Robots To Replace Fast Food Workers

So basically this is the millennial version of stoplights, operator less elevators, coin-op vending machines, automated car washes, ATM machines, and automated phone attendants, and the self checkout line at the supermarket. (I think I got that in the close to historical order :)

But man I'm still waiting for that perfect 100% automated personal pan pizza in a 24hr vending machine :mad:
 
Ducman69 said:
You're tremendously confused. There is no opportunity cost involved in returning manufacturing of primarily domestically consumed goods and services to the United States. Not at the moment anyway.

We have plenty of unemployed and underemployed that can be put to work, manufacturing involves far more positions than simple entry level minimum wage jobs, there is nothing inherently wrong with entry level positions (just don't buy into entitlement culture that you should never aspire for more as you progress), and if you can put an end to out of control immigration, you may even be able to completely eliminate the need for artificial wage structures, while drastically increasing the available per capita welfare for the truly needy. The reason is that when you import poverty in the form of non net tax contributors (those that use more in taxes than they pay into), and flood the unskilled labor pool as we do with illegal aliens, you cut the amount of aid available per person since it has to be spread over such a wider base, while also creating so much oversupply of unskilled labor compared to the number of jobs that wages fall through the floor.

So, Trumps plan to increase the job pool (increase demand) while reducing the slave labor pool (stop illegal immigration) reduce the trade deficit (improve the economy) while making a greater per capita welfare available for those that truly need it, is absolutely something that will, ehem, Make America Great Again.

Its not rocket science, its just basic supply and demand economics, something every business man understands.
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I'm sorry, but just... wow. I work in senior management for a financial institution in which my position is directly related to finance. You deserve a classic - What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

I could go on and on about tariffs, the global economy, "slave labor", real estate development, etc. but it would be like talking to an imaginary wall paid for by Mexico.
 
Ducman69 said:
Translation... "Are you kidding me? Is that a joke? WOW! I can't even right now. Can you see how I'm smiling, not because I can't come up with an actual response, but because like REALLY? WOW! I just can't!"
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Here this is easy. A 45% tariff on imported goods would not create manufacturing jobs in the United States. As a person that has worked in management (which you obviously have not) the biggest item hitting your income statement is salary and benefit expense. It "trumps" (you like that bud) operating expense. Therefore what would happen is cost of goods being shipped to the United States would be adjusted to make up for the 45% tariff and passed on to the consumer. Also if you eliminate "slave labor" as you call it, it will directly negatively effect the poor racists who are up in arms. How will fast food make up for increasing salary/benefit expense? OH MY, you guessed it, increase the cost of the product... which is primarily purchased by the poor. Good enough for your ideological vomiting? I'm starting to believe the old 7 out of 10 comment due to the internet these days.
 
Tweak42 said:
So basically this is the millennial version of stoplights, operator less elevators, coin-op vending machines, automated car washes, ATM machines, and automated phone attendants, and the self checkout line at the supermarket. (I think I got that in the close to historical order :)

But man I'm still waiting for that perfect 100% automated personal pan pizza in a 24hr vending machine :mad:
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Pretty sure they have those in Japan.

Eventually automation will be a real social problem rather than a benefit, since a large portion of the population simply won't have the mental capacity to exceed the capabilities of "smart" machines as technology progresses, leaving them without a purpose. Now, in theory, we would be able to produce such ridiculous amounts of wealth under such a system, that people wouldn't have to work and you could then adopt socialism and provide guaranteed comfortable incomes for all.

Unfortunately, that would also most likely produce a new breed of useless humans less like Star Trek (totally implausible, even if it is one of my favorite shows) and more like Wall-E, since most people wouldn't work if they don't have to and would just be fat lazy slobs letting automation handle everything.

That is a ways off though, and nothing we can do about it.

For right now, the automation can be dealt with effectively by abolishing illegal slave labor in the US and increasing the pool of jobs. This will be especially important when we get self-driving cars, as the transportation industry employs a CRAPTON of low-skilled labor.
 
Manmade mechanical objects with more intelligence than Occupy Wall Street. I love it.
 
haste. said:
Here this is easy. A 45% tariff on imported goods would not create manufacturing jobs in the United States. As a person that has worked in management (which you obviously have not) the biggest item hitting your income statement is salary and benefit expense. It "trumps" (you like that bud) operating expense. Therefore what would happen is cost of goods being shipped to the United States would be adjusted to make up for the 45% tariff and passed on to the consumer.
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Apparently its not easy, or you wouldn't be so patently wrong and illogical. You say that "adding an expense" doesn't matter because "subtracting a greater expense" is more significant, so the "lesser expense" would be passed on to the consumer. That is literally what you have just said. Sounds pretty incoherent, right?

Business will gravitate to where costs are lower, correct?

A tariff increases the cost of doing business and can be absolutely any number you choose, correct?

Thus a business will go to where its costs are lower, which thanks to a tariff which can be any figure to achieve that, would be the United States. Now, for American businesses to be competitive to overseas consumers, which we want, we don't want huge tariffs on our exports, right? Well, for starters we don't need tariffs on countries that have similar labor wages, environmental regulations, and corporate taxes (of which we have the highest in the world), right? So that market is already unaffected with "free" trade since there should be no inherent natural trade deficit. Other countries like China and Mexico would have no inherent advantage with massively reduced corporate taxes, crazy low labor, artificial currency manipulation, and non-existent environmental regulation thanks to the threat of tariffs to the world's largest economy. The application of force is not feasible, since US trade can't be disrupted with no other blue water navy capable of interfering with US interests (including our trade partners), along with other military power projection that is unmatched by any other nation. China also cannot afford to have no trade with an economy so massive as the United States, as it would collapse their economy and government which has grown reliant on it (that's how they have been able to build their infrastructure so fast thanks to the massive trade deficit of US currency flowing into their cities). So a "nimble navigator" like Trump can leverage that power to negotiate fair trade deals, in which we no longer experience a trade deficit with China, whatever that may be. This is also great for human rights advocates and environmentalists, as multi-national corporate giants would no longer have the obvious incentive of dumping toxic wastes and abusing labor overseas for their products primarily sold in the West, so no more suicide nets around concentration camp factories in China. Blood-free iPhones that aren't contributing to the pollution that makes so many Chinese children deathly sick in cities choked by industrial pollution and waste.

Feels good, right?

So, yes, the cost of goods manufactured in Mexico and China would be as expensive as goods made in the US for our poor, but we have a smaller pool of poor people to subsidize meaning more money to go around, and with a reduced unskilled labor pool and greater number of jobs, there should be far fewer poor and a larger middle class.

Remember, not that long ago, for most of us over 30 years old remember when Walmart had almost exclusively "made in America" and not "made in China" goods. We had a larger middle class and our wealthy were plenty healthy but nothing like the 1% today, and having corporate giants like Walmart on effective subsidized welfare sending jobs and money overseas to China and Mexico is not making America Great. But we can be again; nothing is unfix-able.
 
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Old Paul said:
Sorry, but Robots did this over 80 years, at least in NYC. They were called "Automats", and provided all kinds of Food, each in a revolving, or openning, compartment after you deposited the stated amount of money in a slot on the compartment.
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Automats were an illusion of automation. There were people hidden behind the wall, preparing the food and putting them in the compartments. This new experiment is a bit more robotic, but the people still have to be there; it's just that the wall is thicker, the people more inaccessible. The novelty of "automated" food preparation died long ago. Who enjoys being served by a vending machine?
 
Ducman69 said:
Apparently its not easy, or you wouldn't be so patently wrong and illogical. You say that "adding an expense" doesn't matter because "subtracting a greater expense" is more significant, so the "lesser expense" would be passed on to the consumer. That is literally what you have just said. Sounds pretty incoherent, right?

Business will gravitate to where costs are lower, correct?

A tariff increases the cost of doing business and can be absolutely any number you choose, correct?

Thus a business will go to where its costs are lower, which thanks to a tariff which can be any figure to achieve that, would be the United States. Now, for American businesses to be competitive to overseas consumers, which we want, we don't want huge tariffs on our exports, right? Well, for starters we don't need tariffs on countries that have similar labor wages, environmental regulations, and corporate taxes (of which we have the highest in the world), right? So that market is already unaffected with "free" trade since there should be no inherent natural trade deficit. Other countries like China and Mexico would have no inherent advantage with massively reduced corporate taxes, crazy low labor, artificial currency manipulation, and non-existent environmental regulation thanks to the threat of tariffs to the world's largest economy. The application of force is not feasible, since US trade can't be disrupted with no other blue water navy capable of interfering with US interests (including our trade partners), along with other military power projection that is unmatched by any other nation.

So, yes, the cost of goods manufactured in Mexico and China would be as expensive as goods made in the US for our poor, but we have a smaller pool of poor people to subsidize meaning more money to go around, and with a reduced unskilled labor pool and greater number of jobs, there should be far fewer poor and a larger middle class.
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Business will gravitate to where costs are lower, correct?

Please stop and please read a few scholarly articles written by economists on both sides of the party lines. I know you won't because you are extremely passionate about your beliefs and do not like reality. This asinine idea is going to bury the world's largest economy. Everyone here gets it. You wear your blinders and are one of the most easily manipulated people by the right extremism that posts on this website. I'm an Independent and lean Republican. The idea's being passed in this election are not only implausible, but downright silly. The Xenophobic garbage being spouted is just not realistic. If you could have a rational and not ideological thought for once in your life you may for once have a comment that the "evil" educated don't think is terrifying.

I'm done. Like I said, it's like talking to a wall. You have all your bullet points lined up and will never listen to reason, just please don't start sucker punching people or talking about your private parts... that would be horrifically embarrassing in a political discussion. Oh wait... presidential.:rolleyes:
 
Osirus said:
LOL, will the footbots demand $15/hour though?
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Nope, but the first time their grade G hamburger meat is undercooked and some glitch gets dozens of people sick with e.coli, then $60 million dollars worth of lawsuits might make them wish they just paid that money in the first place.

I'm sorry for all the doom and gloom about minimum wage being raised, prices on burgers have gone up steadily such that spending $7 for a "burger meal" is to the point of might as well go to some place like Red Robin, where I can get a burger for a few bucks more that's way better, and has fries too.
 
haste. said:
Please stop and please read a few scholarly articles written by economists on both sides of the party lines.
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Oh dear, you can't come up with a coherent response to support your assertion, so we're resorting to nonsensical personal attacks and "just Google it" or "educate yourself" stereotypical non-answers.

"I could tell you, but there's no point, educate yourself! BOOM" - far more common type of anti-intellectual retort than it should be... sigh.
 
haste. said:
Read about things like this a while ago. Although different than what the article is about (where the customer intervenes in the process), these franchises are looking at full automation. It's a fairly expensive up front investment, but the ROI would kick in quickly when you take out the human element... even at the current wages. I want to say that McDonald's has a test store(s) using one which can cook and package burgers and fries more sanitarily (which isn't a word apparently) and efficiently than human labor. Consumer walks up to the kiosk, orders, and the machine produces the meal ad hoc. No human intervention necessary and you could staff a busy store with one, maybe two educated employees to manage the process. Automation is about to hit other industries than manufacturing and it's going to happen soon. It'll be ironic when working at McDonald's is a fairly high paying occupation.
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McDonald's employs around 760,000 people in the US. If, say, half a million are laid off due to automation, that's a lot of angry people with a lot of free time on their hands. Guess what happens next to all of those automated fast food places and calculate your ROI accordingly.
 
evilsofa said:
McDonald's employs around 760,000 people in the US. If, say, half a million are laid off due to automation, that's a lot of angry people with a lot of free time on their hands. Guess what happens next to all of those automated fast food places and calculate your ROI accordingly.
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At its peak Blockbuster for example employed around 60K employees across its stores, which were ultimately automated by digital distribution and redboxes. The world didn't end.

And we have 16-19 million illegal aliens residing in the United States. If we very conservatively assume that at least a third of them are employed, and we were able to deport half of them and stop the replacement influx of illegals, that would represent around 3,000,000 jobs that would need to be filled by American citizens, right?

There's no reason inevitable automation has to result in mass unemployment in the US anytime soon.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Nope, but the first time their grade G hamburger meat is undercooked and some glitch gets dozens of people sick with e.coli, then $60 million dollars worth of lawsuits might make them wish they just paid that money in the first place.
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You think that the potential for error in an automated system with failsafes would be higher than pimply teenagers who hate their job and may be taking baths in the oversized sink, scratching their butts under their underwear and handling food, dropping food on the ground and picking it back up to serve customers, standing on the full lettuce trays, blowing boogers into the mashed potatoes, and so forth (all things that have recently happened and caught on pic/video)?

Machines aren't perfect, but certainly not more prone to error than this guy.
 
Ducman69 said:
You think that the potential for error in an automated system with failsafes would be higher than pimply teenagers who hate their job and may be taking baths in the oversized sink, scratching their butts under their underwear and handling food, dropping food on the ground and picking it back up to serve customers, standing on the full lettuce trays, blowing boogers into the mashed potatoes, and so forth (all things that have recently happened and caught on pic/video)?

Machines aren't perfect, but certainly not more prone to error than this guy.
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Yes, and how easy would it be to hack these systems? Seems everything is being hacked nowadays. Think they can write it off like the financial industry does and gives you 1 free year of medical screening ?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Nope, but the first time their grade G hamburger meat is undercooked and some glitch gets dozens of people sick with e.coli, then $60 million dollars worth of lawsuits might make them wish they just paid that money in the first place.

I'm sorry for all the doom and gloom about minimum wage being raised, prices on burgers have gone up steadily such that spending $7 for a "burger meal" is to the point of might as well go to some place like Red Robin, where I can get a burger for a few bucks more that's way better, and has fries too.
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I feel you. Try going to Arby's and feed a few people, way too expensive for fast food imo
 
Ducman69 said:
You repeated that three times without supporting the statement whatsoever.

I hope you'll appreciate that I'm making a thorough effort to justify why that's wrong and that YES...

OF COURSE we can bring manufacturing back. The United States is the world's last superpower, with military power projection to influence world events in favor of US interests, with a GDP that is the largest in the world by a massive margin, with an advanced infrastructure, large access to a great diversity of natural resources, a stable government, ocean access for trade on both the Atlantic and Pacific with the world's most powerful blue water navy, and control of the world's trade currency which ALSO happens to be the petro-dollar used for oil (the world's largest energy resource at present).

The amount of influence we have to negotiate deals in our favor is tremendous. What has been holding us back is that we don't have a collective conscious that acts in self-interest of the greater American good. We have politicians that want to import foreigners or redistribute goods and services and make deals in exchange for votes to keep them in power, and are heavily influenced by lobbyists to create policy that favors their small interests over the greater good in exchange for money (via campaign contributions or "fees" given like the millions upon millions collected by Hillary and Gore to provide short speeches at events for example, which is an informal form of bribery). For 60 years poor people have been voting equally for Democrats and Republicans and they are still poor. So what has changed?

For the first time in US history, unprecedented, we have a non-politician (Reagan counts in that regard, but not the following) that has managed a hostile takeover of one of our two-party system (inevitable in a winner-takes-all government that it will always consolidate to two choices) using a nationalist populist platform that has such massive personal wealth that they are completely immune from special-interest and lobbyist control, and willing to completely self-fund at a financial loss, severing the typical puppet strings.

So for the first time ever, despite having both the left and the right (the GOP even uniting against him with over a dozen other candidates thrown at him even pulling out old heavy hitters like Romney and Fox News to oppose him) fight him, we have someone that at least has the potential to reverse the status quo and leverage US power in a coordinated way to create fair-trade deals and abolish illegal slave labor (with immigration enforcement reform and a wall, among other things).

Why is FAIR trade important, and FREE trade (which we have always been forcefully told we must support) important? Because in this so called FREE trade, we don't tax imports on countries that tax our exports, we allow for largescale artificial currency manipulation, and it is inevitable that we will experience the huge trade deficits we have because multi-national business will otherwise always gravitate to lower costs. That means that a country that has very little pollution controls (like China or Mexico) and cheaper labor (like China or Mexico) and lower corporate taxes (like China or Mexico) will slowly but surely steal our businesses away as we have seen for decades now. With nearly twice the GDP of China in spite of having such a smaller population as seen in the link in the first paragraph however, China relies on US trade more than anything else, which gives us tremendous bargaining power that Trump can leverage, which others cannot since they would bow to multi-national companies that would pay money to ensure unfettered trade with China so they can open their new plants up in China, using Chinese cheap labor, with Chinese low pollution controls, and low Chinese corporate taxes to sell in the huge United States market even though its not in our national interest to do so.

Wrong, if you abolish illegal slave labor and deport illegals, you reduce the tax burden and labor pool, which will increase wages naturally. There's a reason a factory worker or garbage truck driver in the 1950s and 1960s made a healthy living compared to today. Supply and demand.

Now, will that increase the cost of goods and services? Yes and no. Look at an iPhone for example. The total cost to the consumer is completely divorced from the actual manufacturing cost, which is only a very tiny fraction of the entire cost of the device. If producing the phone in China due to fair-trade policies in our favor is more expensive than producing it in the US, Apple will choose to produce them here, meaning everything else needed to support that endeavor is also moved here (like was mentioned, yes even the plant managers and so forth like my bro making big bucks instead of a Chinese counterpart filling that role and spending that money in China). Even without adjusting the profit margin, which as we all know the cost is based on what the market will tolerate and not fixed on cost of production, the price would barely change. Realistically, because the market tolerance is already maxed, Apple would simply make slightly less profit (just a couple dollars) and the Apple CEO may have to settle for buying only three private islands that year instead of four.

So worker wages increase, tax burdens are reduced, unemployment is reduced, job opportunities (including those for advancement) are increased, trade deficit is reduced or eliminated, and the only possible loser here are career politicians that don't get their $400,000 per speech or consulting fees and luxury resort free trips and multi-national globalists that will make slightly less money. And no, they couldn't just give up the US market, we're too big and too powerful.

And lastly again on automation, its really not much different than the problem of illegal (slave) labor from Mexico/China/India and so forth, that will work for pennies. Eventually, it can concentrate wealth in the hands of very few, but it is inevitable. Learn from the Luddites that try to smash the looms that automated their jobs; you can NOT stop progress, but at least you can put in leadership to make the best of what we can in our favor for as long as we can.
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Yea you're deluded. Congratulations.

Or GDP is largely phantom arcane financial goods like derivatives and the associated gambling. The whole house of cards 30 years of deregulation and anarcho capitalism in the making is finally on the brink. And no walls of text based on fairy tales will stop it.
 
It's shit like this that makes me want to doomsday prep. Sure people talk about how stupid it is to have that much on hand but honestly? this is clearly unsustainable and it's crumbling as we speak.

It's a symptom of a deeper problem. The problem? people not caring anymore. Employers don't really care about their employees problems or if they can pay the bills, just that they get there and leave their problems at the door.

People don't care as long as "I got mine" mentality continues. Unfortunately, The "let them eat cake" ideology doesn't go over very well when famine and hard times come.

Hard times ARE coming, I honestly don't see a way around that. You are warned now. Go prepare yourselves or die in the coming famines and plagues.
 
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Ducman69 said:
Oh dear, you can't come up with a coherent response to support your assertion, so we're resorting to nonsensical personal attacks and "just Google it" or "educate yourself" stereotypical non-answers.

"I could tell you, but there's no point, educate yourself! BOOM" - far more common type of anti-intellectual retort than it should be... sigh.
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The real funny part about that image is that you could google it and find the article where trump called mexicans "criminals"

9 Outrageous Things Donald Trump Has Said About Latinos

Trump honestly scares me. Clinton, as much as i hate her guts? I know where I stand with her and she is likely not going to start WW3. Trump is going to get us all screwed over.
 
Steve said:
I have a bad feeling that we are going to hear a lot more stories like this in the future as long as it is cheaper to use robots in the place of a human employee. :( Thanks to ccmfreak2 for the link.

"They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case," says Puzder of swapping employees for machines.
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I don't know if this is really that bad a thing. I mean you want to force some poor chaps to stand behind a counter 8 hours a day and smile at every entitled a-hole that comes in? Robots can have all the unfulfilling, boring, repetitive jobs, that just turns humans to robots anyway.
 
viscountalpha said:
The real funny part about that image is that you could google it and find the article where trump called mexicans "criminals"

9 Outrageous Things Donald Trump Has Said About Latinos

Trump honestly scares me. Clinton, as much as i hate her guts? I know where I stand with her and she is likely not going to start WW3. Trump is going to get us all screwed over.
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Posting that link is like me posting a video of Clinton barking like a dog. All out of context, but easy to make memes for the foolish that can't do their own digging of facts.

At least you did help me find something about illegals are not always illegal. WTF?
https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/F...ted_immigrants_issue_brief_PUBLIC_VERSION.pdf

A lot of people I have talked to lately have asked if my job can be automated. I have wondered if its these fast food stories that are making people question their professions. My business can be partially outsourced with poor quality, and cannot be automated. Most high paying professions that produce something that use some creativity of the brain will always be needed. Burger flippers teach certain skills and I would prefer to not see these jobs go away, as a stepping stone instead of the current lifetime career. But who knows maybe that opens up a different type of more technology skilled lower end job. With all the doom and gloom I still have some hope the US doesn't collapse.

The above is why free handouts to most people have to go away. No skills are being learned and people become useless staying stagnant. Hand the freeloaders a bunch of money to start a business and at least let them crash and burn, who knows maybe a bunch of amazing small businesses would start up. Anything is better than letting someone sit at home collecting money while the robots start to take over.
 
heatlesssun said:
And it means prices go up.

What makes America great is not the power of goods but the inspiration of its ideals in the face of reality. And that's what we're forgetting.
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The US has always lead in converting inputs to finished goods. We are/were the most efficient in converting man hours, raw materials, and energy into finished products. Its how the US became the economic powerhouse of the World during the late 40's, 50's & 60's. During our decline we've been eating off that plate ever since. Its been no small coincidence that our federal budget deficit tracked with our trade deficit. It nicely smooths over hemorraging until it doesn't anymore. Where we lose competitively is in cost. Our workers don't live in huts, we don't drain our factories into open ditches, punitive tax laws, and we don't have a government fixing our currency to give us a price advantage without lifting a finger. Most of those disadvantages come from the government.

With our manufacturing success we developed a large middle class which since our decline in that area has been steadily evaporating.

We're turning back into a Banana Republic which really was what we were until the late 19th century. which has economic and political implications. We used to rely on making a living off natural resources. That economy usually has a majority of poor people and a tiny extremely wealthy elite with a government that is a puppet government of the elite? Kind of sums up the current state of things here, doesn't it. The only thing that hasn't happened yet, is our wages haven't crashed. Pump enough labor in a market with high unemployment and that will happen.
 
Ducman69 said:
You're tremendously confused. There is no opportunity cost involved in returning manufacturing of primarily domestically consumed goods and services to the United States. Not at the moment anyway.

We have plenty of unemployed and underemployed that can be put to work, manufacturing involves far more positions than simple entry level minimum wage jobs, there is nothing inherently wrong with entry level positions (just don't buy into entitlement culture that you should never aspire for more as you progress), and if you can put an end to out of control immigration, you may even be able to completely eliminate the need for artificial wage structures, while drastically increasing the available per capita welfare for the truly needy. The reason is that when you import poverty in the form of non net tax contributors (those that use more in taxes than they pay into), and flood the unskilled labor pool as we do with illegal aliens, you cut the amount of aid available per person since it has to be spread over such a wider base, while also creating so much oversupply of unskilled labor compared to the number of jobs that wages fall through the floor.

So, Trumps plan to increase the job pool (increase demand) while reducing the slave labor pool (stop illegal immigration) reduce the trade deficit (improve the economy) while making a greater per capita welfare available for those that truly need it, is absolutely something that will, ehem, Make America Great Again.

Its not rocket science, its just basic supply and demand economics, something every business man understands.
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Should we go over Trumps business choices?
 
Ducman69 said:
Unfortunately, that would also most likely produce a new breed of useless humans less like Star Trek (totally implausible, even if it is one of my favorite shows) and more like Wall-E, since most people wouldn't work if they don't have to and would just be fat lazy slobs letting automation handle everything.
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I have a hard time seeing a Wall-E future, since many humans would want fame or want to look attractive to the opposite sex for some banging.
 
I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. We are on the fore-front of technology, and we need to consider that this kind of potential is inevitable. I hope what happens is other opportunities will come around, and overall we will just advance in what those will be. I wouldn't ignore the capabilities we develop, for the sake of keeping people in the same particular job, for that reason, since the market can't really balance that practically. Everybody can be put to work, and should be! The challenge is making it count. I do think, though, that we should not just kick people out, but get it all straightened out before the transition.

I'd love the idea of USA manufacturing. Imagine even having a microprocessor fab, like TMSC, in your area! If you see pictures of one, with the guys in those white suits, it looks like one of the coolest places to work! There's another one in China, where they basically built a community around it, university, shops, dorms and everything. That's pretty amazing, especially for China, since it's not like that in the notorious areas, where most everything else is made --there they have dorms, but not university ones... Honestly, I'd pay more for products if it meant those guys could have reasonable salaries. If we bring those jobs here, they will be much more expensive. That's why I don't think our financial problems can be boiled down to trade problems though, at least if you know how much they make over there.

My economic position is this. We need to have some regulations to keep the free market free. It was designed to keep the authority with the consumers, like how the constitution was designed to keep the authority with the citizens. So how can regulations keep it free? Because we have loopholes. Money and power are highly sought after, and people will do nearly anything, even cheat. Monopolies, for example. We have regulations against those because they defeat the purpose of the free market and break it. If company A sells an inferior product, or at too high a price, company B can provide an alternative which will balance it back. A monopoly is where a company increases the price without increasing the value, siphoning money out of the economy. A bubble is where companies increase the price without increasing the value, siphoning money out of the economy. The only difference between a monopoly and a bubble, is one company versus many. Either way, when this happens, everything gravitates towards further towards collapse, like it did in 2008. Since no actual value was added, the debt eventually catches up.
 
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I'm totally cool with this. Robots aren't asshats, they won't screw up your order all the time and you don't have to pay them overinflated wages because they think they are entitled to it for working an unskilled job. I mean if you are working full time in fast food for your entire life, you have about as much ambition as a robot anyway.
 
This is the best news I've heard. Have you gone to a fast food place? Except for Chick-Fil-A, the people working there are ignorant, fat, gross, unfriendly, oh yeah, did I say ignorant?
 
heatlesssun said:
Automation in time can replace all of us. That's not the question. The question is is it good for us? At what point does the love of money replace flesh and blood? That's the question that we need to answer.
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At least the order will be right, and you won't have to explain what "Plain" means 1000 times.
 
Monkey God said:
The losers in competitive evolution are never happy.
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Very true.

It is all right though. Fastfood workers are the tip of the iceberg. Soon your job will be eaten up too, so enjoy your moment to laugh....fairly soon you will be on the chopping block.

We have the tech today to put about 50% of the US workforce out of work.
 
Skripka said:
Very true.

It is all right though. Fastfood workers are the tip of the iceberg. Soon your job will be eaten up too, so enjoy your moment to laugh....fairly soon you will be on the chopping block.

We have the tech today to put about 50% of the US workforce out of work.[/QUOTE

Oh, society is in for a world of hurt during this transition. There will be some very rough times ahead!
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Skripka said:
Very true.

It is all right though. Fastfood workers are the tip of the iceberg. Soon your job will be eaten up too, so enjoy your moment to laugh....fairly soon you will be on the chopping block.

We have the tech today to put about 50% of the US workforce out of work.
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So much FUD. ALL THE JOBS VANISHING

If my job gets automated, ill go find another one that can't be automated...I am not afraid to compete with machines or people. When they day comes we cant compete with machines at all, they will get rid of us anyways.
 
Monkey God said:
So much FUD. ALL THE JOBS VANISHING

If my job gets automated, ill go find another one that can't be automated...I am not afraid to compete with machines or people. When they day comes we cant compete with machines at all, they will get rid of us anyways.
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Most jobs can be automated to a large extent. And the number is growing as automatons get more capable. You have only to look at the history of banking to see it. And 50% isn't FUD that is a real number based on the jobs the US Census tracks.

When it happens the number of positions vanishes, and you join the dirty masses working bad jobs to put food on the table. Don't worry, I won't have too much schadenfreude.
 
Monkey God said:
So much FUD. ALL THE JOBS VANISHING

If my job gets automated, ill go find another one that can't be automated...I am not afraid to compete with machines or people. When they day comes we cant compete with machines at all, they will get rid of us anyways.
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Agreed. This has been going on for all time. Car washes, gas station attendants (that pumped gas and cleaned your windshield), ATM's, Redbox, etc etc. Where was the "omg they took our jerbs" fighting then?
 
Darunion said:
Agreed. This has been going on for all time. Car washes, gas station attendants (that pumped gas and cleaned your windshield), ATM's, Redbox, etc etc. Where was the "omg they took our jerbs" fighting then?
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They were there...but they didn't have the internet to all get together and cry about it. They didn't have the mass pervasiveness of the media shoving the FUD down their throats on a daily basis. Life goes on, life moves on. Keep up, or get out of the way.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yes, and how easy would it be to hack these systems? Seems everything is being hacked nowadays.
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Go to your grocery store.

In the frozen food section, virtually all of those meals were produced in a factory like setting with heavy automation of tasks. Just watch a "How Is it Made" on frozen pizza for example.

Go to the snack isles, and you'll see all those potato chips and breakfast bars and all that stuff was made with massive automation, not guys hand chopping and frying up one chip at a time.

Have we experienced massive "hacking attacks" of our primarily automated food industry?

Pretty sure millions upon millions of pounds of this stuff has been made worry free, with higher quality control than if thousands of teenagers were responsible for making them with limited supervision.
 
Hardees corporate headquarters just left California due to crazy income Taxes.... 60% or something
The burgers are good but not for your arteries.
 
heatlesssun said:
And I'm thinking that Carl's Jr. and Hardee's isn't that. Have you ever eaten at one of these places?
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Actually Carl's Jr.is one of the better fast food places (at least around here).
Although it did take years before I would eat at one after working there during college :)
 
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