The old saying “You can’t stop progress!” is true. People are always coming up with new ways of doing things to be more productive and make life easier. Of course the road to “easier” is often painful and littered with the unemployed victims of change.

Look back at thousands or hundreds or decades of history and you’ll see the path of destruction and change left by invention and innovation in ghost towns and shuttered factories and empty buildings. In the beginning of a major technological change, there’s always resistance and loss and upheaval as jobs are lost and created by new methods of production and the power struggles that inevitably result.

Have you heard of the “enclosure movement”? It was a prolonged period of time in history when the landowners in England began to fence off land that had formerly been common land that the poor farmers lived on and farmed. These poor people were the ones who eventually moved to cities to survive and when the Industrial Revolution took over England , they and their children worked in the new factories. Thanks to “progress” some of them saw their standard of living improve with more money . Others buried their children and lived in crowded diseased tenements. Eventually society adapted and the Industrial Revolution was just normal life.

After that came rapid and gradual change and shifts to “modern life” that truly did raise the standard of living for most people, but it took many years of painful evolution for those workers. Most people don’t want to return to the olden days despite the difficulties of progress. Yet life is still hard for those in the bottom of the class system that is rarely even acknowledged by politicians these days. But it’s not as hard in America as it is for the poor in other countries where there are no support systems.

This process of job shifting is happening now with technology and has been for a while, but thankfully we live in a country where we have erected safeguards to prevent extreme suffering from the effects of progress and job eradication . However, there are people who want to dismantle this social safety net and they are promoting the false narrative on social media that some people are just “losers” and deserve to suffer.

This blaming the victim mentality is a reaction to fear of the future based in reality. This idea, if allowed to grow, will lead to the end of American greatness, not further it. Although the future will involve many changes, it doesn’t have to be as painful as the enclosed movement or the outsourcing of factory jobs.

Instead we should be working to create a future for everyone. AI and technology will eliminate jobs and create new ones. We need to prepare ourselves and our children for this change now.

I suggest a few things we can do.

• 1. Make a strong effort to adapt or acquire new job skills because AI is Going to Change the Playing Field.
• 2. Vote to protect the safety net for those who struggle to adapt and learn new skills because you or someone you care about might need it.
• 3. Protect your own mind and spirit from the growing hatred and lack of compassion and teach your children to care for others.
• 4. Pay attention and speak out when you hear people blaming others for their lack of prosperity without actually knowing the facts.
• 5. Stay humble and grateful.