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 (4 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.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (98 children)

No, it means you won't be able to work and will now have to fight over garbage to eat if you want to survive.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

The rich guy already lives in that society. How will he feel superior if everyone else does too?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing is we already live in that world. Labour saving automation is all around us but we work as hard as ever. My generation witnessed the arrival of the two parent income, women entered the workplace in order to afford better housing and foreign holidays. The result? More expensive housing and latchkey kids.

[–] AlDente 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Are you surprised? The more efficient machines become, the harder humans will need to work to compete.

Edit: People are downvoting this as if it was something I wanted. It just seems like reality to me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's the problem with capitalism and competition in capitalism. Everyone competes to maximize cost savings and profit.

I don't know of a solution but this ain't it.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm stuck on the typo: "...robots than can work..."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Same here. Ruined the rest of the comic.

[–] Classy 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah kind of weird. Font looks like it varies in a way like it is handwritten, but that typo is glaring.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A robot works harder, does more, performs better and costs less than unskilled workers. A robot also does not harass coworkers or suddenly start working at another company. It would be incredibly stupid to keep hiring people who have no value to the company.

The only risk is that these unemployed proles would suddenly decide to seize the means- oh wait guns are banned

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I work with robots in a factory.

A robot is finicky, fails constantly, performs slower, and requires me to fucking babysit the piece of shit all night to deal with faults and errors. Theoretically the robot does the entire job of welding and bending and etching, but in practice they need me to make sure it doesn't shit itself.

I'm sure, at some point, they can replace me. We aren't there yet.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Not OP, but I'm an industrial field tech, my two cents:

"Robot" is a very wide term used for a bunch of different stuff, but mostly for industrial automation devices, which, unfortunately, at the moment are still very dumb. Industrial automation improves output, if your robot really is slower than a human, somebody messed up very badly.

What it doesn't improve, and instead reduces, is adaptability; humans can perceive and reason on a vastly superior scale to a machine, and they can adapt their actions to changing factors in a process much better than a machine can, and they don't need to be programmed for every single possibility.

It'll take a while before machines can replace humans in non-repetitive tasks, but in those task they excel, provided they are properly designed, built and maintained.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Bottom left looks uncannily like Jeff B

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

"it means these robots will be stealing your souls (via the art you create) & also all your money (they need it more)."

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