6 ms·

Maybe, but don't forget to factor in the relative quality of the jobs that are being replaced. I don't really have a strong opinion on the matter, and it would

by simias 10y ago

Maybe, but don't forget to factor in the relative quality of the jobs that are being replaced. I don't really have a strong opinion on the matter, and it would be a bit hypocritical of me as an amazon prime customer to complain about the working conditions at Amazon but not every job is equal to any other. Furthermore I wouldn't be surprised if many of these new jobs ended up being automated in the near future. The free market still hasn't figured out a solution to that particular problem last I checked.

colechristensen 10y ago
Production efficiencies have been driving human civilization since the very beginning when humans were wandering around in small hunter-gatherer bands. This round of automation won't be the ruin of humanity much the same as it has been for the last 5000 years.
- ASpring 10y ago
  Of course not in the long term but it's worth thinking that losing entire classes of jobs containing millions of people in a decade might have seriously detrimental effects for some time.
  - marvin 10y ago
    In a democracy, one negative consequence of fast job loss followed by poverty is the election of populist leaders and governments. We have recently seen a prominent example of this phenomenon. If the reduced quality of life of the affected people isn't addressed, their reaction will likely become even less pleasant.
    - hsitz 10y ago
      You seem to use 'populist' as a pejorative term. I would suggest that populism can be a good thing. I'm opposed to Trump, but not because he's populist. I'm not even sure he is a populist, since I don't believe he or his administration have any real concern for the democratic masses; they're riding a populist wave out they're out to gain power and wealth for themselves. This contrasts strongly with, e.g., the New Deal or Civil Rights reforms, which were real populism.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        "populism" without a modifier is quite often used in the specific sense in which others use the more specific "authoritarian populism"; that is, demagoguery which features use of populist rhetoric to build support for authoritarianism. This can be a source of much confusion because it is often unclear from a single encounter whether someone criticizing "populism" is an elitist opposed to politics genuinely directed at the interests of the masses, or simply warning of authoritarian demagoguery.
  - colechristensen 10y ago
    But is impeding change helpful or harmful? There is something to be said for mild conservatism taking slow deliberate steps forward, but it's very easy to create false economies protecting an obsolete past and impeding progress.
    - ska 10y ago
      Is it an either/or? Surely you can choose to accept a fast rate of change and also try and do something practical about the consequences at the same time?
- Gargoyle 10y ago
  Describe the new jobs which can not be automated in the near future.
  - thmsths 10y ago
    Sounds like a good job for AI.
ars 10y ago
> Maybe, but don't forget to factor in the relative quality of the jobs that are being replaced. Retail vs Warehouse? I don't think it's much different in quality. A ton of Retail is Warehouse anyway, just inside a store with customers vs a building with robots.
- patja 10y ago
  I suspect working in an Amazon warehouse is much more physically intensive with commensurate increases in injuries and other job-induced ailments as compared to most retail jobs.
  - ars 10y ago
    You are thinking of retail as cashiers, because that's what you see. But a lot of retail jobs involve the stockroom with heavy boxes and crates, and a lot of bending and lifting to put products on shelves. And much of Amazon jobs involve retrieving lightweight items from shelves to put in a bin. The jobs are not that different.
    - cr0sh 10y ago
      > And much of Amazon jobs involve retrieving lightweight items from shelves to put in a bin. Haven't they transitioned all their warehouses to the model where the person stays stationary, and robots bring product to the person? Or is that only in selected warehouses? That's not to say standing in one position is any better or less stressful (might even be more so, if you've ever seen videos of the robots in action on the floor).
      - ars 10y ago
        From the videos I've seen, different warehouses do different things. I think that packing the shipping boxes is still all manual in all the warehouses.
jdreaver 10y ago
> The free market still hasn't figured out a solution to that particular problem last I checked. Interesting, I think the entire industrial revolution is a very strong counter example to that statement. We repeatedly automated the majority of jobs on the planet every few decades and we saw the largest expansion of wealth and prosperity for the majority of humans in all of history. Should we lament over those subsistence farming jobs that were automated away? The free market isn't some singular entity that figures out problems before they arrive and sends us all an executive summary of its plan. We currently don't have mass unemployment from automation, and I don't agree with many of the reasons people express for worrying. The only arguments I've seen against mass automation are hints of some dystopian future where somehow robots are prohibitively expensive for all but the richest people, and goods will somehow be cheap enough from automation that non-automated manufacturing can't compete, but still expensive enough that if we don't work 40 hours a week we'll starve.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  I agree with you, but just a reminder that the Industrial Revolution was also a time of mass civil unrest, war, nationalism, and the growth of revolutionary groups advocating the overthrow of the existing social and economic order (some of which succeeded, e.g. Leninist Russia). You could make a fairly strong argument that is was the very real threat of Communist revolution in Western Europe (e.g. Germany in the 1930s, or Italy and France post-WW2) that forced governments to adopt socialist programs that moderated many of the excesses of the market, or in the US, the massive government investment in the middle class as well as draconian anti-left measures that prevented a similar threat. We've so far ended up in a somewhat decent place, but if history is any measure, we're going to have a rocky next few decades if technology does end up destroying or transforming demand for labor. People generally don't go quietly when their livelihoods or place in the social order are threatened.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    War and civil unrest has been extremely common throughout the world long before the industrial revolution. If anything war and violence have declined since the industrial revolution started (read Steven Pinker's Why Violence Declined). So I don't see how you can blame the industrial revolution for any residual unrest.
djsumdog 10y ago
I chose not to shop at Amazon after returning to the US. To me it felt like the new Wal-Mart (which I stopped shopping at around 2009). Their business practices are terrible and their boom has really hurt everyone not in tech in their home of Seattle. They're another piece, but quite a large piece, in a consumption based world that's simply not sustainable. We are in a world today where we simply buy things, all the time. Companies like Amazon have a vested interest in ensuring we never stop making purchases.

by simias 10y ago

colechristensen 10y ago

Production efficiencies have been driving human civilization since the very beginning when humans were wandering around in small hunter-gatherer bands. This round of automation won't be the ruin of humanity much the same as it has been for the last 5000 years.

ASpring 10y ago
Of course not in the long term but it's worth thinking that losing entire classes of jobs containing millions of people in a decade might have seriously detrimental effects for some time.
- marvin 10y ago
  In a democracy, one negative consequence of fast job loss followed by poverty is the election of populist leaders and governments. We have recently seen a prominent example of this phenomenon. If the reduced quality of life of the affected people isn't addressed, their reaction will likely become even less pleasant.
  - hsitz 10y ago
    You seem to use 'populist' as a pejorative term. I would suggest that populism can be a good thing. I'm opposed to Trump, but not because he's populist. I'm not even sure he is a populist, since I don't believe he or his administration have any real concern for the democratic masses; they're riding a populist wave out they're out to gain power and wealth for themselves. This contrasts strongly with, e.g., the New Deal or Civil Rights reforms, which were real populism.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      "populism" without a modifier is quite often used in the specific sense in which others use the more specific "authoritarian populism"; that is, demagoguery which features use of populist rhetoric to build support for authoritarianism. This can be a source of much confusion because it is often unclear from a single encounter whether someone criticizing "populism" is an elitist opposed to politics genuinely directed at the interests of the masses, or simply warning of authoritarian demagoguery.
- colechristensen 10y ago
  But is impeding change helpful or harmful? There is something to be said for mild conservatism taking slow deliberate steps forward, but it's very easy to create false economies protecting an obsolete past and impeding progress.
  - ska 10y ago
    Is it an either/or? Surely you can choose to accept a fast rate of change and also try and do something practical about the consequences at the same time?
Gargoyle 10y ago
Describe the new jobs which can not be automated in the near future.
- thmsths 10y ago
  Sounds like a good job for AI.

ars 10y ago

> Maybe, but don't forget to factor in the relative quality of the jobs that are being replaced. Retail vs Warehouse? I don't think it's much different in quality. A ton of Retail is Warehouse anyway, just inside a store with customers vs a building with robots.

patja 10y ago
I suspect working in an Amazon warehouse is much more physically intensive with commensurate increases in injuries and other job-induced ailments as compared to most retail jobs.
- ars 10y ago
  You are thinking of retail as cashiers, because that's what you see. But a lot of retail jobs involve the stockroom with heavy boxes and crates, and a lot of bending and lifting to put products on shelves. And much of Amazon jobs involve retrieving lightweight items from shelves to put in a bin. The jobs are not that different.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > And much of Amazon jobs involve retrieving lightweight items from shelves to put in a bin. Haven't they transitioned all their warehouses to the model where the person stays stationary, and robots bring product to the person? Or is that only in selected warehouses? That's not to say standing in one position is any better or less stressful (might even be more so, if you've ever seen videos of the robots in action on the floor).
    - ars 10y ago
      From the videos I've seen, different warehouses do different things. I think that packing the shipping boxes is still all manual in all the warehouses.

jdreaver 10y ago

> The free market still hasn't figured out a solution to that particular problem last I checked. Interesting, I think the entire industrial revolution is a very strong counter example to that statement. We repeatedly automated the majority of jobs on the planet every few decades and we saw the largest expansion of wealth and prosperity for the majority of humans in all of history. Should we lament over those subsistence farming jobs that were automated away? The free market isn't some singular entity that figures out problems before they arrive and sends us all an executive summary of its plan. We currently don't have mass unemployment from automation, and I don't agree with many of the reasons people express for worrying. The only arguments I've seen against mass automation are hints of some dystopian future where somehow robots are prohibitively expensive for all but the richest people, and goods will somehow be cheap enough from automation that non-automated manufacturing can't compete, but still expensive enough that if we don't work 40 hours a week we'll starve.

smallnamespace 10y ago
I agree with you, but just a reminder that the Industrial Revolution was also a time of mass civil unrest, war, nationalism, and the growth of revolutionary groups advocating the overthrow of the existing social and economic order (some of which succeeded, e.g. Leninist Russia). You could make a fairly strong argument that is was the very real threat of Communist revolution in Western Europe (e.g. Germany in the 1930s, or Italy and France post-WW2) that forced governments to adopt socialist programs that moderated many of the excesses of the market, or in the US, the massive government investment in the middle class as well as draconian anti-left measures that prevented a similar threat. We've so far ended up in a somewhat decent place, but if history is any measure, we're going to have a rocky next few decades if technology does end up destroying or transforming demand for labor. People generally don't go quietly when their livelihoods or place in the social order are threatened.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  War and civil unrest has been extremely common throughout the world long before the industrial revolution. If anything war and violence have declined since the industrial revolution started (read Steven Pinker's Why Violence Declined). So I don't see how you can blame the industrial revolution for any residual unrest.

djsumdog 10y ago

I chose not to shop at Amazon after returning to the US. To me it felt like the new Wal-Mart (which I stopped shopping at around 2009). Their business practices are terrible and their boom has really hurt everyone not in tech in their home of Seattle. They're another piece, but quite a large piece, in a consumption based world that's simply not sustainable. We are in a world today where we simply buy things, all the time. Companies like Amazon have a vested interest in ensuring we never stop making purchases.