There's nothing inane about the argument. Have you ever been to Detroit? I've lived there for years. It's a horrible thing for these people to have been replaced by automation in their lifetimes. They didn't see the benefits in the increased productivity like their employers did, they just lost their livelihood and had to scramble for jobs that paid much less while simultaneously trying to retrain into other fields, if they were enterprising. The entire region is obviously devastated from the effects of it. Their prior automated work being "unfulfilling" and therefore terrible is a) debatable and b) nothing compared to the struggle of having no income at all. One guy I knew ended up homeless after he lost his job, then with a leg amputation because of frostbite from sleeping outside. When I met him he was making a living ticket scalping in his wheelchair all day. The short term consequences are real and terrible for these people.