An Armageddon lead by Automation and Over Population

You know that movie Armageddon, where the comet is about to hit earth, but we somehow mitigate that crisis by nuking it. A similar crisis is about to hit us all soon, in fact it already has, but most people seem ignorant about it.

There are two major problems which we are dealing with, and they are both complimentary to each other.

1. Over population

We are so used to an ever increasing population that we almost seem to act unaware of its negative effects. America, China and India are facing a simple problem, lesser opportunities for more people, and this gap keeps becoming wider no matter how policies change. If (and strong chance it will) the slowdown of these economies continue, then you will only see lesser full time work opportunities. In India, the outsourced IT industry took care of majority of jobs earlier, the startups seem to have created a lot of jobs in the past few years, but today the IT industry is showing clear signs of slowing down, and with most startups shutting down, it will turn out that most of these jobs were temporary ones.

2. Automation

Oh come on, we've all heard about it, and it is only going to make life easier, how is that going to be a threat to us? You see companies automate with one simple motto in their minds. To reduce costs and increase profits. Now when an inter connected world allows each company to use the technology being developed by several others, it leads to mass scale disruption. Drones are here, driver less cars are now, free internet calling is troubling telcos. So why should we worry? You see all this automation reduces the number of people required to perform a certain task. All this automation also means a lot of resources are simply available for free. Wikipedia shut down encyclopedia, lot of people don't buy watches because their phone tells them the time, the printing industry is suffering, most art forms are so easily available to watch, download that it hurts the ones who used to make a living off it.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Because I think we need to prepare. We need to think fast. All this is happening faster that we imagined. I see most people still hoping about how they will keep growing forever, not realising that we can all be replaced by a younger, better skilled individual, or simply a machine. Experience helps, but not when the very thing you were experienced in goes out of fashion.

Related reading -

This is the most dangerous time for our planet - Stephen Hawking https://bit.ly/2fYoBGt

Automation will make 20 crore young Indians jobless in next 9 years, - Mohandas Pai https://bit.ly/2fYlnmm

It’s time to brush up on your science fiction - R Sukumar https://bit.ly/2fYr5V9