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> I’m not sure why the general sentiment here is that Amazon workers do not deserve a living wage and should be replaced with robots These are two entirely unr

> I’m not sure why the general sentiment here is that Amazon workers do not deserve a living wage and should be replaced with robots These are two entirely unrelated issues. If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots. Until that happens, the workers should be treated humanely.

mschuster91 2y ago
> If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots. The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Employment opportunities for the low skilled have all but gone down the drain - there is a reason why Walmart, Amazon and the other usual suspects love to set up shop in devastated communities: they have a captive audience that has no other realistic opportunities for gainful employment and thus is much, much less likely to resist when faced with exploitative and/or abusive conditions. Warehouse work and logistics in general is the last employment opportunity many of these people have, and while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests), just standing by idling around while the markets enforce the shift is going to be a political disaster.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests) While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.
  - jedberg 2y ago
    The problem is, since the beginning of time, all the improvements were in mechanical work, allowing humans to shift towards more intellectual work. Now the "robots" are replacing intellectual work, and humans have no where to go.
    - viraptor 2y ago
      Is that really the case? So far all the examples I've seen were closer to "change X caused people to shift to another type of job, or to a new area opened up by X". Very recently some creative work has been impacted by LLMs, but apart from that, are there real stats on the intellectual work being taken over?
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor. Agreed. But in general, the efficiency gains got redistributed to the people - usually, by (bloody) revolutions and strikes. Across the Western world, we haven't seen any meaningful progress in that redistribution in a fucking century - the 40 hour work week got introduced around 1926 [1]. Instead, all we got was that women now get exploited by employment providers as well, so the pool of available labor power virtually doubled, driving down wages while over the last few decades housing costs exploded and the demand for labor went down, further driving down wages. It remains open if the rise of pacifism and "non-violent action" in general that has happened in parallel in the same timeframe was coincidence, causation or consequence. We are in for a wild ride over the next years. Luigi will not be the last one of his kind, I think this was just the start... [1] https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week
- snikeris 2y ago
  I worked for a Walmart store as a young man. It was well run, and they were adamant that you took your breaks throughout the day. I faced no exploitative or abusive conditions and was well paid.
  - switch007 2y ago
    How long ago?
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    Was this 80s Walmart, 90s Walmart, 00s Walmart? Their corporate culture has changed dramatically into a cutthroat business.
  - yamazakiwi 2y ago
    I believe you other than well paid
  - rascul 2y ago
    This is the same experience a friend of mine had working for Walmart for a couple years, until they moved earlier this year. I suspect each location is going to vary, though, just like any chain store.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  > The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Percentage of US labor force working in agriculture by decade: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/statistics-trends-american-farming https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-reso... 1950 was 15.2%, 1970 was 4.7%
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Yeah, but manufacturing picked up a lot of the slack... until that went down the drain when China came, so Amazon et al picked up the slack, but now there is nothing left.
    - nradov 2y ago
      The US Navy is rebuilding to fight a war with China. There are jobs available in the shipyards, mostly unionized. It's tough work, probably harder and more dangerous than an Amazon warehouse.
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        That's good for the coastal towns that have shipyards, but useless in the flyover states.
        nradov 2y ago
        Most of my recent business and personal travel has involved flying to "flyover states". But whatever. People are allowed to move for work. I have. Shipyards are expanding in the Great Lakes region. https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-expands-shipbuilding-training-to-michigan https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-expands-shipbuil... The shale gas revolution has created a lot of blue collar jobs. The chemicals industry is booming in Ohio. https://www.jobsohio.com/news-events/news-press/energy-chemicals https://www.jobsohio.com/news-events/news-press/energy-chemi...
        xhkkffbf 2y ago
- egypturnash 2y ago
  Everyone cheering for automation and AI always says "oh we'll just implement UBI" but none of them ever seem to actually be working to help make that happen; I doubt we will get a glimpse of that until things get bad enough for CEO-murder to be a much more common thing.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    UBI at this point is entirely a political decision to be made by the legislators. How do you expect others to "actually be working to help make that happen"?
    - egypturnash 2y ago
      Give money to people working to persuade lawmakers to make UBI happen. Get your AI-boosting company to spend some of its money buying lawmakers and telling them to make UBI happen.
  - WeylandYutani 2y ago
    MCD still needs middle class people to buy their Happy Meals.
dietr1ch 2y ago
Yeah, but at Amazon people will be more concerned of a robot part squeaking for better care than a human yelling for it.
immibis 2y ago
And crucially, we should figure out how to run society without culling unnecessary humans.

mschuster91 2y ago

> If the world doesn't need a particular task to be done by humans, then the task should be performed by robots. The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Employment opportunities for the low skilled have all but gone down the drain - there is a reason why Walmart, Amazon and the other usual suspects love to set up shop in devastated communities: they have a captive audience that has no other realistic opportunities for gainful employment and thus is much, much less likely to resist when faced with exploitative and/or abusive conditions. Warehouse work and logistics in general is the last employment opportunity many of these people have, and while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests), just standing by idling around while the markets enforce the shift is going to be a political disaster.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>while it being replaced by robots may be better for society as a whole (if one follows the belief that all work should be done by machines so that humans can follow their individual interests) While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor.
- jedberg 2y ago
  The problem is, since the beginning of time, all the improvements were in mechanical work, allowing humans to shift towards more intellectual work. Now the "robots" are replacing intellectual work, and humans have no where to go.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Is that really the case? So far all the examples I've seen were closer to "change X caused people to shift to another type of job, or to a new area opened up by X". Very recently some creative work has been impacted by LLMs, but apart from that, are there real stats on the intellectual work being taken over?
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > While "robots" are a fairly recent concept, the advancement of human civilization has been predicated on ever increasing efficiencies of human labor. Agreed. But in general, the efficiency gains got redistributed to the people - usually, by (bloody) revolutions and strikes. Across the Western world, we haven't seen any meaningful progress in that redistribution in a fucking century - the 40 hour work week got introduced around 1926 [1]. Instead, all we got was that women now get exploited by employment providers as well, so the pool of available labor power virtually doubled, driving down wages while over the last few decades housing costs exploded and the demand for labor went down, further driving down wages. It remains open if the rise of pacifism and "non-violent action" in general that has happened in parallel in the same timeframe was coincidence, causation or consequence. We are in for a wild ride over the next years. Luigi will not be the last one of his kind, I think this was just the start... [1] https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/40-hour-work-week
snikeris 2y ago
I worked for a Walmart store as a young man. It was well run, and they were adamant that you took your breaks throughout the day. I faced no exploitative or abusive conditions and was well paid.
- switch007 2y ago
  How long ago?
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  Was this 80s Walmart, 90s Walmart, 00s Walmart? Their corporate culture has changed dramatically into a cutthroat business.
- yamazakiwi 2y ago
  I believe you other than well paid
- rascul 2y ago
  This is the same experience a friend of mine had working for Walmart for a couple years, until they moved earlier this year. I suspect each location is going to vary, though, just like any chain store.
quickthrowman 2y ago
> The problem is, our society isn't ready for that shift, not even close. Percentage of US labor force working in agriculture by decade: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/statistics-trends-american-farming https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-reso... 1950 was 15.2%, 1970 was 4.7%
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Yeah, but manufacturing picked up a lot of the slack... until that went down the drain when China came, so Amazon et al picked up the slack, but now there is nothing left.
  - nradov 2y ago
    The US Navy is rebuilding to fight a war with China. There are jobs available in the shipyards, mostly unionized. It's tough work, probably harder and more dangerous than an Amazon warehouse.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      That's good for the coastal towns that have shipyards, but useless in the flyover states.
      - nradov 2y ago
        Most of my recent business and personal travel has involved flying to "flyover states". But whatever. People are allowed to move for work. I have. Shipyards are expanding in the Great Lakes region. https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-expands-shipbuilding-training-to-michigan https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-expands-shipbuil... The shale gas revolution has created a lot of blue collar jobs. The chemicals industry is booming in Ohio. https://www.jobsohio.com/news-events/news-press/energy-chemicals https://www.jobsohio.com/news-events/news-press/energy-chemi...
      - xhkkffbf 2y ago
egypturnash 2y ago
Everyone cheering for automation and AI always says "oh we'll just implement UBI" but none of them ever seem to actually be working to help make that happen; I doubt we will get a glimpse of that until things get bad enough for CEO-murder to be a much more common thing.
- int_19h 2y ago
  UBI at this point is entirely a political decision to be made by the legislators. How do you expect others to "actually be working to help make that happen"?
  - egypturnash 2y ago
    Give money to people working to persuade lawmakers to make UBI happen. Get your AI-boosting company to spend some of its money buying lawmakers and telling them to make UBI happen.
- WeylandYutani 2y ago
  MCD still needs middle class people to buy their Happy Meals.

dietr1ch 2y ago

Yeah, but at Amazon people will be more concerned of a robot part squeaking for better care than a human yelling for it.

immibis 2y ago

And crucially, we should figure out how to run society without culling unnecessary humans.