Posted on 03/01/2020 12:16:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In the 1960s, Milton Friedman reportedly visited a construction site in a foreign country. To his surprise, the canal builders used no heavy machinery and instead armed thousands of men with shovels. He questioned the bureaucrat about this odd choice and the bureaucrat responded that it was a jobs program. “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal,” Friedman said. “If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
Friedman’s absurd proposal illustrates the absurdity of make-work bias—the belief that conserving labor makes us poorer. Make-work bias was particularly popular during the Industrial Revolution, when legions of new machines upended the old way of doing things. No one was more famously upset than the textile workers of the early 19th century—Luddites—who railed against the automatic loom, the “job-killing” machines of their day.
Modern Day Luddites
We in the Information Age have our own Luddites. Among their ranks are Las Vegas culinary workers trying to hold back AI servers and bartenders and teamsters opposing self-driving vehicles and delivery robots. Luddites and their sympathizers heap a particularly large amount of criticism on self-checkouts, probably because their ubiquity makes them an obvious target.
Their apprehension is understandable. The proliferation of self-checkouts touches our daily lives so completely that it’s hard to imagine cashiers not losing their jobs or suffering smaller paychecks. Self-checkouts threaten cashiers as surely as excavators threatened shovel manufacturers. It is no surprise that protests erupted after a French supermarket used self-checkouts to get around labor laws or that the Oregon AFL-CIO backed a petition which limits the number of self-checkouts to two per store. Every supplier hates competition.
(Excerpt) Read more at fee.org ...
There’s a huge difference between robots flipping French fries and driving cars on streets carrying humans.
I used to shop once a month and stock up for the month.
Now I do it weekly, because it’s a pain in the you-know-what to try to do more than a week’s worth of groceries at self-checkout.
And what I’m noticing is that now even at peak there may be no more than three cashiers at any one time available.
The technology has existed for several years to do away with “Checking out” altogether. RFID chips in merchandise and a reader at the exits will allow you to simply load up a cart and push it out to your self driving car. Your account will be automatically debited as you leave the store.
I wish someone would still pump gas and clean windshields.
I avoid the self checkout. I’ve had too many experiences where the system gets messed up, and then you have to wait for an employee to come and fix it. In the worst case, you might have to go search through the store to find someone who works there to come and fix it.
I wonder what the shoplifting problems are like in stores which use a lot of self checkout lanes. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that some people “forget” to scan a few items and get away with stealing that way.
Did you also walk to school everyday, uphill both ways in the snow while fending off wolf attacks?
I remember when I could just quickly place an order and get all the things I wanted delivered to my very doorstep in an hour or so, with no need to even go to the store! That level of service is so much better than what you describe. Too bad it's - oh, wait we can do that today. And I just did it last Thursday.
And they are multiplying rapidly.
Based on my experience with a plumber and an HVAC technician this week - you are correct! Also, a a bank teller who thought it was a good idea to count out the bills I was getting on top of the counter and counting loudly.
Fewer germs. No checkers handling your stuff. You can scan without sliding your item on a filthy shelf, and place it directly into your own bag on the receiving tray. And not get double-charged (which always goes in favor of the store in regular checkout lines).
If I have a lot of stuff, especially produce, I want a checker.
If I have a few things and no produce I want a machine.
Last time I was at Walmart there were 20 check out lines at with only four that were active + 20 self check out.
Nobody wanted to pay the costs for that, which is why self-serve took over and full-serve is basically dead. Unless you want to move to New Jersey or Oregon, where the Democrats force you to only have attendants pump your gas, and the lowly peon is not allowed to.
Also, people got tired of having to repair cars that those attendants ruined by putting fluids in the wrong places, putting in the wrong fluids, or destroying the hood trying to get it open.
The newest ones seem to be finally working good. My problem is separating and opening the plastic bags.
There will always be work for smart people.
The problem is there will be fewer and fewer jobs for stupid people.
There will always be work for smart people.
The problem is there will be fewer and fewer jobs for stupid people.
In Oregon, that is the law. We cannot pump our own gas.
I was not aware of a war on self-checkout. Perhaps in liberal cities? Not here in Peoria.
“They usually have one person at these self-checkout lanes in case of problems. I always ask em which one of these fine, upstanding “employees” won the “Employee of the Month” award last month?
Or, “do I get a discount for checking myself out?”
You are a jerk.
Everything is a trade-off.
I’m sure there is some shoplifting.
Walmart has high def cameras with artificial intelligence software deciding how “honest” each patron is.
That’s why you don’t see grandma at the store door anymore, it’s a robust youngster with an earpiece who gets the command to look in your cart on the way out.
I’ve seen it many times in the last several months, and it happened to me once, although I had scanned everything and passed muster.
That last is actually the policy of no few banks these days and some banks that don’t make it general policy require it of people that have had issues with cash drawer discrepancies. The counter-count and verbal component are so the surveillance cameras and microphones looking down at the counter can see and hear the count.
We have a grocery chain in town, I think parent company is Kroger, they did away with ALL self-checkout, arguing that they’ll watch the lines and move people along just as fast.
Instead, if I’m one of only two people in line and have 2-3 items, I’m stuck behind someone with a cart full.
Needless to say I don’t go there much anymore.
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