this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah, now you just get a wage ceiling where you're only employable if you're cheaper than the robot.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup. Whether related to robots or not, Walmart is DECREASING wages and others may yet follow their ghastly example even as consumer prices and corporate profits soar 🤬

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Their explanation of “consistent staffing” didn’t even make sense in a bullshit propaganda kind of way

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup, it'll probably take a few generations after work robots become commonplace for capitalism to finally shuffle off. Life will just suck a whole lot more in the intervening time as you fight for the few unskilled jobs and spend 25+ years in education to get the few skilled jobs available

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And thats totally deserved. A population that is unable or unwilling to unionize against their oppressors is doomed.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The problem with automation is that the unions lose power. Collectivise? We'll just replace you with scab bots.

We're not set up to use automaton as we should - the basis for a transition to a decommodified society where people's needs are met and they have more leisure time. Instead, we'll just further centralise economic resources until capitalism breaks down because noone can afford food or shelter. At that point, if we don't eat the rich, we'll consolidate back into autocracy thanks to their disproportionate economic power.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I agree. I was talking about right now. If people did this today, nobody would be replaced as everything would collapse, which only shows how much power the working people actually have.

Most people (by design) underestimate the power of unions and strikes. Just look up what countries had strikes and what happened after. It’s always the same (if the country is democratic). Employers lose, employees win.

The trick today is to keep this info from us and feed us anti union propaganda. This encourages the sentence you just used (we‘ll just replace you).

No they wont, not until we built their robots. After we did that, we have actually ruined ourselves.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is what happened to the Luddites. Don't see many cloth weavers around anymore.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's not.

I'm not proposing we smash the machines - I'm proposing we share the benefit of the productivity they take over, and use it to fund people to work less rather than pouring all the benefits of the work that those machines do into the pockets of the likes of Bezos at the direct expense to workers.

Use the machines for good rather than amplifying evil.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's why programmers have to integrate unionising subroutines directly into the robot's code.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago

You could get a job working on the robots