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When I was a kid, I bought a box of thumb tacks at the dollar store. When I got home and was using them, I suddenly got very sad: I started thinking about the p
by lanaius 11y ago
When I was a kid, I bought a box of thumb tacks at the dollar store. When I got home and was using them, I suddenly got very sad: I started thinking about the people who assembled the tacks and put them in the boxes. Being naïve at that age I assumed everything was done manually, and I just felt awful about people who spent all day doing this just to sell them at the dollar store - they must be paid pennies!
- ethbro 11y agoTo me, the perversion is creating a system where it's cheaper for the thumb tack manufacturer to employ people in mindless, repetitive, soul-crushing work (no offense intended to the few people out there who love assembling thumb tacks) than to automate the task. Minimum wage is afaict a "below this wage a person cannot support themselves" barrier. But we really don't have a "below this level of boredom a human shouldn't be doing the job" metric. (And moreover, I'd cynically quip that it's probably in capital owners' interests to ensure that never happens, thus affording them a cheaper alternative to investing in automation -- even if the price is a substantial portion of a person's life)
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoI sometimes watch How Its Made (well, more so it is a show my father loves so it is what is playing when I'm visiting my parents). There is a lot of automation, but there is almost always someone doing some part of the job that looks really repetitive and boring. I get a bit saddened reflecting on what it is like doing something so repetitive for so much of one's life.