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Cue Amazon putting in more robots!
by rstupek 7y ago
Cue Amazon putting in more robots!
- throwaway2048 7y agoThe amount of smug proclamations about how all these workers are going to be replaced by robots in these threads is really gross. Nearly everyone that posts on HN is in a situation where their employer holds vastly more power than themselves in their employer/employee relationship, statistically are you likely being screwed, and you aren't going to be Jeff Bezos one day either.
- nerdjon 7y agoI mean... it's happening. So either we continue to deny it isn't or we actually start those conversations now and figure out how we live in that world. And there is a correlation between actions like this and the desire to have a more automated workforce. Not saying that as blame because there are many other reasons and you can look at the reasons their jobs are so bad right now anyways. But we can't ignore it.
- ngold 7y agoWhen this was science fiction it was assumed we could all work less, not fewer people working more for less pay.
- tathougies 7y agoThat would require everyone to own a robot, but most people do not have the foresight to purchase one or involve their money in such a thing.
- throwaway2048 7y agoOr you know, millions of dollars.
- tathougies 7y agoI mean, I would broadly agree, but you don't need to have a million dollars to buy shares in a robotics venture. However, I still contend that, even with millions of dollars, most people would not have the foresight to invest. As evidenced by the fact that those who suffer from windfalls of money typically lose it very quickly.
- malandrew 7y agoOr you just invest your income into shares of companies making the robots or investing in robot capex.
- bduerst 7y agoJob demand isn't zero sum, but a function of supply. Idle worker time ends up unlocking new types of jobs that weren't previously possible (usually service related) and people fill them.
- just_myles 7y agoSure. However, I think the poster is commenting on the insensitivity of the post by OP. No one has denied that this is not happening because it is. We can however, comment on them in a way that is empathetic to the workers who are protesting. Never know, might come for any one of us one day.
- matz1 7y agoThe reality is appeal to empathy is imo ineffective.
- fwip 7y agoIt does seem to be ineffective on Hacker News, doesn't it? I wonder what that says about the users here.
- 50656E6973 7y agoWhen one spends the vast majority of their time working on computers with minimal human interaction, all kinds of social deficiencies arise
- just_myles 7y agoWhat do you mean? From an approach perspective? Shouldn't the first thing you do to understand the problem is to see it from the other persons perspective? Empathy is not the end all be all. It's a start.
- matz1 7y agoI'm criticizing the approach. Government is the only entity more powerful than amazon. You want change ? Imo more effective to do it through government compared with advocating boycott.
- just_myles 7y agoThank you for clarifying your point. Understood and fair. I think that of course government is one mechanism to create positive change. However, the problem with our government currently is that there are other outside factors that would get in the way (Like corporate lobbying.) of any kind of labor initiative. I will say that boycotting used to be a viable means of getting your point across (Civil right boycotts of the 60s as an example.). The problem I think nowadays is that it has lost it's teeth due to lack of a collective follow through (See the most recent Gucci boycott/"protest" from a few months ago.).
- Amezarak 7y agoOr we stop it from happening. It isn’t inevitable. We are all of us making a choice to allow it.
- nerdjon 7y agoHonestly I think its been inevitable once we first started to introduce robots into manufacturing. Robots replacing humans is not new, we have been doing this for at least 40 years. Resources continue to be spent on this technology (and related technology, even if not originally for this purpose). Unless we stop any robotic research, its happening wether we like it or not.
- _iyig 7y agoYou’re right. We could also make the choice to smash cars, because they take jobs away from the horse and buggy industry. We won’t, because the problem is not humanity’s total productive output growing larger, but how this output is managed and distributed.
- Amezarak 7y agoThere are things much more important than humanity's 'total productive output', which is anyway not guaranteed to ever be managed and distributed in a better way. Human beings are not economic production units. The economy is a means and not an end. Technologists are always hyperfocused on economic activity and insist that any problems technology creates will be solved by more technology. Well, all we appear to be doing is building an ever more complex and fragile civilization full of increasingly unhappy people racing towards Armageddon. What will trigger the ultimate systems collapse? I don't know, but I would be shocked if there isn't one within the next two centuries. Yes, we probably would be better off without cars. Communities would be stronger, more tightly-knit. Urban sprawl would dramatically decrease. There'd be more multi-family housing. We would have spewed jillions of tons fewer of CO2 and other pollutants into the air (electric cars do not solve underlying environmental issues - they just shift them around to battery production and disposal and power generation.) One of the biggest causes of accidental death would be eradicated. Instead of developing ICE/electric engines and understanding the best way to fit them into human society, we unleashed them willy-nilly and caused untold death, devastation, and misery. Such is the story of many if not most subsequent technological 'innovations'. (Yes, I have a car - two, even.) Even now the 'ideal' Hacker News poster is hard at work at enriching fabulously wealthy companies intent on destroying privacy forever and creating dopamine addictions. We all say it's inevitable. But it's not. Every step of the way, it was individuals making decisions that led us to where we are now. We could have stopped it and we still can. Or we can bury our heads in the sand.
- qwsxyh 7y agoIt's happening but that doesn't mean a) we should just bend over and accept being fucked over due to some vague robot threat in the future or b) make jokes about workers having to bend over.
- rstupek 7y agoNo one in this thread made any jokes about the situation and characterizing the comments as such is disingenuous.
- mc32 7y agoAmbivalently, this is the reality of things, unless you restrict globalization and implement domestic laws against automation, economic pressure is going to provoke automation in many areas, first in the most automatable and later on in higher value added areas...
- Based_Detroiter 7y agoCue the robot unions. Holding companies hostage for more frequent PM!