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Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by eru on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @10:47AM (#15748640)
That's the point. If you mean bottom of cost, that is.

Humans have better things to do than grueling warehouse jobs.

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by username223 on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:23AM (#15748950)
> Humans have better things to do than grueling warehouse jobs.

Sadly, they also need to eat, and the only way they can do so now is by doing soul- and body-crushing work at Amazon "fulfillment centers."

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by johnvanommen on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:38AM (#15749115)
LA Times published an article that indicates that these warehouse jobs are replacing retail jobs, and they pay better.

Even better, the warehouses are revitalizing parts of the country that have been blighted for decades.

For instance, I used to live in San Bernardino, and these warehouse jobs have created opportunities in that city that simply didn't exist a decade ago. Instead of spending two hours a day commuting to a retail job, people are actually working in the cities that they live in.

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by eru on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @10:36AM (#15757556)
Could you dig up the URL for that article, please?
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by simias on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:39AM (#15749123)
I'm personally of the opinion that we must prepare for a society where unskilled jobs don't exist anymore. Evidently they'll be replaced by machines sooner or later. Cashiers, warehouse workers, harvesters... These jobs are soon going to join carriage drivers and lamplighters in history books.

That's clearly a big problem for our societies which seem to collapse when unemployment raises. It's also clear that not everybody will end up as a software engineer or neurosurgeon. So what's the solution? That's left as an exercise for the reader.

What would a society where only a tiny portion of the population needs to actively work to provide for everybody look like? An utopia for some, hell on earth for others.

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by username223 on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:50AM (#15749226)
> Cashiers, warehouse workers, harvesters...

Paralegals, sports reporters, basic web coders...

> An utopia for some, hell on earth for others.

"We" could farm the "others" for nutrients and trace elements (until "we" become "others" thanks to future automation), or the "others" could kill "us," or the species as a whole could find a different arrangement than trading labor for food. I'm betting on mass extinction followed by thousands of years of bare survival by humans and a small number of similarly cockroach-esque species, but maybe we'll do better.

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by QAPereo on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @10:57AM (#15748715)
They aren’t doing those jobs because they like it, they need it. Sure, they have better things to do, but step one is always, “don’t starve” right? Taking their marginal living and waiting for some mystical market force to save them is just... shitty.
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by cgmg on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:00AM (#15748738)
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by antisthenes on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @01:55PM (#15750505)
Wow, 1 economist back in 1891 considered it a fallacy. You know, before the advent of modern quantitative economics as a science and all the labor econ research that's been done since then. Now it has a wiki article that's missing citations in the most important key points.

Thanks for changing my viewpoint!

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by cgmg on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @10:33PM (#15762535)
> Wow, 1 economist back in 1891 considered it a fallacy.

Good to know you only have the ability to read two sentences.

Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by eru on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @07:39PM (#15761942)
Someone could go and fix up the Wikipedia article..
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by QAPereo on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:06AM (#15748785)
Sure, all you need to do is retrain warehouse workers as nurses. Any progress there?
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by eeZah7Ux on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @01:08PM (#15750077)
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by QAPereo on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @01:17PM (#15759062)
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by gthtjtkt on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:45AM (#15749180)
Haha yeah, low-skilled workers don't deserve to have food or shelter or any sense of purpose in life... am I right or am I right? Guys???
Re:Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon by alexbeloi on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @02:05PM (#15750573)
History has proved the Luddites wrong time and time again, perhaps this time will be different, but I doubt it.