It's still possible that an individual's life ends up being ruined by losing a job. It can't be helped, it's a part of life, and I don't think we should just end all progress because people depend on jobs.

I agree with you as far as you go, but the effect can be even broader, especially in the medium term. Large scale automation and shipping jobs overseas have destroyed economies like those in pittsburgh and detriot.

Which is to say, sometimes automation isn't better for anyone really except the CEOs who pocket the increased profits, even looking at it from the widest possible angle and the longest term.

Realistically whats going to happen to these truck drivers as a demographic isnt that theyll get new, better jobs. Most of them will get new worse jobs as unskilled labor where theyll be making much less money. Because lets face it, if youre driving a truck for a living its not like you have a masters in computer science in your back pocket as a back up. Some of them will get no jobs at all. They'll be really poor, and eventually theyll die. There might be a few, especially younger people, for whom a burgeoning new industry represents an opportunity, but most of them it will be just poverty and death.

I mean the death was going to happen one way or the other... but for most of them their lives will be worse for having lost the jobs up until then.

So what happened to the other 78%+ percent? Are they unemployed because a machine replaced them? Of course not. Advancements in technology helped make food more abundant, which freed up the labor of those farmers to make other products and provide alternative services.

I feel like your causation is backwards here. Farmers didn't lose their jobs because of the industrial revolution, they left their agricultural jobs for better jobs in industry created by the industrial revolution.

The farm owners had to automate (with tractors and such) i assume, to compensate for the increased cost of labor that came from competing industrial interests hiring the relatively unskilled workers that they used to be the only ones to hire.

In places where they could not do this (like the south) the industrial revolution never really happened.

The new industry created by the industrial revolution created new jobs... it had nothing to do with cheaper or more abundant food. In fact, food got more expensive during the industrial revolution, especially in england and western europe where it started. This was due partially to the labor shortage, and partially to war and increased foriegn demand.