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A comment on A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Production. Parent comment

Re:A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Pro... by nutjob2 on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @06:26AM (#22683306)
You seemed to have missed the option that has been driving economic growth for centuries: improved worker productivity through improved technology and methods. A machine can work cheaper and faster than any Chinese worker. Eliminating work is even more efficient than that.

So basically work smarter than harder or cheaper. The way to compete with the Chinese is through better ideas.

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Re:A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Pro... by varjag on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @06:58AM (#22683433)
That's the theory we heard since 1980s: then Japanese robots will run over everyone. In practice however, you have Chinese workers instead. Outside some very high volume, certain simplicity manufacturing processes it's still mostly manual labor on assembly line.
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Re:A Novel Mechanical Ventilator Designed for Mass Scale Pro... by nutjob2 on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @03:27PM (#22687680)
Yes manual labor is used when it makes economic sense and automation is the same. Robots did indeed take over many tasks, but people still exist and still want to work so they do stuff too.

The idea that automation means people can't or don't work is a fallicy.

[ Parent | on HN ]