Unemployment causes a third world war---extinction

In 2013 an Oxford Study indicated that up to one half of all jobs in the United States are at risk of being fully automated in the next 20 years. More recently, the McKinsey Global Institute posited a lesser number; that up to one-fifth of the global workforce will be affected by 2030. That study suggests that up to one-third of the workforce in richer nations like the United States and Germany will be replaced.

Even if the percentage only ends up being 12% to 22% in the US, as the McKinsey report suggests, such unemployment rates would be the greatest percentage of job loss in the United States since the Great Depression. In those years literally a quarter of all Americans were out of work. Remember, these most recent predictions are estimates for just 12 years away. So, in a very real way, the clock is ticking…

Of course, it should be noted that the societal and cultural situations that we face today are quite a bit different than those of the 1930’s. But it is also worth noting that it was mass unemployment in Germany during the Great Depression that undergirded the events that led to the Second World War. Those who remember history will also remember that – once the Great Depression hit the United States – it lasted a decade and the unemployment rate in America didn’t drop below 10% until after the U.S. entered the Second World War and began mass military production which reinvigorated the economy.

Obviously, given the modern advances in warfare, a potential Third World War would devastate humanity. But assuming that global war can be avoided, a loss of jobs of this magnitude would likely still shake the foundations of society creating new levels of unimagined poverty, increased income inequality between the rich and the poor and heightened racial & ethnic divisions. What makes things worse is that global governments are wildly unprepared even if this type of scenario transpires in the mildest of ways.