Da Vinci's predictions of a helicopter weren't looking too good 170 years ago either. The history of flight in general is a great story of old dreams becoming reality.

And the dream has a simple origin, we knew birds could fly, so why couldn't humans?

The Industrial Revolution posed a similar question, if machines can do some kinds of work, why can't they do every kind of work?

A cynic would ask, what happens to the workers when there's no work? But I suspect the scarier question is, what happens when there's not enough work for everyone to be employed?

And modern transportation creates another question of what happens when the remaining work is happening elsewhere?

That was kind of true, until the existence of the communist USSR, and the great depression and it's results(among them WW2), made the ruling class in Europe/US pay more attention to workers.

Do we need to pass through that kind of trouble in order to pay attention ?