4 ms·

What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm. Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that the lowe

by tisme 14y ago

What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm. Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that the lowest bidder gets to deliver the goods. What they don't tell you is how much the lowest bidder is squeezing their employees just so they can be the lowest bidder. Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). And when those robotic warehouses roll around these jobs will simply cease to exist.

Tloewald 14y ago
Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China. If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be cheaper than robots. This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  It kind of sounds like copyrights for people.
- faucet 14y ago
  Shouldn't the education also be a part of the equation here? Or did you drop it out of your reasoning for a reason. And another thought, if there will be no balance on employment and wages - who is supposed to be buying the production of those robots?
- pc86 14y ago
  Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax philosophic about your personal political beliefs.
ebiester 14y ago
How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However, we have a whole class of people that we're not going to be able to find work for, at least at livable wages, especially as agriculture is more and more automated.
- VMG 14y ago
  That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.
  - bebebebe 14y ago
    You're a fucking loon.
  - mynameishere 14y ago
    Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?
- Variance 14y ago
  Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.
lmm 14y ago
>Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). Or move to a better country, one where that's legally guaranteed. Seriously, it's stories like this that keep me out of the US.

by tisme 14y ago

Tloewald 14y ago

Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China. If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be cheaper than robots. This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.

paulhauggis 14y ago
It kind of sounds like copyrights for people.
faucet 14y ago
Shouldn't the education also be a part of the equation here? Or did you drop it out of your reasoning for a reason. And another thought, if there will be no balance on employment and wages - who is supposed to be buying the production of those robots?
pc86 14y ago
Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax philosophic about your personal political beliefs.

ebiester 14y ago

How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However, we have a whole class of people that we're not going to be able to find work for, at least at livable wages, especially as agriculture is more and more automated.

VMG 14y ago
That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.
- bebebebe 14y ago
  You're a fucking loon.
- mynameishere 14y ago
  Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?
Variance 14y ago
Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.

lmm 14y ago

>Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). Or move to a better country, one where that's legally guaranteed. Seriously, it's stories like this that keep me out of the US.