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I wasn’t going to respond to this thread again because honestly I was just trying to get people thinking about the little guys, but people are taking it to the extreme, so sure I’ll bite.
There was a period when I was younger where I was barely making minimum wage, was on food stamps and WIC for my wife and newborn. I was lucky that I got out of that situation, but not everyone gets lucky.
When I look at the direction the future is heading with self serve kiosks, self checkouts, automation systems everywhere you look… I can’t help but worry about the people that are being replaced for the sake of corporate profits.
If we had universal basic income, I would say bring all of that stuff on. Since we don’t, my sympathy lies with the workers, not the corporations.
I would like to offer a different take on this, even if I’ll be downvoted to hell for it…
So, using Walmart in the US as an example:
They hire people to push carts from the cart returns back to the building and those people are also responsible for snagging the stragglers as well. By putting the cart back in the correct place you are reducing the amount of work that an hourly employee has to do during their shift, thereby reducing their potential hours and potential pay.
For me, it’s the same reason I hate the self checkout, because I’m not getting a discount for running a self serve register but Walmart is saving money by not paying an employee to do it.
I get how using a self checkout is nice because I don’t have to deal with a human, but the human I no longer have to deal with is another potential employee that was getting a paycheck…
I mean, when people are struggling to survive it’s hard to let yourself get excited about technology that will likely only benefit the most wealthy. All of the “easy” discoveries have been made. Anything else getting research funding is to further capitalism.