4 ms·

"Should we just fire all the people on strike at the ports" is how container shipping started in the first place

by languagehacker 2y ago

chrisco255 2y ago
No, some things just make sense. Having everything shipped in randomly sized containers is terribly inefficient.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > No, some things just make sense. Having everything shipped in randomly sized containers is terribly inefficient. That's half the value. The other half is that standardized containers dramatically reduce "shrinkage" at the port. Which was a longstanding problem.
  - datadrivenangel 2y ago
    Shrinkage was a workers benefit! I don't think normalizing petty theft is good, but taking away 'perks' is still unpopular. Imagine the riots we'd get if FAANG workers couldn't take snacks home with them?
    - gruez 2y ago
      /s? I can't imagine people getting up in arms about not being able to take home maybe $5 worth of snacks a day ($1300/year if you do it every working day), when their salaries are 6 figures.
watershawl 2y ago
Yes, Peter Drucker(0) said that shipping containers were one of the greatest inventions of the last century 0) father of modern management and coiner of term "knowledge worker"
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  Great only if your goal was to make things on one side of the planet, and ship it all to the other side of the planet. If that's your goal, then the invention of containers makes that so much easier. Should we have this goal? Is international shipping (at the scale we engage in it) a good thing? If it were (just for the sake of the argument) a bad thing, then containers would in fact be a horrible invention that enables a very bad thing to happen even more than it could otherwise.
  - SllX 2y ago
    Yes, domestic and international trade is a worthy human endeavor. Shipping containers are awesome. Shipping containers are also multimodal and are loaded up on trucks and rail cars at ports to be hauled away.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    agree - an example is container shipping into "food miles/km", as in South America fish and avacado shipped to the USA for a small change in price to the consumer.. Food miles is widely seen as out of control and makes no sense from fairly simple systems analysis
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    Trade between countries is actually a good thing and has prevented many wars for resources that lie mostly in other countries. I guess for global warming though it’s an L
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      Trade is war, the United States has been under siege for decades, and the walls slowly crumble. Why shoot at soldiers when you can just make the enemies' jobs all disappear, make their country unable to manufacture steel, and deprive them of key technologies? You'll trounce them and they'll thank you for it and ask for more. It's a loss all around, just about every way you can imagine it. The people who are complaining on r/antiwork about their Starbucks job can't pay their $3000/month rent... they work that job because all the real jobs left for Asia back in the late 1980s. Was the international trade good for them?
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zactato 2y ago
I thought it was also the Vietnam War
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Are we far enough along yet to replicate that scenario in 2024? Or is thst the equivalent of firing all your programmers and trying to ship with ChatGPT from 2-3 minimum wage "prompt engineers"? I'm sure it will one day be viable on both ends. I'm very unsure if we're there yet, especially if each day of non-production did indeed cost $5b

"Should we just fire all the people on strike at the ports" is how container shipping started in the first place

chrisco255 2y ago

No, some things just make sense. Having everything shipped in randomly sized containers is terribly inefficient.

nordsieck 2y ago
> No, some things just make sense. Having everything shipped in randomly sized containers is terribly inefficient. That's half the value. The other half is that standardized containers dramatically reduce "shrinkage" at the port. Which was a longstanding problem.
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Shrinkage was a workers benefit! I don't think normalizing petty theft is good, but taking away 'perks' is still unpopular. Imagine the riots we'd get if FAANG workers couldn't take snacks home with them?
  - gruez 2y ago
    /s? I can't imagine people getting up in arms about not being able to take home maybe $5 worth of snacks a day ($1300/year if you do it every working day), when their salaries are 6 figures.

watershawl 2y ago

Yes, Peter Drucker(0) said that shipping containers were one of the greatest inventions of the last century 0) father of modern management and coiner of term "knowledge worker"

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
Great only if your goal was to make things on one side of the planet, and ship it all to the other side of the planet. If that's your goal, then the invention of containers makes that so much easier. Should we have this goal? Is international shipping (at the scale we engage in it) a good thing? If it were (just for the sake of the argument) a bad thing, then containers would in fact be a horrible invention that enables a very bad thing to happen even more than it could otherwise.
- SllX 2y ago
  Yes, domestic and international trade is a worthy human endeavor. Shipping containers are awesome. Shipping containers are also multimodal and are loaded up on trucks and rail cars at ports to be hauled away.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    [flagged]
- mistrial9 2y ago
  agree - an example is container shipping into "food miles/km", as in South America fish and avacado shipped to the USA for a small change in price to the consumer.. Food miles is widely seen as out of control and makes no sense from fairly simple systems analysis
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Trade between countries is actually a good thing and has prevented many wars for resources that lie mostly in other countries. I guess for global warming though it’s an L
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Trade is war, the United States has been under siege for decades, and the walls slowly crumble. Why shoot at soldiers when you can just make the enemies' jobs all disappear, make their country unable to manufacture steel, and deprive them of key technologies? You'll trounce them and they'll thank you for it and ask for more. It's a loss all around, just about every way you can imagine it. The people who are complaining on r/antiwork about their Starbucks job can't pay their $3000/month rent... they work that job because all the real jobs left for Asia back in the late 1980s. Was the international trade good for them?

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

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zactato 2y ago

I thought it was also the Vietnam War

johnnyanmac 2y ago

Are we far enough along yet to replicate that scenario in 2024? Or is thst the equivalent of firing all your programmers and trying to ship with ChatGPT from 2-3 minimum wage "prompt engineers"? I'm sure it will one day be viable on both ends. I'm very unsure if we're there yet, especially if each day of non-production did indeed cost $5b