Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots

[ohmylanta1003]

Zkuq said:

SuperNova said:

Actually the companies replacing employes with robots should probably be the first ones to think about that. What is short to middle term profit to them will over time translate to a collapse of sales because they ushered their very own consumerbase into unemployment.

True, foxconn factory workers or Mc Donalds employees aren't exactly middle class, but nevertheless their income gives them spending power, wich in turn provides conditions for a more permeable society and therefore bigger middle class. These jobs are an entry point to rising in society with future generations and they are vanishing.

Companies are going to have to deal with the question of where their money is supposed to come from eventually. At the moment they are busy cutting down the roots of their own income and so far society has no plan B for large unemployment rates.

I don't think it's the companies' problem to worry about social issues. Ideally they would think about things like that, but I doubt they will. Social responsibility is something companies aiming to maximize profits aren't very eager to consider. We should also remember that the actions of each company alone won't be enough, it's the actions of all the companies that matter. If a lot of other companies are going to replace workers with robots, it will be very hard for any single company to not replace their workers with robots because human workers cost more in the long run. The environment will pressure the companies into robotization unless governments interfere, and I don't think they're going to be very eager to do that with all the lobbying.

I don't think there's any realistic way to fight robotization. You'd need to get practically every government in the world to agree to prevent robotization, and that's just not going to happen. Robots will replace human workers in the near future, and we need to learn how to cope with it. It will be painful but I doubt there's much we can do about it. It'll be easiest if we simply accept it and come up with ideas to cope with it.

The problem is that we keep on saying that these people are being replaced by robots. For some reason, the word robot scares people. What we really mean to say is that these workers jobs are being automated. We've been automating monotonous processes for literally centuries. Why stop now? Why would people or the government want to stop this progression? Why would we fight this?