Review of The Brain Center at Whipple's

The episode is one long diatribe against automation, complaining about how "evil" it is. Such an attitude is based on false premises. The first premise is that the fundamental purpose of any business is to "provide jobs". That's wrong. A business exists to provide goods or service that people want. Automation makes it possible to provide those goods and services more cheaply and efficiently, thus lowering costs and RAISING the standard of living. The logic of the anti automation people is that we should all be poorer than we were hundreds of years ago, which is obviously not the case. In the 1930s, one American farmer produced enough agricultural product to feed a total of four people; a family farm was literally meant to feed a family. In the 2010s, one farmer produces enough food to feed 155 people. That's due to automation and progress. You don't hear people bemoaning the "loss of farm jobs", because what matters is the FOOD that's produced, not the jobs. So it was with buggy whip workers, elevator operators, travel agents, typesetters, etc etc., jobs which no one is whining about. Of course you never hear the anti automation people talk about the jobs that technology creates.

The other false premise is the worship of the "manufacturing job", as if that should be the entire focus of the well being of a person. It seems quite dismissive of the service sector, as if that means nothing. And by "service sector", I don't mean some minimum wage job at McDonald's. I mean jobs that provide any of a number of services that people want. If the anti automation really had their way, the economy would be a frozen corpse, stultifying innovation and killing wealth creation, all sacrificed on the altar of the Holy Manufacturing Job.