I think that captures some of the contradiction in your claims. Yes, cities could be terrible places to live and work. Yet people have moved to them throughout recent history because the alternative is worse.
That said, I don’t disagree with your point that there will be pain associated with this technological jump. I dont know of there will be more or less than with previous jumps. There are some interesting considerations.
One, this one hits knowledge workers who are in the middle class, instead of hitting those who use muscle or hand labor. That may change the outcome.
Two, governments are much more sophisticated and have much better policy tools to deal with disruption. While that doesn’t fix the root, it can help to prevent compounding problems and soften the impact.
Three, the tools that are doing the disrupting appear to be near zero marginal cost, which is different than say a factory which improved efficiency with a large up-front capital investment. This factor probably will make it worse, but I can see possibilities of it making this change less painful too.
Fourth, it isn’t really clear how this will play out. It kinda feels like we have seen the first demonstrations of a steam engine, and are trying to predict the course of the Industrial Revolution.
