Calling him a loser also means largely discarding anything he says without any consideration. The fact is, we've done that with large classes of people (in every country, in every time) who feel that the "current" (whatever it is at the time) system or progress is harming them. Eventually, they boil over to become either the majority or mobilized minority army and we have chaos in a country, region, or globally.

This letter speaks rather directly to our contemporary issue of technology displacing non-degreed workers. Either by exporting the jobs (cheaper transport, better logistics), eliminating or reducing the number of people required (increased automation), or increasing the technical sophistication required (again, automation but also increasing presence of computer systems and more complex tooling). It's pretty obvious in the present discussions (and the most recent US presidential election) that people are feeling a great deal of fear and hardship because of our direction over the past 30-40 years (in particular). We have to confront these issues. Otherwise, a lack of consideration or deliberation (publicly) is a tacit endorsement of the current direction and its negative effects on large blocks of our fellow humans and citizens.

It really is a sad and fascinating story. For those who don't know and are curious:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...