Innovation Improves Work and Life

 

Image from here.

Because I am very interested in inventions, automation, and using technology to advance God's kingdom and help fulfill the dominion mandate, I thought I would briefly write about a common misconception about innovation: the idea that innovation kills jobs.

Does innovation kill jobs? In one sense, yes, if a robot takes over your job, you'll need to go find other work. However, that misses out on the big picture: Innovation pushes people toward better, easier, more fun jobs.

For example, imagine you and nine others became stranded on an island: At first, your basic thoughts are on survival. How do we eat? How do we get clothes? What about shelter? Is anyone a doctor if I get sick? Your shelters will probably be very crude. Much of everyone's time will be seeking food. Forget HVAC and dental checks. Also, you'll likely not have much of any free time. Yikes! Let's imagine you find out that five of the ten of you need to work full time to plant/find/hunt enough food to survive. Then one day, one of the group members stumbles across an abandoned tractor and seed in an old bunker that happens to be on your island. You plant lots of food with the tractor, and once harvest comes, one person is able to completely take over food supply for everyone!

In that scenario, would you get mad at the person who discovered the tractor because he "killed" four people's jobs? No, you'd be absolutely thrilled because now those four people are free to focus on improving other areas of life: They can construct better shelters, think about making the food taste good (an unaffordable luxury previously), and start studying how to have better health, among other things. So, did innovation kill jobs? In a way, because it made some jobs unnecessary. But it improved everyone's life substantially and opened the door to other, better work.

As an aside, if you were able to contact and trade with others you found on the island, everyone's wellbeing would probably improve, which is why I'm for free trade (ethical and wise, of course).

Here are a few other thoughts in no particular order:

• We will never run out of work to do. Not as many people are needed in agriculture, but entire industries have opened up due to technology: types of doctors that didn't exist previously, movie makers and actors, teachers for many sports/games/subjects previously nonexistent, HVAC techs, car techs, etc.
• As new standards of living are reached, better standards continually are desired, which means a demand for people to work to make things better, i.e., new jobs.
• We have more choice over work than ever before.
• If innovation is a problem, why don't you destroy your house, car, and any technology you use to do your job? In that case, you'll have plenty of work you need to do!
• Part of my work is currently home remodeling. It's enjoyable to an extent, but there are many parts that are hard, tedious, boring, and dirty. I'd love it if someone made robots to take over all my work. I may seek to work toward this myself.
• Usually, new inventions aren't created overnight and adoption of them also takes a while. Because of this, it's usually possible to foresee which jobs will no longer be needed and which fields will benefit from more workers as a result.

As a final thought, I'd like to note that godliness with contentment is great gain. Because we have so many options today, it's important to be wise and content. Due to all the advancements in our world (which are ultimately due to God's blessing), you can live in a luxurious mansion compared to the homes people in your economic status 200 years ago lived in. However, if you buy the biggest, most expensive house you possibly can, you may have to work just as hard or harder than people 200 years ago in order to pay for it and maintain it. On the other hand, if you are content with a more moderate house, you can be much more comfortable than previous generations both in terms of house and lifestyle. It's similar with our time: We have more free time than previous generations, but if we only use it to scroll through social media, are we any better off? Keep it simple and focus on the important. (I'm writing this to myself!) Be wise and you'll reap the benefits of innovation.