Re: They toooock ewre joohbs!!!
You say, the next time your washing machine breaks down.... (usually badly paid or unpaid)... But what did these things replace, they didn't replace badly paid jobs, they replaced repetitive jobs, they replaced jobs which could be done cheaper with machines. There is the key word, cheaper. The current automation trend is to replace repetitive tasks with machines, ones that would be cheaper to run than to pay a human. The only way to then have a job would be if you were paid less than what it would cost to replace you with a machine.
This is very apparent when you visit somewhere like Hong Kong, where the lowest salaries are very low indeed. There is a minimum wage, but it isn't very much. The result is that jobs like cleaning shopping malls are done by an army of people with dustpans and brushes rather than one person mounted on a vacuum/floor-polishing machine. Indeed, on one of my first visits there I accidentally dropped a wrapper or some-such, and naturally bent to pick it up. My wife stopped me, saying that the cleaners would see it as taking away their living!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
