When was it economically viable to replace hand-sewn lumber with lumber mills?

Then they went and made portable electric saws. What a world!

And then electric drills! And laser levels!

Remember paper ledgers and abacuses? Ever hear of Microsoft Excel?

We keep making tools that always increase productivity and reduce time and cost. It’s Constant incremental progress, and on a large scale it’s great because it frees up (human) resources to focus on new industry and technology, which furthers the CIP. On the micro scale, there may be a small number of temporarily displaced workers as jobs shuffle around and workers re-skill.

But at this particular intersection of technology, we are at a pretty bad spot. We are on the verge of massive progress in multiple industries, and wealth has concentrated in the elite classes. “Temporarily displaced workers” won’t have the capital to re-skill or invest their own resources into new industry. This is bad.