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> Your workers are a tiny portion of your customer base. Let some other sap pay theirs well. Other companies notice your "brilliant" strategy and start adoptin
by sangnoir 2y ago
> Your workers are a tiny portion of your customer base. Let some other sap pay theirs well.
Other companies notice your "brilliant" strategy and start adopting it, and now your sales are in terminal decline as your customer base is impoverished. Short-term thinking is the Achilles heel of modern capitalism. Unless of course the new economy is automated companies trading with other automated companies; maximizing shareholder value as the human race withers away. This reminds me a short story of a damaged ambulatory AI space-suit carrying an injured and dying/dead astronaut over the surface of a desolate planet to get to "civilization" thousands of miles away.
- porksoda 2y agoI think they're talking about one of the short stories in The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks What a great read.
- sangnoir 2y agoI was - thank you! I should have realized the story belongs to the Culture universe. Is there a story where non-sentient automation takes over society and leaves humanity by the wayside? Not malicious, sentient AI subjugating humanity (like Terminator or Matrix), but apathetic automated corporations maximizing profits trading with other automated corporations as humanity withers. I'd read/watch that