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Trying to save jobs that are no longer the most efficient way of solving a problem is not the way to promote the value of humanity, in my opinion. People want g
by crazypyro 10y ago
Trying to save jobs that are no longer the most efficient way of solving a problem is not the way to promote the value of humanity, in my opinion. People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy.
If humanity were to take your opinion, we'd never evolve as a society, lest we remove a need in society and with it, someones job.
- CrLf 10y agoI am unsure we are evolving. We have evolved in many areas that solve real problems, like healthcare and such, but I'm not sure today's society is any better for all the technology that allows us to save a couple of minutes in a queue. To improve the efficiency of a particular group, we create problems elsewhere. The result may not be net positive. In fact, I think it isn't, since those saved "couple of minutes" will probably be spent browsing Facebook.
- iNate2000 10y agoIt's not just time checking out that is saved. This is de facto a cashless store. Having cash on site is a liability.
- Ph0X 10y agoThe point isn't that we save 2 minutes, it's that there's now 10 less job we need. And that may seem as a negative at first, but the idea is that as more and more job get automated, prices should go down until the point where people will not have to work full weeks anymore, or rather, focus on learning and reaching higher education, rather than doing dummy work all day (aka just scanning items non stop for 8 hours).
- mikeash 10y agoIt might be worthwhile to re-frame it. Rather than say "10 fewer jobs," say "10 people are no longer forced to spend eight hours a day sitting in front of a cash register." That assumes we can find something better for them to do, of course. But man, we have to try! Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane.
- rescripting 10y agoI'm a bit worried that most of us here on HN are feverishly working on ways to automate away jobs, and there is quite a strong economic incentive for us to do so, but there is hardly any effort and no incentive for policy makers to catch those affected. Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once people no longer have to bag groceries? Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizon before things get better.
- mikeash 10y agoI totally agree. Getting rid of wasteful jobs is a good thing if you can somehow handle the people who lose those jobs, whether redirecting them to something more productive or pensioning them off or whatever. And that side of things really doesn't seem to get much attention. There's a lot of hand-wavy talk about basic income, some lip service paid to continuing education and retraining, but not a whole lot really being done to prepare.
- jimbokun 10y agoNo, no, it's all going to be OK now because there are 1000 Carrier jobs not going to Mexico.
- SamBoogieNYC 10y agoI have a notion that one of the major ways people will be spending the time they otherwise would be working is by consuming entertainment. If that notion is correct, moving towards an educational model focused around creating the components needed for general entertainment (video/AR/VR/Music etc) might alleviate the problems we'll face.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago> I have a notion that one of the major ways people will be spending the time they otherwise would be working is by consuming entertainment. Where are these people getting the money to spend on entertainment if they aren't working? I don't think this will happen. What I do see happening, however, is that people have less free time between juggling more than 1 job and a side gig with Uber/their ilk.
- CrLf 10y agoThe Earth's population isn't getting any lower, those 10 jobs lost mean 10 people that will need support from the rest of society, just to survive. It's utopian to think job losses mean everybody gets their workload reduced, as this has never happened before. Automation has never reduced anybody's workloads. In fact, every reduction has happened to either eliminate de-facto slaves (industrial revolution) or because excessive workloads actually reduce productivity.
- chongli 10y agothose 10 jobs lost mean 10 people that will need support from the rest of society, just to survive. If we have the technology to replace those people and we don't do it, then we as a society are already supporting them just to survive. You're talking about artificially maintaining inefficiency. If we're going to go down that road, we might as well start paying people to dig holes and fill them back up again.
- guntars 10y agoThey already need the support of the rest of society. No one survives on their own anymore. Automating a job like this gives more time and money back to people who buy groceries, which is almost everyone. Some of that can be used to support the lost jobs while they find something else to do.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago>Some of that can be used to support the lost jobs // It can, that's clear, the problem is convincing the people who didn't lose their jobs that they should take a take hike to support the others; that's not an easy sell in Western Capitalism at least.
- falcolas 10y ago> Automating a job like this gives more [...] money back to people who buy groceries Honestly, I think this is never going to actually be the case. Why would a grocery store lower prices just because their costs went down a bit? Neither the demand nor the supply has changed, nor has the price people are willing to pay for their groceries. If nothing has changed but your costs, why lower the prices when you can simply report increased revenue to your shareholders? If competition comes along, a quick "we're premium, they are cheap" marketing campaign (or buying them out) would probably cost less than lowering the prices to match.
- goranb 10y agoThis would work if means of production were distributed more equally. The global productivity is already at a point where many of us don't need to work, but we still do because we are denied the benefits of the automation that you mention.
- dpc59 10y agoExcept prices for living necessities won't get lower, since demand is elastic, people will just get trapped as debt slaves while corporate stockholders become the new monarchy.
- platz 10y ago> prices should go down unlikely - can think of a bunch of reasons why this wouldn't happen. > people will not have to work full weeks anymore, or rather, focus on learning and reaching higher education too idealistic - why aren't the people who "aren't working full weeks" today focusing on learning and reaching higher education? The logic doesn't work for the people already in this target group, today.
- batrat 10y agoAt the end of the day, that CEO has to make bigger profits to justify the technology investment.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> too idealistic - why aren't the people who "aren't working full weeks" today focusing on learning and reaching higher education? The logic doesn't work for the people already in this target group, today. There are many reasons. "Not working full weeks" doesn't always mean "not busy". Some of the reasons are: - they're taking care of children / sick parents - they're themselves sick or disabled (including various psychological conditions that can make you unable to perform effectively as a worker in this economy) - they don't have a way to find a job that would let them earn more than they get from benefits (going to work in such circumstances is stupidity from economic POV) - higher education they need costs money they can't get due to reasons listed above
- dap 10y agoThe claim that increased automation will enable people not to work is often cited as a defense of putting people out of work in favor of automation. This relies heavily on a number of assumptions that I think are empirically completely untested: - that automating all jobs will cause all prices to go down. (It seems just as plausible that if everything were automated, then the relatively small class of people who work building and maintaining the machines wield monopoly-like power and charge accordingly, concentrating wealth even more than it's concentrated today.) - that with lower prices, people will want less money. (It seems just as plausible that people will expect to be able to keep working and buy more to raise their standard of living.) - that the intermediate state, where many jobs are automated, but people still need to work for a living, is tenable for society - that there are no significant social problems resulting from a society where nobody has to work I don't know whether these are true or not, but if they're not, the result will greatly impact the lives of millions (billions?) of people. Obviously, banning automation isn't a solution either, but it seems flippant to bet the lives of so many people on what we think might happen in a system as complex as the global economy. [edited formatting]
- vintageseltzer 10y agoI used to believe that, but yeah, that hasn't happened and is not likely to, because the real world does not operate anywhere close to an efficient market. Instead, those with the means of production have hoarded the benefits. Despite all of our technological progress after the American industrial revolution, we are working more hours and earning less as a whole. Despite record profits, companies are not increasing wages and prices are not decreasing for anything except cheap, low-quality, mass-market consumer goods. See: trickle down economics.
- genericpseudo 10y ago> those with the means of production have hoarded the benefits And, behold, we see someone rediscovering the central tenet of Marxist economic theory. (Entirely serious; not an insult. HN readers could really do with a more balanced economic diet – reading more Marxist theory and less Chicago School...)
- burkaman 10y agoI think anyone who uses the phrase "means of production" was probably already familiar with Marxism.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoMany people know the phrase - maybe they even remember it from history lessons. But understanding what it means is often absent (as with many concepts one doesn't use) until one for some reason starts thinking about it more.
- eropple 10y agoI upvoted you, but I want to also vocally agree with you because I think it's important. Even if you don't come away agreeing with the conclusions of Marxist economists, etc., understanding it is worth the time it takes. Considering theories that are not automatically in agreement with those that currently run the show is valuable. (This is why I've read a solid chunk of the Austrians. I generally laugh at them. But I've read their stuff and I can think in it once I get into the mindset.)
- ronjouch 10y ago> "the idea is that as more and more job get automated, prices should go down until the point where people will not have to work full weeks anymore" Fallacy; apart from a short break thanks to syndicalist wins, we're just working more and more since the industrial revolution. Reading suggestions: "A People's History Of The United States" by Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky.
- Apocryphon 10y agoLosing 10 jobs to automation would be far less concerning if the businesses and individuals that cut the jobs would reinvest a greater percentage of their newfound profits into social programs to retrain the 10 people who are now without jobs. Or into a fund for the much-vaunted basic income, even.
- darpa_escapee 10y agoReminder that unions have negotiated and continue to negotiate compensation plans from employers that automate away or move jobs overseas to workers that are replaced.
- Apocryphon 10y agoUnions... in the U.S.???
- herval 10y agoIs there any evidence that reducing the number of jobs correlates to lower prices?
- wooter 10y agoThe last 300 years during which capitalism and tech have done more for the common man than any other ststem in the last 30,000.
- herval 10y agoUh... I'm not a luddite, nor comparing the modern world w/ pre-electricity society. I'm specifically asking about the assumption that "if we remove cashiers, supermarkets will obviously bring the prices down" (as a counter-example, I remember reading somewhere that Seattle's minimum wage didn't affect inflation in any meaningful way)
- gnopgnip 10y agoThink about how many bodegas, convenience stores, and small grocery stores are in large cities across the world. Now if all of those stores only had to be restocked for a few hours a day, instead of watching the till 12+ hours a day, the storekeepers would have more time to spend with their families.
- tspike 10y agoThis is naïve. In reality, the larger companies will be the ones that can afford the technological advancement, and they will eventually drive the bodegas, convenience stores, and small groceries out of business. The benefits that would otherwise accrue to the shop owners will accrue to the leadership of major corporations instead.
- gdudeman 10y agoI'd suggest we are evolving, but you are both mis-using "evolve." Evolution does not mean better, it just means change to fit the current environment. Humanity and intelligence is not the logical outcome of evolution. This feels like a natural evolution. It's a outcome product of the environment.
- sidravi1 10y agoAlso, you are conflating social return vs. private return. Yes, me being able to go on facebook has very little social returns but it has some private returns. Private returns mean a lot to people - just look at all the people working on wall st.
- kenjackson 10y agoSo who decides where you spend those couple of minutes? I feel like I should decide if I want to go spend time on Facebook or interact with someone on the corner who is singing. Effectively forcing me to spend the time with the person on the corner singing may in fact be the best thing for me, but I think the choice is still more important.
- baddox 10y agoBrowsing Facebook sounds like passive social interactions with friends that you've deliberately chosen, rather than passive social interactions with whoever your local grocery store employees happen to be. It doesn't really sound that much worse to me.
- duaneb 10y agoThat sounds like an echo chamber to me. Hardly healthy for a society, let alone an individual. Such alienation from your neighbors!
- homakov 10y agoGood point of view, and indeed procrastination is the opposite of evolving. However "I am unsure we are evolving" sounds like paradox. Isn't a version 2 of anything always "evolving" by definition? Otherwise, what's "better"?
- CrLf 10y ago"all change is not progress as all movement is not forward"
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoEvolve as a society, yet remove the social experience of shopping. Interesting. I don't believe I want us to evolve in that direction.
- iNate2000 10y agoCouldn't we just have more "greeters" and fewer cashiers?
- flinty 10y agowelcome to costco, i love you
- Ph0X 10y agoSocial experience at a grocery store feels contrived and not everyone may want it. Maybe you enjoy talking to your cashier but not everyone does, so why should everyone be forced to just because some do? It makes much more sense to keep groceries for grocery shopping, and social places such as bars for socializing.
- 24gttghh 10y agoThere are these other people at grocery stores besides the employees, I believe they are called "patrons" to whom you may also converse with...
- subdane 10y agoThis makes sense from a suburban, car-based perspective. From a walking, city-based lens, neighborhoods and social interactions make a lot of sense. It's why coffee shops haven't been made obsolete by vending machines - at least here in New York. Point is, it depends on your perspective.
- davidw 10y agoI think it makes sense whatever way you get around. If people value something, by and large, they'll pay for it. Most people want to get their shopping done quickly and efficiently. However, I could easily see niches keeping people around. The first thing that comes to mind is a higher end sort of place where customers want some knowledgeable help in selecting what they're buying. Spend some money on a few people who know their products well and give good advice, and maybe have time for some chit chat.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIt also depends on the state and stage of one's life. For instance, as a student, I loved chatting up clerks in grocery stores. I actually met my SO this way. Being older and working full time now, I would vastly prefer to never visit any store ever, and buy everything on-line. It's not cheap enough yet though, so that's why today after work I'm visiting the cheapest store around to restock my fridge...
- davidw 10y agoYeah, I could easily see things kind of sorting out along some lines like that, just like we have everything from 'convenience stores' to small local markets to supermarket chains to Costco.
- OJFord 10y ago> This makes sense from a suburban, car-based perspective. > From a walking, city-based lens, ... Funny, I'd have said if there was a distinction between driven-to and walked-to locations, it would be the opposite: if I've already taken the time to drive there I'm likely not in that much of a hurry. Someone else points out the security benefit of a cashless store, which again I'd have thought is more of an advantage to the high street shop than the suburban warehouse-like supermarket.
- flaviojuvenal 10y ago> They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction Not true for my grandmother and many other elderly people. Maybe it's loneliness. But maybe it's a generation thing, not sure. We need to question if it's best to not interact with people who sell us stuff.
- kenjackson 10y agoIf there's a large enough market for it, then someone will continue to build it. People said the same thing about DVD stores -- yet the numbers didn't back it up. People stopped going.
- losteverything 10y ago<They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction Not true. The giant store I work at has so many regulars that it's family. Often the store is one of only a few places customer's pasts are unknown or forgiven. It's not all about increased producivity.
- OJFord 10y ago> People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. > They don't go to the grocery store for social > interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay > extra for something that only the minority get value out > of is not a competitive strategy. Spoken like a true New Yorker. (... or some other big American city, but it's more impressive if that's right.) The parent commenter describes something I immediately recognise as "very European"; there's room for both of you.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rednerrus 10y agoWhat are you in such a hurry to do? Get home and post on HN? How much of our lives do we want tech to live for us? Part of what makes life awesome is meeting random people standing in lines.
- euyyn 10y ago> What are you in such a hurry to do? > Part of what makes life awesome is meeting random people standing in lines. By all means go search for lines to meet random people. But spare me because for me that time is wasted, and I rather recover all of it to spend it with my friends, or doing sport, or even watching TV with my wife. This thing won't make lines disappear altogether, so you'll be fine: you'll be able to find them in the post office for example.
- tammer 10y agoIndeed, separate from the question of livelihoods (which could be supplemented via ideas like basic income), and less some meaningless greetings, the engagement I would up having would be far more meaningful if employment was a matter of satisfaction rather than utility.
- hodgesrm 10y agoLooking purely at local transaction costs neglects externalities and can lead to very bad outcomes. I don't see a huge difference between valuing interactions vs. having workplace safety standards or requiring that employers provide health insurance. Both of them raise transaction costs and eliminate at least some economic models because we as a society have decided we don't like the outcome. The sticking point is usually how to do it fairly. Edit: clarification of point
- adamsea 10y ago"People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible." What evidence do you have for this claim? A study of some sort? It is also obvious from reading the news that some people do not want this. "They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy." Again, this sounds like hearsay or a personal opinion.
- euyyn 10y ago> What evidence do you have for this claim? A study of some sort? The fact that people go to supermarkets, to get their groceries faster and cheaper, instead of going to half a dozen small stores where the potential for fulfilling social interaction is much bigger.
- pasbesoin 10y agoI, too, enjoy many of my social interactions while shopping. I think that, per the grandparent, current initiatives are not grasping nor addressing the entire scope of the existing... "paradigm" -- sigh, to try to find a word for it. To reduce it severely but pertinently, in the news recently, "studies show" that people who feel valued and that they have a roll in society, family -- in life -- they live longer. And what happens when we stop interacting with each other? When that daily communication between work domains and social classes ends? Again, reduction to the almost absurd -- but we're living it -- we get President Trump. Trump may end up doing ok -- we'll see. But the shock on many maybe liberal, Amazon Prime shopping upper middle class faces? Try actually talking to, with, and not at, the people around you, serving you. When people stop to think about it, I think most find value in the people around them, much more than the things. Not all value is encompassed in the fastest delivery for the cheapest price. (Which Amazon seems to be increasingly falling down on, anyway, per my recent experiences.)
- golemotron 10y ago> They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction Yes, they do. It's a human need. Many people satisfy it that way.
- BorisMelnik 10y agoHave you considered that life isn't all about efficiency? People shop because of the experience. This is why book stores are coming "back," eBooks just aren't cutting it for people. This is why "smart lights" won't ever truly take off, people don't want to log onto an app to turn their lights off.
- nileshtrivedi 10y agoIf people really shop "because of the experience", then this technology is nothing to worry about as it will fail in the market.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> This is why "smart lights" won't ever truly take off, people don't want to log onto an app to turn their lights off. They will, one day, when companies stop with the vendor lock-in bullshit. An app - a siloed, sandboxed program that cannot meaningfully interact or seamlessly share information with any other program on the device - is a very crappy interface for doing anything. But we're stuck with it, because it's easier for companies to make money off apps, and cooperation is hard.
- bradbatt 10y agoI have to disagree with this one. I have Hue lights and I rarely ever use the app to turn them on or off. When I come home and it is after sunset the lights come on automatically based on geolocation. When I leave they turn off. Also, I can walk downstairs and say "Alexa, turn on the living room lights" and my Amazon Echo turns them on. Same thing to turn them off again. That's extremely convenient...way, way more convenient than walking around and turning 4-5 lamps on and off. They have come way down in price to the point to where you can either pay $20 for a smart bulb versus $10-12 for a standard LED. Will be interesting to see what happens though...I do agree that life isn't just all about efficiency. But people certainly do enjoy convenience.
- synicalx 10y agoHopefully people also don't like the idea of their lights participating in a DDoS.
- smellycat 10y agoThis doesn't take into account the value of forced social interaction. Seeing a human at the grocery, exercising patience if the line is a little longer than I would perhaps like, being forced to engage in conversation with my neighbor...There is a value to these social behaviors and value to how they shape psychological development. I worry about the world where everything is catered to Me and I, and I can go about my life without interacting with the people I'm forced to share space with.
- bdamm 10y agoYour government may enforce these interactions if it so chooses. I'd prefer my government did not, and leaves the choice of where I get my social interactions up to me.
- smellycat 10y agoAt no point did I say this should be outlawed. But as a society, we should look at these types of "innovations" and question whether it's actually providing benefit to the longterm, wellbeing of our people and our ability to function together collectively.
- bdamm 10y agoIf a person's only social interaction that is providing meaningful wellbeing is talking with the clerk at the grocery store, then I'd say the person in question is in need of serious help that the clerk cannot provide. They need to find social groups. Personally, I hate standing in line and avoid many businesses because of the slow line-ups. I'd rather be on my way so I can go to my family and friends where the bottle of wine I just picked up is to be consumed. Convenience is not the anathema of society. Not making time for each other may be. Forcing it on each other is a weak "solution".
- swah 10y agoYou're both right, of course. Also, there are apps for that...
- biztos 10y agoThis comment makes me suspect you may have never been to a farmer's market, or a market hall (of which Barcelona has some of the world's most glorious examples). While it's possible that some people "want groceries as cheap and fast as possible," I don't think either of those is true of the hundreds of people I join at my local market every week. I go there mainly because I like buying directly from the producers. I want there to be independent farmers in the future too, for reasons of taste, culture, ecology, and food safety. But I also enjoy my interactions with some of the sellers. Some people probably go mainly for that reason. The market is full, despite a big ugly multinational supermarket 100m away that has cheaper (and worse) versions of just about everything on offer. That supermarket is also full, though I think the reasons why are not as simple as market efficiency. A lot of us will continue to share the parent poster's opinion, and hopefully in sufficient numbers to keep all the little bodegas going. Because we care about food, and we care about living among humans.
- theon144 10y agoFarmer's markets will be unaffected by this, obviously. The possibility to buy your groceries in this manner would still exist, as that's a different "use case", and I absolutely support and enjoy it. In contrast, I don't believe there is anything worth saving regarding the human interaction in supermarkets - in fact, I think that working an 8 hour shift which consists solely of scanning items and saying a couple pre-defined sentences is a very dismal, and in fact much more inhuman experience than what Amazon is proposing.
- biztos 10y agoDepends on the supermarket I suppose. A few times a year I go to a rural-ish supermarket in the US (town of maybe 5K people) and it's very old-school, the check-out people are very nice and gregarious, the baggers bag with great skill, etc. I certainly hope the poor folks who toil at Aldi or Safeway might find a better thing to do with their lives, and if those stores are displaced I won't be too sad.
- pavanred 10y agoDoes automation really remove jobs or just displace them? Honest question. I mean, in this instance, I see perhaps jobs of 10 cashiers in a store replaced with 1-2 monitoring the store and rest done by automation. But, then this gives rise to a whole set of new jobs and industries too, the engineers that design these systems, the ones that build these machines, industries supplying manufacturing of hardware for these system, software developers, maintaining hardware, maintaining software, customer support, servicing. So, if this is deployed in all stores in a city then will employment numbers add up to become a zero sum? Is it just displacing employment from one category(or location) of manual tasks to different tasks? Besides, if most people lose their jobs to automation in the near future, there won't be enough people who can afford to buy stuff at these stores anyway, so won't it become uneconomical to run these stores?
- VLM 10y agoIt feels good to think automation doesn't eliminate jobs, but one thing is for certain, if it merely displaced them into higher salary jobs, no one would ever automate because it would eliminate profits. At the profit levels usually seen in retail supermarkets, you can't stop paying all those people minimum wage and suddenly start paying them software dev salaries without an enormous hit to the income statement. "won't it become uneconomical to run these stores?" Essentially these stores are already smart vending machines stocked by humans occasionally at night. In the long run that might be where fresh food comes from. "Go to the vending machine and pick up a head of lettuce".
- Clamhead 10y agoIt's definitely not going to be one to one job replacement, not even close. Software can be write once, run everywhere. You could replace thousands of cashiers with software written by a team of 10 software engineers. Maintenance of hardware/software could be taken care of by a few people running to multiple stores throughout the day. Example would be Starbucks in San Francisco. There is a Starbucks nearly every block in the inner-city. You could just have two guys walk from store to store to perform checks/maintenance. So yes, I see big possibility of thousands of service workers being out a of a job due to automation. Which is why a lot of people are saying we need to seriously consider something like universal basic income for the near future ..
- ben_jones 10y agoTIL politicians are the most efficient ways to solve political problems..
- throwaway98237 10y ago"They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction..." False. Sometime I go to the grocery store for social interaction. You know, to get out. I generally go to a particular wine shop cause I like chatting with the guy at the counter. The idea that we do all this "stuff" ("processes") to get "stuff" done, and then separately we go somewhere for the express and sole purpose of socializing, is just clearly wrong. It's all mixed in. We're social creatures. We socialize while at the barber shop. We socialize at the grocery store. We socialize at work. At church. At football or soccer games. If we attempt to "refactor" out the "process" to make it more efficient, fine. But, don't pretend like whatever we replace that effort with we're not going to be socializing while we do that new thing. It's frankly really sad that we have all these people that used to be persons we knew and visited with at the checkout counter, now they're in some warehouse being super efficient having no time to visit with coworkers while they work, meanwhile, we pretend that stuff magically shows up at grocery stores and we can walk in and walk out and magic and future wow.
- chronic92 10y agoYou're going to back up your claim with anecdotal evidence? The overwhelming majority of people do not go to the grocery store as a social exercise. People view it as a chore. They want to get in and out as soon as possible.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gotrecruit 10y agoi have to agree. i hate any level of socializing at the supermarket - i'm there to get what i need and be gone. i don't mind running into friends i like, but i really get annoyed running into casual acquaintances due to the social niceties.
- mfarris 10y agoHis personal feeling and experience of going to stores is "anecdotal evidence"? Where is your three-year, peer-reviewed study into the emotional motives of shoppers? After all, you flatly stated that "The overwhelming majority of people do not go to the grocery store as a social exercise." Since you seem to be a very serious, data-minded person: CITATION PLEASE.
- monkeynotes 10y agoWhat in your mind is 'the value of humanity'? If the ideal of humanity is to solve all problems, reach maximum efficiency, and eliminate all competition then we're probably going to design ourselves out of the system eventually. People are inefficient sacks of meat with finite potential. When we have designed a black box that solves all problems, answers all answerable questions, maximizing all efficiencies for us, and protects us from any possible threat, what do we do next? What is left? The value of humanity isn't a universal purpose, that's just how we fool ourselves into believing that there is a point to our lives. That's how we reason about pain, suffering, and hardship. Human existence, our experience is existentially pointless. It is down to the individual to create a purpose. Perhaps you view the purpose as being something tangible and 'out there' to be had. Others see the purpose as simply just being, enjoying the small things, finding pleasure in the pointlessness. No one can say what the value for another is. There is ultimately no value except that in which you find in yourself. So let's not kid ourselves that we as a race are working toward some kind of ultimate design because that design is in our minds only and as such can't be 'ultimate' or significant to the 'other' in any way. Indeed it is likely to be a folly of our mind, a foolish solution to the non-problem of being.
- drakenot 10y agoI mostly agree. Take the parent's argument and replace grocery store clerk with gas station pump attendant. "I know all the people who work in these gas stations. The attendant at the pump always whistles a quiet song while he pumps my gas. He knows my son and is always nice and friendly." Yet, besides the completely weird laws in New Jersey and Oregon, society has moved on and people now pump their own gas. I understand the parent's post point to some degree. I don't want a cold a sterile society where no one never interacts with anyone any longer. However, I also get stuck in grocery store lines all the time. It would be a net win for me to skip these lines all together even if the places I shop at become a little more impersonal. At least in the United States, places have continued to staff less and less cashiers and have relied more and more on self-checkout. So, for many of these stores, it isn't like I'm missing out on any real connection. This just seems like a way less stressful self-checkout. Apple lets you check yourself out using their app at the Apple Store but I rarely do this because I feel like I'm shoplifting or that people are watching me suspiciously. I'm curious if I would have that same reaction to these stores or not. I'm guessing not, because it is the only way to pay.
- Balgair 10y ago" People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy." crazypyro, you may want to do as Brian Regan said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8kThoZpF_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8kThoZpF_U ) and pick up some Montana brochures. If you don't have 3-5 minutes in the day to talk to your neighbors, you either need new neighbors or a career change. Life is a lot of things, but it ain't all GSD all the time either.
- synicalx 10y agoBecause societal evolution can be directly measured by how quickly you can buy your pizza pockets, and also how few other members of society you have to interact with while doing so?