This review is long overdue and I find myself often referring back to bits and pieces I’ve read.

The War On Normal People is a frightening commentary of our American economy and how ever advancing technology has already and will continue to create an epic scale of unemployment. More and more jobs are being eliminated as a result of “automation” and how is this affecting our society? Humans being rendered useless or irrelevant because their skillset is easily replaced by robotics, artificial intelligence, and all our modern day technology? What future can we look to?

The War On Normal People examines the future and the concept of a Universal Basic Income which would provide a guaranteed income for “normal people”. The author feels this “UBI” concept is a necessary and unavoidable step to create a more stable and long lasting type of economy - an economy akin to “human capitalism”.

An excellent and engaging read! Thank you Hachette Books and NetGalley for the advance digital ebook!

Move over Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Mama has a new issue to plague her sleepless nights.

In The War on Normal People, Yang, outlines the upcoming employment crisis to hit the United States. With increasing measures by businesses and organizations to make all things automated for reasons of "productivity and efficiency", he lists the industries most in jeopardy due to technological advancements. Industries include but are not limited to: Office and Administrative Assistant, Sales and Retail,, Food Preparation, Transportation, and Production.

As a fairly new resident of the Midwest I can personally attest that the Transportation industry is in jeopardy. If you've ever driven on I-65 you know that no matter the time of day Semi's are overwhelmingly ubiquitous. When Yang cites that truck driving will go automated in the next ten to fifteen years due to "national competitiveness and human welfare" it's hard to develop an argument against it. We've all been held up in traffic due to an accident that was later deemed in full or partial fault to trucker driver negligence. Yet when you look at the statistics for accidents of the automated trucks being tested in Ohio and California it is virtually non-existent.

For this argument in particular, what are the solutions? Well, Yang against outlines a few possibilities, many of which seem as grim as the decline of employment and the increase of unemployment. Yet he ends optimistically enough by saying that many companies are already trying to change their work ethic to something more "human." Human capitalism as he calls it places more value on the human doing the task than on profit driven capitalism. Is this enough? Probably not, but the fight is in all of us not to stand by and let AI take over, and chances are that we will fight because as AI eliminates our opportunities we as a people will finally understand what it means to unite as one, to stand and fight for society's future. The bottom line is we do not want our future generations living in what used to only be true in dystopian novels and unfortunately it may take hitting rock bottom for many of us to realize it.