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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 15:49:36 GMT
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References: <Ct8z84.np1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <CtGEFE.7H1@armory.com> <30us2b$53n@tribune.usask.ca> <1994Jul25.030512.21689@rgfn.epcc.edu>
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In article <1994Jul25.030512.21689@rgfn.epcc.edu>,
Michael S. Miner <ac343@rgfn.epcc.edu> wrote:
>     I'm not sure what Papa Joe's Paradise, or any other dead
>totalitarian autocracy has to do with robots displacing workers. 
>I might mention, however, that the word robot is traced back to
>the robots (slaves) in Capek's R.U.R., which depicted the early
>worker's paradise of Czechoslovakia as a place where the goal was
>to replace mind numbed worker with mindless workers.  To be more
>direct, to be a robot is to replace a menial factory worker.
>     I can't see where all the philosophical maunderings over
>"which socio-political system is better for the workers" will get
>us.  Robotics will, where more economical, replace unskilled
>labor.  Even if one gets paid $14.95 an hour to assemble an
>automotive component, it is a trained task and not a skill.  At a
>lower wage-scale humans are more economical.  
>     Do we then encourage a lower standard of living for
>laborers?  Maybe we should force them to adapt to the new world. 
>This same argument has been had since the mechanical loom was
>invented.  Probably since the spear replaced the rock, and put
>half of the tribe out of the hunting with rocks business, but
>they just chalked it up to magic.  
>     Fighting progress is futile, ignoring it is cowardly, and
>arguing about it is just plain stupid.  :-)
>Michael S. Miner                         ac343@rgfn.epcc.edu
---------------------------------------
The trick is, Michael, how to "force them to adapt to a new world" where
they have a much "lower standard of living for laborers" without you being
the one to wind-up with a spear in your back and a rock in your skull.
You had better train them and accept economic equality with them, because
you're way outnumbered. Interesting turn of a phrase: A programmer;
out-numbered!!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

