I gave up reading every single post after a while, my apologies to the people I missed. I'm impressed, though, that everyone in this high-tech crowd seems to be pessimistic.
Let's step back a bit and look at how we live, compared to how people lived in, say, 1823. Most people were producing food for a living. The estimates vary from 70% or so (probably this is the fraction of workers) to 90% (which is quoted as the number of people living on farms). Producing food is, of course, essential, and in 1823, a thoughtful person might have said that the remaining jobs were there to aid agriculture, and that anything else was frivolous luxury. (This isn't a fair representation of Jefferson's views, but it is close enough.) Today, the fraction of people living or working on farms is tiny. As this transition occurred, people went into continuous panic mode. Farms were too efficient, we have to pay people to not grow things! We have to buy excess wheat and corn to save the farmer! There isn't a big enough market for manufactured goods, so we need to limit production and have a 30 hour work week! Sound silly? It was behind a lot of the New Deal thinking, almost a century ago. As computers became cheaper and more powerful, huge numbers of middle-class jobs in data-driven industries like insurance went away, but you don't here much about the starving file clerks and telephone operators. It is certainly very hard on people when they lose jobs and are too old to learn a new one, or they understandably don't want to move, but life is better now than it was in the past.
I know a lot of people think it was better when I was a kid, in the 50s and 60s, but we survive by forgetting the less pleasant things, like being afraid of getting polio, or living in a two bedroom house with no air conditioning and two or more kids. To go farther back, I know the house where my dad grew up--Grandma, Grandpa, 4 boys and two girls in a three-bedroom house that didn't have electricity, indoor plumbing, or central heat.
I think it is easy to overlook the fact that we have been way beyond providing just the essentials for a long time. Most economic activity is now providing goods and services of increasing sophistication, and so far people have adapted to the changes. I don't think it is going to get worse, I think it will get better. Either way, we will see.
If you aren't convinced that I'm a complete idiot, a good book to look at is Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist. Agree or disagree, it is through-provoking and, if you end up agreeing, it will reduce your worry. And if you are convinced that I'm a complete idiot, that's ok, too.