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> Please stop celebrating this. It’s just awful in so many ways. I tend to agree, we have a very clear divide between Social Strata (that if left unchecked can
by Melting_Harps 5y ago
> Please stop celebrating this. It’s just awful in so many ways.
I tend to agree, we have a very clear divide between Social Strata (that if left unchecked can resemble your caste system) that has only gotten deeper in the 21st Century: what once relied on cheap, migrant labor in the 20th century has now been imposed on to the domestic debt-laden labor force due to COVID travel restrictions, which leads to the grind and 'exploitation' of a once middle class society experiencing the economic fallout from COVID largess and consolidation of Marketshare. Many of who went to college with promises of being able to work in their desired Industry, carry lots of debt, and are forced to work a combination of retail and gig jobs to make ends--it's a large part of what has led to the antiwork/layng down movement in both US and China.
And to be honest, I don't blame them.
But to you point on automation.
I recently went back to school for AI and ML after leaving a career in fintech and we had a recent hackathon over Xmas that included robotics: I think automation, in logistics specifically, can currently only do so much reliably without incurring immense expenses and delays while trying to survive in an already broken model; it's the law of diminishing returns where Human capital has only recently had it's wages re-evaluated as a vital role in the equation to ease the labor shortage in certain Industries but the tech be it software/hardware/battery is simply not there yet to completely replace all of these 'menial jobs' overnight.
I also take issue with the implied notion that some of Society's most valuable workers are often deemed 'menial' by the educated intelligentsia in high ranking positions you say are ruining things. Especially with a guy with the handle that implies he farms; which is an immensely vital role (former Biodynamic farmer myself), but filled with a great deal of toil and back breaking labour only suited for 'uneducated folk' in the rural part of the World--when that is completely untrue.
- jelliclesfarm 5y agoI don’t know what you understand about the caste system, but it is entirely unnecessary to bring it up here. There is no ‘caste system’ in the 21st century. There may be human beings who are also bigots, but we can’t keep beckoning the colonial construct of ‘caste’ which was derived from the Portuguese word ‘casta’. I can’t support menial jobs in any form. They need to be made extinct. Not coddled and protected. If you believed what you wrote, you’d still be a biodynamic farmer and not into AI/ML. Reasonable people should stop posturing and virtue signaling. Edited to add: So let’s do difficult tech things, automate menial jobs and pay more for food. Nothing..like..literally nothing is achieved with this ‘dash of shame’ disguised as ‘training’. This is some form of diluted American SV version of communist china’s Struggle Session. We should stop humiliating and shaming successful, intelligent and productive individuals. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session ETA: how you show appreciation for the most ‘valued worker’ is to pay them more. (It’s like the problem of the homeless..the only solution to eliminate homelessness is to provide homes. A home. Not homes in expensive zip code or needle exchange or blah blah blah..but provide shelter called ‘a home’.)Door dash can easily do this instead of this ridiculous song and dance. Oh wait..except if it’s a shitty business model and they can’t really milk any profits..and are just buying time and PR.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago> I don’t know what you understand about the caste system, but it is entirely unnecessary to bring it up here. There is no ‘caste system’ in the 21st century. There may be human beings who are also bigots, but we can’t keep beckoning the colonial construct of ‘caste’ which was derived from the Portuguese word ‘casta’. I'm saying we're creating a wealth divide that resembles an archaic developing nations assumption that title and surname matter more than capability, intellect or ambition. Things the US lauded in the 19th-20th Century that made my ancestors migrate here and help emerge to what it has become but has since degraded in the 21st century due to perpetual crony-capitalist wealth extractors who do nothing more than lobby and pay off who ever they have to ensure they can keep things 'business as usual.' > I can’t support menial jobs in any form. They need to be made extinct. Not coddled and protected. If you believed what you wrote, you’d still be a biodynamic farmer and not into AI/ML. To be clear, my methods are not clear to you; I believe in immersive learning to be the most effective way at solving a problem (my degrees are seldom utilized beyond just getting an interview); mine had to do with being a trained but unsatisfied cellular and molecular biologist in an Industry captured by big pharma. I excelled in microbiology and sought to play a role in the advancement of carbon sequestration and soil fertility via crop rotation of certain (then illegal prior to 2012) cash crops (hemp) and maybe alleviate the endemic opioid crisis happening in the US with more sustainable and holistic forms of pain management--introducing an Industry making products from various cannabis based products made the most sense to support small organic/biodynamic farms beyond anything that I have seen. As of 2018 with the Farm Bill hemp is legal in all 50 US states and regulated by the US department of Ag via their local state branches licensure system we pioneered in Colorado. My goals were accomplished, there was no point in staying there any longer. I think your viewpoint comes from an almost inescapable notion that work and identity are tied to one another, where for most people they simple see it as a means to an end: especially when family and responsibilities are included in the equation. Limited options coupled with the stress of high demands and responsibilities are probably responsible for more misery in the World than delivering doordash. Just so it's clear, this methods is also used at the SBB in Switzerland: my friend, who let me run her farm as a manger when I was an apprentice, was a high ranking manager at her local station in the Capital. And it's typical to have to do this once a month, she often collected tickets, cleaned the trains, etc... I'd argue Switzerland is a fr cry from your notion you are describing. Also worth noting, and this was my experience in my time in fintech and affirmed during the COVID lockdowns, the most remarkable consistent way to reach millionaire status isn't being a a hardworking entrepreneur unshackling himself from the menial labor force: it's being a broker or money manager of a successful hedge fund that has deep ties to banks that lobby the State. Your over romanticizing something that clearly has a more clear trajectory from outright slavery and indebted servitude than you're willing to admit, here is fun homework task if you want it: find how much prison labor is used by major corps around the World? And how many of these corps lobby the government on behalf of for profit prisons in the US for these contracts to use prison labor and help shape conviction rates to that end. I'm going to end with this: as a person with a background in logistics and supply chain management in the auto industry (my day job when I was a bootstrapping co-founder in fintech) I decided to look at Doordash's emergence as the top delivery app and successful IPO and continued Softbank VC funidng etc... when the pandemic happened and locked downs were imposed I looked at the r/doordash for several weeks and even signed up and did a few deliveries to get under the hood, In the end, (May 2020) what I found was the typical SV 'grow fast and break things' charade coupled with the VC inflated IPO exit strategy and left thinking that space was not worth investing my time in and went back to focusing on what I knew: International supply chain and logistics of freight. The amount of money loss due to basic things was staggering and sobering to say the least. I wrote about this experience in my application process where I was accepted on performance based admission which opened the doors to meeting other CS students and now collaborating with graduate level data scientists in discussing and exploring how to address some fundamental needs in this space. So you see, it's not all bad.