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I doubt a burger robot is replacing very many jobs that pay much above minimum wage.

by baddox 8y ago

ta1234567890 8y ago
So how many people need to have their shitty jobs taken away by automation for you to be impressed? I hope you start caring about other people way before your job as a developer ever gets automated.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hueving 8y ago
  Keeping around meaningless jobs isn't a method of "caring about people". With unemployment numbers so slow, finding another menial job shouldn't be that difficult. The "think of the employees" argument only works when there isn't an employee-friendly market.
  - ta1234567890 8y ago
    > Keeping around meaningless jobs isn't a method of "caring about people". Actually it is. People need to be occupied/busy. It's such a big need that keeping meaningless jobs around is also a huge political tool used for thousands of years (there was an article that made the front page of HN a few days ago exactly about this topic, pretty fascinating). I would agree it might not be the best way of caring about people though. In any case, my comment referred to the sentiment of the previous poster's comment, which seems to be similar to yours... > With unemployment numbers so slow, finding another menial job shouldn't be that difficult. These people are just a statistic to you and you think because "the numbers add up", they'll be fine. > The "think of the employees" argument only works when there isn't an employee-friendly market. It's hardly an employee-friendly market when thousands of people with a full time job can't afford housing because their jobs don't pay enough, but they also can't afford to loose their jobs. Seems more like slavery than a job market.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Automating jobs is a good thing. It's not sharing the profits of increased productivity with everybody that's the problem. I'm looking forward to the day when developers are automated.
  - ta1234567890 8y ago
    My initial (learned?) reaction about automation is also that it's a good thing. But when analyzing it, automation only provides very temporary gains. Even if those gains were distributed evenly, people in the end would not necessarily be better off. Pretty much almost all (time) gains from automation get immediately filled with non-automated tasks instead of giving you endless free time. Otherwise at this point in time in history no one would need to work. But we keep coming up with more stuff to do and fill up our time.
    - strls 8y ago
      This is only because higher purchasing power drives people to consume more instead of working less. I find today one could live off very few hours of work.
Angostura 8y ago
.... those jobs may not seem very valuable to you, but they are valuable to the people doing them, and possibly more broadly, to society.

I doubt a burger robot is replacing very many jobs that pay much above minimum wage.

by baddox 8y ago

I doubt a burger robot is replacing very many jobs that pay much above minimum wage.

So how many people need to have their shitty jobs taken away by automation for you to be impressed? I hope you start caring about other people way before your job as a developer ever gets automated.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hueving 8y ago
Keeping around meaningless jobs isn't a method of "caring about people". With unemployment numbers so slow, finding another menial job shouldn't be that difficult. The "think of the employees" argument only works when there isn't an employee-friendly market.
- ta1234567890 8y ago
  > Keeping around meaningless jobs isn't a method of "caring about people". Actually it is. People need to be occupied/busy. It's such a big need that keeping meaningless jobs around is also a huge political tool used for thousands of years (there was an article that made the front page of HN a few days ago exactly about this topic, pretty fascinating). I would agree it might not be the best way of caring about people though. In any case, my comment referred to the sentiment of the previous poster's comment, which seems to be similar to yours... > With unemployment numbers so slow, finding another menial job shouldn't be that difficult. These people are just a statistic to you and you think because "the numbers add up", they'll be fine. > The "think of the employees" argument only works when there isn't an employee-friendly market. It's hardly an employee-friendly market when thousands of people with a full time job can't afford housing because their jobs don't pay enough, but they also can't afford to loose their jobs. Seems more like slavery than a job market.
adrianN 8y ago
Automating jobs is a good thing. It's not sharing the profits of increased productivity with everybody that's the problem. I'm looking forward to the day when developers are automated.
- ta1234567890 8y ago
  My initial (learned?) reaction about automation is also that it's a good thing. But when analyzing it, automation only provides very temporary gains. Even if those gains were distributed evenly, people in the end would not necessarily be better off. Pretty much almost all (time) gains from automation get immediately filled with non-automated tasks instead of giving you endless free time. Otherwise at this point in time in history no one would need to work. But we keep coming up with more stuff to do and fill up our time.
  - strls 8y ago
    This is only because higher purchasing power drives people to consume more instead of working less. I find today one could live off very few hours of work.

Angostura 8y ago

.... those jobs may not seem very valuable to you, but they are valuable to the people doing them, and possibly more broadly, to society.