if we should be doing something to help those displaced adapt to the new marketplace.
Not everyone is equipped to be a robotic engineer or handle the math for professions that rely heavily on math. As the return on labor diminishes and the return on capital rises there should be a way to open up opportunities that allow more and more people to become owners of capital.
People need to protect themselves, not expect the world to help them.
I'd rather have a society that is a little less stark or socially darwin. You may disagree but that's why we have political debates.
We as a society don’t make that decision. The workers do. We can, and have, setup methods for people to learn new job skills. But the worker has to make the decision to use them. Many don’t, they demand the world halt, and they lose.
You don’t have to be a robotic engineer to run the robots. The modern world of technology puts nice UIs in front of everything. Most folks that program computers don’t actually know how to program computers, they’re using high level programming languages that the compiler changes to actually program the computer. Same thing with modern robots, just like your DVR, you figure out the language.
Doesn’t matter what society wants, in the end the people need to take responsibility for themselves and put knowledge in their brains. Because it’s their brains and their lives.