Today is Tomorrow's Past

What I consider to be the present as of this writing will someday be the distant past.

I've never been this age before. In twenty years, Lord willing I live that long, I can look back on the decisions I'm making now, and on the perspective I had on the world and my circumstances in it, and I'll have some context; I'll be able to name the mistakes and the successes. 

That's why they say hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?

When I'm 46 rather than 26, I'll understand better what an impact my having taken Josiah porcupine hunting today had on how he thought of himself, or the world, or me, or porcupines.

I'll understand how choices I'm making now on how to manage money set my family up for either more economic uncertainty, or else more peace of mind.

It'll be clear to me how the relationships and disciplines I forged at work helped me to build this or that kind of career and skill set, and how that career opened up opportunities or limited them for me and mine.

There are some things I'm sure I'll regret not having figured out sooner: people-pleasing, humility, how to appropriately and respectfully give and receive rebukes, how to tend to details without losing sight of the thoughts and feelings of those around me. 

I could go on. 

I regret those things now; why wouldn't I still regret them in 20 years?

I've been thinking about what I'll leave to my sons some day. My example, what I've taught them, memories of time spent with me - beyond that, what's certain? 

If I left them $1 million, would that be enough to hang a hat on? What about a huge property with thousands of acres? What about a profitable company? The wealth could be squandered, the property might be neglected, and any profitable company could be mismanaged or driven out of business by trickery or exceptional competition.

I consider myself a writer; perhaps I overestimate my ability to write well. But what if I left the boys a stack of books I'd written, or what if they were given a trunk full of my journals? Surely my writings could sit in obscurity, or be hidden away as amateurish or embarrassing, or they might be misunderstood or misinterpreted. In such cases, is there any lasting glory to my having written in the first place?

The fact is, despite my anxiety over potentially amounting to nothing in life, my self-worth and enduring legacy depend on more than just being able to generate a paycheck with a high dollar figure, or my ability to pass along significant property and wealth, or my ability to curry favor with the masses.

What if I become President of the United States some day? Would that mean my life was a success? Surely not, if taking a glance at others who've held that office is any indication. Often, there are nearly as many who hate the chief executive as there are those who admire him; and who but historians and professors can even name all the presidents who served in the 1800's, much less tell you the decisions each made and how impactful those decisions were on the world? So it will be in the 23rd century, I suppose, that there will be as little memory of who all occupied the oval office in the 21st as we have now for those who served in the 19th. That is, assuming our political system survives into the 23rd century - quite a big assumption, if you ask me, given the way things are going now.

Is there anything I could say, or build, or do which will certainly have lasting value? 

It's impossible to say whether my great, great grandchildren will learn my name, or take any interest in what I've done. What's more, it's difficult to say whether they should. 

"A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children,

but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous."

- Proverbs 13:22

That passage became a prominent one in my self-evaluation and planning a few years ago when I heard Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA talk about the biblical call for men to take responsibility for themselves, their families, their churches, their communities, etc. Between when I first heard mention of Proverbs 13:22 in that context and just yesterday, I think I've interpreted this passage to mean that if I'm a good man, I'll make sure my grandchildren have some sort of money or wealth set aside for them in my will.

That's probably still true, but just yesterday, as my thoughts wandered the way they typically do, another possible interpretation became apparent. 

What if the inheritance a good man leaves to his grandchildren is the good example he set for them to follow, and the good upbringing he gave their parents, and the fruit of the good decisions he made which caused a chain-reaction of blessings for them as well?

For instance: what if the inheritance I leave to the children of Josiah David Mullet, Elihu James Mullet, Solomon Emmanuel Mullet, and Daniel Joseph Mullet (etc.) is that I read the Scriptures to their fathers before bed? Or what if the inheritance to my grandchildren is that my wife and I steadfastly committed to educating their fathers at home? What if, regardless of whether I go to my grave an elderly pauper, I'll leave a legacy behind which is worth immeasurably more than a plump bank account, a grand mansion, or a famous name?

It's too easy to allow myself to be tricked into thinking I'll be worth only so much as the money I accumulate and keep. And, by extension, since the money comes from work, I'll be worth only so much as the job I'm able to land and keep and advance in.

What's infinitely more significant than missing 10 hours worth of overtime in my paycheck two weeks from now is losing my temper when the boys make a mistake or are behaving in an undisciplined way; what's far more pressing is that I don't make up foolish, unjust, oppressive rules they couldn't hope to follow, or which they would follow to their detriment; what's way more important is not setting a bad example by my own attitude, habits, relationships, speech, choices, etc. 

Lord help me.

There's Always a Bigger Fish

I recently went over to the home of a cousin of mine for the afternoon to shoot some firearms, 10 guns in all between his, his dad's, our Grandpa Mullet's, a rifle from his other grandfather, and a shotgun of mine.

Guns, like many things, have limitations.

Take my Remington 870 Tactical, for instance. It has the shortest legal barrel at 18", a pistol grip, adjustable stock; I've added a tactical flashlight to it just in front of the pump; it looks beastly!

Take it out trapshooting, however, and you're going to find it woefully inadequate next to my uncle's 870 variant with the traditional stock and longer barrel. They're both 12 gauge, but one performs markedly better at shooting clay pigeons accurately.

And that's how they've been designed. My shotgun isn't so much for hunting birds as they fly through the air as it is for tactical operations. I bought my shotgun in case someone ever tries to break into our home in the middle of the night, or in case some wild animal is roaming around the yard and threatens our boys.

I've been following the gun control debate these past months, and the rhetoric has me thinking - about politics, about polarization, about the difference between urban, suburban and rural mindsets, about the balance between liberty and security, and about the relationship of citizens to their government. 

Many provocative questions come to mind. For instance:

Are gun control opponents and 2nd amendment defenders paranoid or pragmatic about the possibility of a tyrannical government taking hold in America, and the need for citizens to be armed so as to discourage or deter such a government from blatant abuses?

If such a tyranny were to take hold, would it occur suddenly and conspicuously, or by degrees and quietly to where the majority of Americans would fail to recognize the tyranny until it was firmly established?

If such a tyranny were to take hold, would there even be any point in resisting, and is the 2nd amendment proposed as a safeguard against tyranny a moot point when our police forces and military are already so heavily armed, and are in fact the most advanced and powerful in the world?

Even if evenly matched, would there be a moral or ethical basis, support or framework for fighting against the official government of one's country, as the colonies fought against the British during the Revolutionary War, or as some argue the Confederacy fought against the Union in the Civil War?

Such questions are dangerous, perhaps, but they're too obvious to be ignored. 

The issue of the moment now is gun control. On the one side, the President and many prominent liberals contend that America is unsafe with certain guns, or so many guns, or certain people getting guns. In order to protect us from ourselves and one another, they must erect barriers to purchasing weapons, at least certain weapons, at least for certain persons deemed dangerous.

Am I to object if the criminal, the bad man, is prevented from acquiring a weapon prior to breaking into my home? Surely if he's disarmed before disturbing our domestic tranquility this is for the best, and hopefully I'll not ever have to fire my own weapon at such a man! That is my preference. But will gun control legislation achieve such a goal, or will it simply penalize me, with time or money or some other inconvenience, for acquiring a weapon? And if penalizing, will it prevent in so far as it discourages?

And if the President and other liberals have considered that criminals are not stopped by gun control laws, that only law-abiding citizens obey laws about guns or any other thing, and if these liberals proceed with gun control legislation anyhow, it's not difficult to see how gun control opponents can quickly object on the grounds that a tyrannical government must first disarm it's citizens in order to minimize their ability to resist tyranny.

But there again, what is tyranny? If I disagree with a law, is that enough to make that law tyrannical, or is the government which enforces that law therefor oppressing me? Surely not, since then every man in a prison could contend that he is not at fault for having stolen his neighbor's stereo, or raping that woman, or beating that man to death at the bar; no, his government must be the one at fault for having made laws which he deemed tyrannical and overly-restrictive. But that can't be! Such would be anarchy and ridiculous.

The intelligent, thoughtful proponent of liberty will contend that this is not what is meant by tyranny, however. Tyranny is taking a freedom away from me which my exercising would not have harmed any other person. But who will decide what is harmful to other persons? 

Is my selling you a 16 oz. soda which might contribute to your becoming obese or contracting diabetes, considering that obesity and diabetes are clearly harmful, different only by degrees from my shooting or stabbing you? I've never heard anyone dispute that the government should make and enforce laws against unlawful, unprovoked shootings and stabbings; but many are offended by NYC Mayor Bloomberg attempting to outlaw large sodas. 

Is Bloomberg a tyrant, however benevolent, or are those who object merely ignorant peasants who don't know what's best for them, who object like an inmate who's been convicted of larceny, rape, assault or murder, that the government is at fault for making a law they don't want to obey?

Is Obama a tyrant, or are those who object simply rebellious and insubordinate subjects who need to be reminded of their place?

I get to thinking, even if we were ruled by tyrants, what responsibility have we as Christians? We must speak the truth in love, boldly and clearly and courageously. But what would we have said in the days of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? 

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

Romans 13:1

Was King George a tyrant, or were the colonists traitors who offended godliness and order by opposing him as they did? Was the Confederacy a legitimate motion to affirm the liberty of those States which seceded, or was Lincoln a hero for boldly opposing a wicked and racist society which had chosen to take up arms against it's government rather than submit to reform?

I don't know. If you've read this far, perhaps you were hoping I'd make some lofty, impassioned argument one way or the other. Perhaps you're undecided and you wanted me to help you make up your mind. Perhaps you're firmly in one camp or the other and you were hoping to hear me affirm your presuppositions about the topic. I can't do that, though - not sincerely, anyhow.

The fact is that I have misgivings about universally defending liberty against restriction; there are freedoms which I and others clearly benefit from forgoing, even if only when we restrict ourselves willingly by conscience and good judgment.

I am deeply inclined in my heart and mind and soul to oppose tyranny with forceful, firm arguments, and to look with disdain on threats of violent opposition to government, which I see as disorderly and wicked, and such a disdain could only be parted with in very extreme and dramatic and obvious circumstances. I consider myself open-minded when it comes to laws and legislation, except where my conscience dictates that this or that matter is firmly in the black or white, and then I vote with my conscience.

Meanwhile I look on politics as being eternally adversarial, but also increasingly polarized and polarizing in this country. I continue to wonder, without some moderating or unifying event, issue or character, whether we will find America embroiled in another civil war in my time. And if there were a civil war, what would I do? Again, I realize this is dangerous to suppose publicly, but what is more dangerous is for the trend to continue in our nation until two opposing sides have no ability to both save face and compromise. 

What concerns me more than the possibility of raising eyebrows is the notion that our political system, that our civil institutions, cannot find resolutions for the tough questions with all sides conducting themselves with integrity and mutual respect.

Just like a gun is designed with certain purposes and limitations, so too are arguments and proposals. My cousin and I spending the afternoon cheerfully taking turns shooting at targets to see who's the better shot, and to test out how each firearm performs - this is dramatically different from he and I taking turns firing at one another to do each other harm. One scenario will see us concluding the day, each with more experience and a smile on our face; the other will end tragically, with tears and bloodshed. 

So goes the nation. 

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

"Kids Belong to Whole Communities"

"We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of 'These are our children.' So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it's everybody's responsibility and not just the household's, then we start making better investments."

- Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC

More Thoughts on Melissa Harris-Perry's Ad

I realize that there are single parent situations where that one parent is working two or more jobs, and there are families in which both parents work. What am I going to say in their cases, that the children should be ignored by everyone and fall through the cracks? No. 

On the other hand, what if you have children in a family like mine? I work, my wife stays home with the boys and cares for and educates them. Do my wife and I need to "break through this notion of children belonging to their parents"? 

Suppose we adopt a notion that my children belong to the community. Can the community take a vote and decide that my children will attend the public schools along with the majority, and could such a vote be used to overrule the decision my wife and I have made to teach our children at home? If my children aren't really mine, but belong rather to the collective, then the answer is yes. The collective must have the say if they have the primary responsibility.

Children need more than just time with their families. Children need their parents taking responsibility for them, more rather than less, in the time they're spending. They need parents instructing them, providing for them, protecting them, guiding them, being examples for them. That's way better than parents just sending their children off to public schools wherein they're lost in a sea of peer pressure, bad influences, chaotic standards and relativism.

One of the problems with parents ceding responsibility for children to the community, which the wording of Melissa Harris-Perry's public service announcement is clearly advocating, is that you have parents opting out. This already happens, sure, whether the MSNBC host is encouraging more of it or not. But we can't just spot the trend and say, "Let's just go with the flow and tell all the parents to opt out, since a lot of them already are."

Is this egalitarianism in disguise? Do we feel so sorry for children growing up in homes with only one parent that we, not wanting them to feel inferior somehow to children growing up in homes with two parents, will just find a way to bring those children with two parents down?

Such would be philosophically consistent with liberal views on wealth distribution, where Margaret Thatcher once pointed out, "He would rather the poor were poorer, so long as the rich were less rich." 

If we focus more on reducing the gap than on doing what's best for all children, we might very well advocate for this dichotomous view wherein the community always raises children better than their parents. But think of the implications. 

I keep thinking of the psychological phenomenon known as diffusion of responsibility. It's the same effect which causes a large crowd of onlookers to do nothing while a man is shoved onto the tracks of a subway; the collective inaction allows each person to tell themselves that it's not their problem, that someone else will get to it. We cannot as a culture do that en-masse with our children. It will have disastrous results, not unlike what happens to the victim of that subway train.

Diffusion of Parental Responsibility: A Response to Melissa Harris-Perry

I recently posted to my Facebook this meme that's been circulating which includes the quote from Melissa Harris-Perry alongside her picture, then two quotes below from Adolf Hitler, alongside his picture. In the interest of being fair, I'm posting the video from which those quotes from the MSNBC host were taken.

I'll add that what she's saying sounds nice. Who can legitimately argue against society taking responsibility for the children? 

Children need to be taken care of! 

But here's my question: just because some other men abandon their children and create a vacuum which needs to be filled by other family members, teachers, other persons in the community, does that mean I need to "break through" this notion of my sons being mine? And if so, for what? So the community can raise my children also?

 The cure for what ails American education and child-rearing is not diffusion of responsibility throughout the community, where everyone (and no one) takes responsibility for the raising of children; the cure is mothers and fathers stepping up and taking responsibility for teaching, protecting, and providing for the children they've brought into this world. 

Listening to Melissa Harris-Perry, you would think this is the problem rather than the answer.

I'm not for abandoning orphans, or neglecting children whose parents are not instructing them. But does our entire nation have to turn into an orphanage in order to fix the problem?

"Investing in public education" would mean, for my family, taxing my income more in order to pay for someone else's child to be educated. But what if I need to keep that money for myself so I can educate my own children? 

My wife and I will educate our children at home, and spare them an inept and detrimental public education system. So we need money for curriculum, school supplies, field trips, education apps on the iPad, etc. When Melissa Harris-Perry takes $500 out of my pocket to pay for society's efforts to educate American children, that means I have $500 less to spend on educating my own. 

And let's just make this clear: I would spend that $500 far better than she or some bureaucrat would. And at least my wife and I aren't subtracting from that $500 to pay our personal salary, or to pay for metal detectors, or any number of other things which the public schools have to "invest" in.

What's being advocated here, I'm afraid, is further encroachment by our government on our personal liberties. You have to sell taking control over everyone else's children in a soft and compassionate way, but what happens when there's resistance to the idea?

In Germany, you have your children taken away, you're slapped with a fine, you're sent to jail. And according to the Justice Department, in America, the government that plants a flag on your children and tells you to get lost is in the right, and you as a parent are in the wrong if you don't salute and get marching.

We need to think critically of the implications here.

The Romeike Family - German Homeschoolers in America

I signed the HSLDA petition this morning asking that the Romeike family, German homeschoolers who've sought political asylum in America, be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Home education in America has been legal for a while. I remember hearing about a challenge in recent years in California which involved a judge denying that parents have a constitutional right to educate their children at home (Criminalizing Home Schoolers, TIME, 3-7-08), and I know some states are more lenient while others are more intrusive when it comes to laws governing home education. It is at least legal here, though.

According to the website for the National Center for Education Statistics, homeschoolers in 2007 numbered about 1.5 million in the U.S., or about 3% of American students (NCES).

I was educated at home from the second half of 1st grade up until my senior year of high school. My wife and I began homeschooling the eldest of our four sons just this year, as he entered kindergarten, and we are committed to educating him and his brothers all the way through til graduation of high school.

What reasons have we for bucking the trend of public education? Many.

First off, these are our children; God gave us the responsibility for training and caring for them. We're not merely a breeding pair, my wife and I. We are their father and mother. Someday we will stand before Almighty God and give an account for how we taught, trained, protected and provided for these children. We take this seriously.

The public education system is bloated, bureaucratic, inefficient, chaotic, relativistic, amoral, godless, and incapable. It's a monstrosity that should be reformed or abolished. Sadly, however, there doesn't seem to be real accountability. Diffusion of responsibility is at least partly to blame.

It seems to me as though children who attend public schools are educated despite, not because of, the system. I want my children to be able to read proficiently, do advanced math, learn the lessons of history, acquire a fundamental grasp of the sciences - I'm not confident that the American public education system has a good record in this regard sufficient to warrant my confidence that sending my children to them would present a high chance of meaningful education happening. It feels as though I'd be rolling the dice.

Public schools are physically unsafe. Children bring guns to school and shoot up their classmates. When in the world would I have to worry about that with homeschooling?

Teachers have sex with students, students are taught to embrace as legitimate and praiseworthy sexual immorality, and are not taught to abstain from sex outside of marriage, but instead are given condoms and a moral vacuum in which to experiment with one another, get pregnant, contract STDs, and reap emotional and spiritual mayhem, all in the name of moral relativism and expressing themselves. So long as there's a morning after pill or abortion-on-demand to keep them from ruining their lives, we'll look the other way.

Back to the actual education part of the equation, the students in public schools are so distracted by pressures from their peer group to conform to various changing standards of coolness in fashion, music taste, attitude, interest, etc. that they don't focus on their subjects.

Public schools hold children in an artificial, unhelpful and unnecessary environment that requires either the advanced students to be held back in order to prop up average test scores for the students who are not progressing, or else the students who are not progressing are dragged along mindlessly in order to keep up with the advanced children, or else both simultaneously in order to reach the biggest possible group of students in the center! What is accomplished is neglect of many and, at best, a commitment to mediocrity for the majority. Meanwhile teachers are burnt out, students are disillusioned, and a great failure is being tolerated and propped up.

Public education is forbidden from including any godly, biblical or moral content in the instruction. What is produced then, putting aside any private attempts by parents or churches, is a godless, amoral education which explains all things in a naturalistic, utilitarian way, and scrubs a young person's convictions away implicitly (sometimes also explicitly) by the example set, discouraging them from having, exercising, or especially sharing convictions. That is to say that children are trained to be godless.

What is taught instead of a Biblical, Judeo-Christian worldview is a theory and philosophy of origins which is contradictory and hostile to the Biblical account, implying that either there is no God at all, or else the god we should worship is that absent watchmaker the Deists believed in. This Deist's god is not the type who would've sent Jesus to atone for your sins, not the type who would have intervened in human affairs to perform signs and wonders, or to give revelations of truth or his will - quite the contrary. If and when the existence of the supernatural is not denied, it is so insidiously and persistently implied to be ridiculous, backwards, ignorant, intolerant and harmful that I cannot conclude that the system, insofar as it is religious, is anything but anti-Christ.

How then am I to proceed as a Christian man with children?

• If I see it as my duty and obligation to protect these children, but I see the public education system as harmful in many ways; 
• If I see it as my duty to instruct these children and ensure they're prepared with a knowledge and understanding of the world and their place in it which will help them to make wise, informed decisions in their adult life, but I see the public education system as severely deficient in this regard; 
• If I see it as my duty to weave into daily instruction an understanding of God's Word and ways, a personal discipline and sense of right and wrong which will help my sons know how to be honorable, upright men, and how to respond to vile and wicked men in the world, and if I feel that the public education system is operating with complete negligence in this regard where it is not operating counter-productive to these ends;

How can I send my children to be educated by the public schools?

Consider this court document in the Romeike case, which I read this morning, and place yourself in my shoes. I find myself wondering about parents having their children taken away by a government, as the German government will do once this family is returned to their country. 

How can this be seen as something other than persecution, especially where this German family sees their responsibility as many American homeschooling families do - namely, to educate their children themselves rather than entrusting the task to a godless, ineffective system? That is, how can we dismiss the claim of persecution unless we either minimize the legitimacy of their convictions or else downplay the pain which would be caused them by being forced to comply to a law which is contrary to their convictions?

Which is also to question how a decision can be made in favor of the German government's rights over those of this family's, and how can such be tolerated in America regarding the Romeike family without the same reasoning being used someday against American homeschooling families?

Forgive my naivete, but I was under the impression from reading history that many persons from around the world came to America to escape government overreach in their home countries, especially with regards to religious conviction.

How much more pain could you cause a parent than to take their children away from them? The court document I linked to above explains that the German government would not be enforcing their compulsory school attendance law out of a desire to hurt the Romeike parents, but is that entirely the point?

Suppose some government made up a law against breathing air. Then you could argue that the government choking the breaker of such a law to death wasn't so much about trying to hurt them, only about enforcing the law. Since when is the government the wronged party in this, when you break a ridiculous, overreaching law? Once the law is in place, can the government deny that it is in the wrong for choking the lawbreaker by explaining that the lawbreaker is really the one in the wrong for breathing air and breaking the law?

What is being asserted here is that the government reserves all rights unto itself which are not explicitly given to the people; but that is not a limited government, but rather a limited individual and an unlimited government. It will then be said that you do not have a right to do anything which has not been explicitly permitted for you to do.

Tell me truly, is there a more true definition of oppression?

Montana, and Other Wide Open Spaces

1,400 miles and nearly 15 years separated my having left Glendive, Montana and my having returned.

I was born at the Glendive Medical Center in November of 1986. My dad was a farmer in the Bloomfield area. I enjoy vivid memories of exploring those 1,600 acres of grassland and crops, especially the winding creek that ran through our property. While dad and mom worked during planting and harvest seasons, my brother and I tromped up and down that creek looking for frogs and fish, occasionally ran into snakes, and just generally enjoyed the fresh air and wide open spaces.

Now my wife and I rent a small farmhouse, north-west of Glendive by 10-15 miles, and I get to enjoy seeing our sons roaming outside. Their squeals and ruckus play as sweet percussion and accompaniment to the winds that blow undeterred over mostly treeless plains.

My parents moved with my little brother and I to Ohio when I was about 10, and I don't think it ever felt like a suitable replacement to the wide-open freedom of Big Sky Country. You can't really look in any direction in Ohio without seeing some sign of human development - power lines,  houses, businesses, roads, cars, etc. It's just too busy, too noisy, too crowded.

I feel like I can breathe out here. "Elbow room," is what they used to call it.

Will I ever forget the second broker I assisted at TQL, a woman named Shannon, who told me matter-of-factly that my having four kids was ecologically and socially irresponsible? "The planet can't support this many people," was something akin to what she told me.

I know people who'd be offended by that, but I just laughed. I think she was offended that I laughed. We didn't get along the best after that.

I was undeterred. My wife and I are expecting our fifth child in September now (unless we're having twins, which do run in the family on both sides).

It's hard when you grew up in a state as sparsely populated as Montana to take people seriously when they say the planet is overcrowded.  Montana, one of the larger states in the union, just recently hit a population of 1 million persons, and a quarter of those live in or around the city of Billings, in the center of the state.

I think those wide open spaces I grew up with influenced me in another way, helping to instill in me a distrust of authority and resistance to excessively controlling measures. You get so used to being your own boss when there aren't other people around.

Add to that how easy it is to get into a mindset of bucking the trend when you're homeschooled, and you've got a recipe for wanting to govern yourself and speak your mind.

Robots

Easter Sunday, on my way back to the office after running my route, I caught a story on the SiriusXM BBC World Service channel. In the spotlight was the present and future of economics.

Unfortunately, I do not recall the name of the two men being interviewed, either because I wasn't paying attention, or else I tuned in part-way through the program.

In any case, what did capture my attention was talk of production and job growth coming uncoupled for the first time in our history. Usually they go together - when an economy's productivity goes up, so also does job growth. Now we see productivity rising, but we're not seeing job growth.

Why is that? Because of the effects of technology. For instance, robots being used in factories where people have traditionally performed a task.

Which has me wondering: Will I someday be replaced by a robot?

It's an intriguing thought.