Many academics and media people live in a weird little bubble of non-reality. They're really members of a patronage network of the money printing establishment oligarchy in the western world. Their job is mainly to argue for more managerial control to bolster the position of the oligarchy. That's the sole purpose for the academic industry around "climate change", for example.
One of the rhetorical angles the establishment uses to vie for more control is that blue collar jobs will easily be replaced by technology. An implicit element of that argument is that "education" and an advanced degree in some field is inherently valuable, while mere manual labor is valueless and can be easily replaced by a machine.
Many of the people making such arguments don't know the first thing about the work a welder does, or the work an electrician, carpenter or plumber or auto mechanic, etc... do. Many skilled trades require high intelligence and problem solving skills in addition to manual dexterity and hands on experience. Many of the people making such arguments don't know what a truck driver does, either. It's quite likely they've never even talked to somebody in the fields they imagine will be replaced by "robots".
The reality is white collar workers in many fields are much easier to replace with automation than anyone in a trade. In fact, the stuff in factories and on construction sites that can be automated profitably is already automated.
The managerial and executive functions of many corporations could be automated away already much more easily than an electricians job could be automated. The insurance industry, for example, is almost entirely corporate overhead and parasitism. Banking, real estate, most government bureaucracy functions, are really just a staff of people who manage a stupidly simple database.
It's pretty telling that most of the fear porn around automation is aimed at blue collar workers.
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