Btw, a so called "burger flipper" isn't hired just to flip burgers. Even if you had an unlimited budget with current technology you could not build a robot to perform all the tasks a "burger flipper" does at a restaurant.
Harry On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 12:43 AM, H LV <hveeder...@gmail.com> wrote: > Of course they are doing it to make money and they don't care if their > products put people out of work. The point is employers aren't going to use > robots in the service sector if the robots are more expensive and/or less > flexible than a human. I think most people on the list are unaware of how > subservient labour has become over the last 30 years with stagnate real > wage growth, the decline of unions and labour codes being rewritten to > allow for a more flexible workforce. > > Harry > > > On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 4:55 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> H LV <hveeder...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> the other automation you speak off will proceed slowly as long as social >>> security for "working age" men and women is linked to paid employment. >>> >> The people developing this technology are doing it to make money. They >> don't care whether their products put people out of work. >> >> Let me be blunt and say that I developed many software products which put >> people out of work. I was automating work that was previously done by >> people. I knew that. Everyone knew that. It did not slow us down. To be >> honest, it did not bother us. We did it to make money, and to save the >> customer money. >> >> At present, Amazon.com is taking jobs away from enormous numbers of >> people in retail. Far more than the total number industrial workers, or >> miners being put out of work by the decline in coal consumption. Retail has >> lost about 100,000 jobs from October 2016 to May 2017, which is more than >> the total number of miners. ". . . [D]epartment stores have lost 18 times >> more workers than coal mining since 2001." >> >> https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-sil >> ent-crisis-of-retail-employment/523428/ >> >> This is deeply regrettable for the people losing their jobs. I hate to >> think of it. I sympathize with them. I hope society can help them, and I >> hope they find other employment. But I am not going to stop using >> Amazon.com. I seldom went to malls in the past, and I am going to go to >> them now, out of charity. I do not see how anything can slow down this >> trend, and I do not think it would be a good idea to try to slow it down. >> Amazon.com will not do anything to "ensure security" for "working age men >> and women." No corporation would. Any corporation that tries would be >> bankrupted by the competition. That is how capitalism works. >> >> Capitalism cannot solve this problem. Society as a whole must address it. >> I doubt there are any clean, neat, quick or inexpensive solutions. >> >> - Jed >> >> >
