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Comment by lrc | Hacker News Reader

There is a difference between digging a ditch and working on a rockpile. One has dignity--it is useful work one is paid for; the other is a punishment.

I don't, in fact, think it's wise to automate the people behind sandwich counters out of a job; it doesn't follow from that that I would prefer a pneumatic tube to my computer monitor.

I acknowledged that the benefits you cited were real, by using the word "real." I assure you I'm not some kind of paperclip-AI-zealot when it comes to employing people for tasks that could be automated.

I wonder if there is any level of peristent unemployment--25%, say? at which you would prefer to halt the growth of the kind of automation which is drying up the job pool? Or does it never matter whether there are jobs behind sandwich counters? Enjoy the bread selection.

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I'm sorry, I just don't see the point in keeping people uselessly employed doing tasks that are better done by machines. Do you think we should stop using travelocity.com and go back to using travel agents? Do you think we should make Domino's stop taking orders over the web or phone app and go back to only taking orders over the phone? Do you think we should eliminate banking ATMs, and go back to making people show up during banker's hours and talk to a teller? Do you think we should eliminate self-checkout lanes at grocery stores(/Walmart/etc.) and go back to having fully-manned checkout lanes? Were you complaining about all these things before, or did you only start when touchscreen kiosks started showing up in chain eateries? ATMs, in particular, go back to the 1980s. How about pumping gas? Are you opposed to self-service gas stations too?

How is there any "dignity" in doing a job that's better and more conveniently (to the customer) done by automation, or by the customer themselves (pumping gas)? That's nothing more than make-work. If you want to put people to work, give them something to do that isn't so easily done by machine. I can come up with plenty of suggestions offhand: 1) like in the New Deal, we could employ people fixing up the National Park system. Building benches, improving hiking trails, building park buildings, etc., aren't things easily done by current machines. 2) America's infrastructure is in atrocious shape. Tons of bridges desperately need to be replaced. Lots of people could be employed in construction here. Bridges can't be built by robots yet (or any time soon since they're all one-off projects and vary so much, plus they're so huge). 3) There's supposedly a shortage of nurses. Send some people to nursing school. You only need a 2-year degree for the entry-level jobs. We don't have robots yet which can start an IV or do a sponge-bath. 4) We need more mass transit in this country. Put people to work building tunnels for subways and building subway stations.

>Or does it never matter whether there are jobs behind sandwich counters? Enjoy the bread selection.

Or does it never matter whether there are jobs behind bank counters? Enjoy your cash from the ATM. If you use ATMs, or your bank's website, or your bank's phone app, then you're a hypocrite.

> If you use ATMs...

Guilty as charged. Before my bank had an ATM, I organized my time differently, but I survived.

As for dignity, it's not versus "a job that can be more efficiently done by automation", it's versus "being unable to find a job."

Forget the sandwich clerk; schoolteachers are found somewhere along this trajectory.

I would answer almost all of the questions in your first paragraph "yes." I agree with all of your ideas in paragraph 2, so I think there is much we agree on, despite that.

I think it is in society's interest to arrange for there to be a number of job-vacancies of the Panera-kid-type available, even if that is not the sandwich-delivery mechanism of minimum cost. In principle, we could do better, but I am skeptical that it will happen.

>I think it is in society's interest to arrange for there to be a number of job-vacancies of the Panera-kid-type available

I completely disagree. It's actively making things worse to not use more efficient methods. Now if a restaurant wants to keep one of those people around for people who don't like the kiosks, or maybe to talk to if they have a question about something or want to ask for something the kiosk can't do, then that's great, because that's where people are actually useful: for handling things that automation can't, like special cases. Of course, you don't need as many humans this way, since there aren't that many people who the kiosk can't serve.

But having people employed just for the sake of employment is nothing more than make-work. It's just like the Soviet factories where they built wooden crates on one side of the factory, then moved them to the other side of the factory where another team disassembled them for recycling, then moved the wood to the other side of the factory where it was used for building crates, .... There's no dignity in make-work. If you're worried about there not being enough jobs, the answer is the UBI: give people a regular stipend and let them spend it however they want. At least some of them will find some new enterprise on their own, whether it's writing a book (like JK Rowling, who was on welfare when she wrote the books that made her a millionaire--she's worth almost $800M), or writing a phone game, or just doing odd jobs and not having to worry so much about having enough for rent because of the irregularity. The other answer is to get the government to invest in its people by providing education, and by financing important projects (like replacing those bridges). There's plenty of work to be done without resorting to make-work.

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