Is the National on CBC news world right about men's work being phased out because of robotics?

Uneducated and unskilled men, sure.

Driving a truck, factory work, deliveries – those will soon be easily automated jobs.

Building and maintaining the trucks, the factory robots, and delivery drones – those will be good jobs!

Also plumbing, HVAC, health care – always-custom jobs that are essentially physical cannot be outsourced overseas.

It is a possibility.

What will happen to the Protestant work ethic that is pervasive in US society if a 40 hour work week is no longer a viability?

We need to come up with a new paradigm that will give meaning to the lives of, and provide sustenance for those who will be affected by such a change.

Nobody can say for sure. In the past, mechanization of factories at first reduced jobs but then opened up more jobs. In the case of robotics this may not happen. Robots keep getting smarter. There just may end up not being many jobs that they can’t do better than we can.

I saw a report on that and, yes, it is true. Been going on for years. But they can’t replace all people with robots.

The country has already transitioned from a manufacturing to a service economy and there are lots of good paying jobs in IT which didn’t exist 20 or 30 years ago. The key to adapting to automation is an education system that prepares students for the jobs of the future.