"The future is coming. Arguably it is already here."

As y'all know, one of my bailiwicks is automation — specifically, the effect automation will have, and is already having, on the economy.

As I've previously noted, trucking is a sector about which I'm concerned: "Self-piloting vehicles will destroy entire sectors: Trucking, municipal driving jobs (garbage collection, street sweeping, leaf collection, snow plowing), delivery, driving services (taxis, Uber, Lyft). This is the reality of our past, it is our reality now, and it is the reality of our future."

Because it is a reality, it is something for which we simply must prepare.

At the Guardian, Dominic Rushe has an interesting piece about how members of the trucking industry are meeting that idea, or, in some cases, rejecting it.

As Rushe observes: "The future is coming. Arguably it is already here." Some of the truckers to whom he speaks agree; others think that automation won't decimate their industry now or ever; others seems to know there's no derailing the trajectory toward automation, but just hope their careers outlive the inevitable.

I feel for all of them.

And I feel for all the rest of us. Technology can't put 1.8 million Americans out of their jobs without serious consequences for the entire country.