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To: Chainmail

Note that “minimum wage” means it is illegal to pay workers what some jobs are worth, and other regulations make it hard to hire. Given the need to do the job, and the encroaching prohibitions and restrictions on having humans do them, machines fill the gap.

I’d rather a human wash my dishes and sweep my floors, but a few hundred bucks for a dishwasher and Roomba are just so much easier than the gov’t paperwork & restrictions.


15 posted on 10/31/2011 7:36:46 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: ctdonath2
I certainly agree that we put every thing on the skids when the Left pushed the "living wage" issue while the unions relentlessly pressed companies for greater compensation and benefits but automation is pressing from a different direction too.

Machines are much better at repetitive, precise operations and they work 24/7 with only breaks for maintenance. Where we could funnel our less-ambitious siblings or children into a nice factory job or into the service industry, we are facing the permanent replacement of human labor in most and soon all sectors. We are even exploring robotics for infantry warfare - I mean, who could complain? No fear, no fatigue, no letters home.

The question about what we are going to do for all those IQs under a hundred (or 110 or 120) who don't have the gifts of artistic ability or sports skills or terrific looks or something else marketable has yet to be solved. It's uncomfortable but the question has to be asked and some answer found and soon.

17 posted on 10/31/2011 8:33:18 AM PDT by Chainmail
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