I feel your pain, toofs. My dad is the same way. Don’t confuse him with facts. It is sad.
It’s not JUST the robotics, it’s also the massive wealth transfer that is going on from the middle class and poor to the rich. What’s happening is, robotics is making it easier and easier for a person with capital to create any kind of goods in any quantity without a whole lot of assistance from other human beings. We’re talking all the basics here: food, clothing, shelter, not just TV sets, computers and CD players.
Basically what we are going to have in the future is a small number (say, 1 tenth of one percent of the human race) of very wealthy people who own the equivalent of Star Trek replicators, and a huge number of people who don’t. What do you think will happen then? My understanding of history and human greed does not lead me to be putting on my rose colored glasses.
I already see comments along the lines of a new ‘French Revolution’ in multiple places. These mouthy ultra rich assholes better start being careful about what they say about the poor or someday soon some mentally disturbed person is going to decide to do something about one of them. Which will lead to copycats.