SALENA ZITO: The Creators Who Also Destroy:

Twenty percent of men in this country make a good living driving and delivering people or goods from one point to another every day. Driverless cars and trucks make those men and their jobs obsolete.

The applications for 3-D printing are pretty infinite; in the YSU’s lab there were scores of examples of spare parts for machines, toys, gadgets, and larger items everywhere, all produced at the cost of traditional manufacturing. . . .

America has struggled with the impact that automation has had on our workforce since the 1920s. As our best and brightest invent new ways to expedite ‘making things,’ our best and brightest labor force has struggled to figure out where it fits in with the capabilities that match their skillsets.

We don’t have that figured out yet — but seeing young people like Juhasz passionately embrace the possibilities of marrying both — you understand quickly that the sense of commitment to community and progress does live in our nation’s youth.

It is something we should foster and tap — because automation isn’t just coming for someone else’s jobs. It is going to impact all of our jobs; from surgeons to fast-food counters to driverless, 18-wheel tractor trailers transferring commerce further south in Ohio.

And it’s hard to imagine many people are ready for the impact that is going to have on their lives and their communities; industrial revolutions create and destroy, if we are better prepared for the one we are experiencing now, our country’s temperament will stabilize.

It’s not so much the creative destruction that is toxic as it is the attitude of entitled contempt toward those whose jobs are being destroyed.