It was not that many years ago that life was very different before computers. As a High School teacher I remember the time when the only computer in the school was in the office, and the teachers were sent on a course to learn about them. Before that, almost every job had to be done by hand and records were kept in paper files.
Thousands of people were employed as clerks. Nowadays the computer has replaced all these workers and my son, who is a mine surveyor, tells me that the huge trucks used to transport the iron ore in the mines are driverless, as are the trains which deliver the ore to the ports. Even the drilling machinery in the mines is controlled by people hundreds of miles away in an office in Perth.
Recently, reports tell us that mens jobs are easier to automate than womens jobs because they often involve social empathy, interpersonal skills and creativity, such as receptionists, midwives, nurses and child-carers.
Out of seven hundred occupations 12 were found to have a 99% chance of being automated in the future, and many hundreds more were in the 80-90% chance of automation. These jobs are fast disappearing!
Robotics are rapidly replacing human workers, and each robot in places like car factories, replaces 5.6 workers. It has been suggested that robots should therefore be taxed and the funds used to retrain or financially support those replaced.
In modern factories today it can be hard to find a human worker among all the busy machines, all controlled by computer technology. Farms, which in days gone by employed 15 men, now manage with one or two men and huge, costly, computer controlled machinery. Eventually it is thought that governments will have to step in to implement a guaranteed basic income for all those redundant workers.
Well, they may think that, but God, who does not dwell in time or space as we do, knows better. In fact His word shows us that human life is not really about materialism, mass production and profits, which has led to huge gaps between rich and poor, pollution, oppression and even war. Human life is really about relationships, families, our environment and our purpose.
That is why a huge change lies ahead at the coming return of Jesus Christ. The earth itself will be totally restructured at His arrival. Rather than 10% of its land area being currently arable and 90% taken up with huge deserts, mountain chains and, concrete and snow, the figures will be reversed so that 90% of its increased land area will become fertile and productive, and climate change will bring rain in due season everywhere. Gone will be huge factories and industrial pollution. Materialism will be replaced by true education which will lay emphasis on relationships and the laws which bring real success, peace and happiness in life.
Life will become much simpler, more attuned to families and much smaller scale craftsmanship rather than heavy industry. Without high technology and computers, huge numbers of jobs will be created in both industry and agriculture. Following organic natural farming methods the smaller mixed farms where both animals and crops are raised, will become much more productive, our impoverished soils will be restored, the food grown health giving once more, and most people will retain a connection to the land rather than live a life divorced from reality in some huge metropolis.
The result will be happy families who work together, as they used to do long ago, a simpler but richer lifestyle where people live together in smaller communities in peace and prosperity, in a world which will gradually be restored to Eden like conditions.
Isaiah 41:15-20, ‘Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel. When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.’
Isaiah 30:23-25, ‘Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.’