From my earliest days of childhood there has existed the notion that someday automation would make human beings obsolete. Computers have made millions of jobs extinct; companies with say thousands of employees would require a corresponding sized bookkeeping department. However with computer automation the number of employees has no relationship with the number of book keeping employees. John Deere for example has an engine factory that is almost completely automated, a human programs the machine and loads the engine blocks onto the line. As the engine blocks move down the line the computer gives instructions and low paid humans visually inspect the machines performance for quality control, the humans have become the robots and the robots the workers.

An American utility contractor working in Mexico explained to his Mexican foreman where they needed a hole dug for the new sewer line. The next day the American found a gang of twenty laborers digging the required hole, incredulous he exclaimed get a backhoe out here and you can have that done in twenty minutes! The foreman explained that a backhoe would cost a hundred and fifty dollars and the laborers earned five dollars a day and without the work their families would go hungry. This is the crux of what we face having the capability to do away with most of the labor force on the planet. Do we now spout slogans and jargon about being universally competitive? Do they move on to another planet to look for work? Are we no longer our brother’s keeper?

From the dawn of time humans banded together in groups for their own survival and prosperity, this commitment predates writing. There are no founding documents or spoken covenant expressing this mutual contract it is part of our humanity, a component of who we are. As our societies advanced and we adopted rulers either because of their military prowess or organizational abilities, the mutual covenant arose. The leader or leaders would provide leadership and protection to their subjects and the subjects for their part would supply the labor or military service to the leadership. It was expressly a codependent relationship; neither side could or would prosper without the other.

The initial unit of humanity the family that banded together with other families and through common cause then became our extended families. In my own childhood we would have people who would come to family functions the Dunmore’s asking my mother how they were related to us, she explained their Grandfather came to America with your Grandfather. Not family but pseudo family but just the same we had common cause we struggled together. From genetic units to marriage connections to common cause we struggled together with the goal of survival and prosperity always mutually dependant on each other.

For six thousand years the emphisis had been survival, regardless of government or religion climate or topography nothing changed the basic goal of society. Communities became countries that expanded our human families.

Crafts and guilds were developed

To advance the society, Pharaohs bought grain, not because they thought of financial gain But because it was there duty to do so. No one else had the resources; he was the leader who felt it necessary to protect his people from famine. Roman emperors passed out bread and cash to the poor not out of altruism but out of practical considerations. Starving people committed crime and rioted; one serious fire would cost more than ten years bread.

Was this civilization or the decline in civilization? The feeding of people not out of duty not because you owe them your concern as their leader but because it was cost effective? The Pilgrims with their Mayflower compact codified the no work no food ethic, whether this was out of any true concern for shiftlessness or more a part of their religious beliefs. For these were religious zealots who had been asked to leave two religiously tolerant countries. That being so, sailing across a treacherous ocean in a tiny vessel to an unknown wilderness one could hardly be expecting easy days and leisure time. Like their forbearers they mutually depended on each other for mere survival.

Every Religion on the planet decrees as a central tenant that we must care for each other and we are brothers and sisters in the religious family of man. Regardless of our personal beliefs whether we see this as God inspired or mere superstition, here it is again the founding principle of humanity the banding together for survival and prosperity in this world as well as in the next. Zealots and religious extremist use these doctrines to further their own political gains under the mantle of Gods will. They see the execution of the religion's doctrines as more important then perusing the founding tenants of the religion giving us martyrs, suicide bombers and kamikaze pilots. They genuinely believe that their religion or nation is under attack and that they are defending it. Trying to assure its survival in what they see as the only way possible.