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Forums - General - Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots

AnthonyW86 said:
ohmylanta1003 said:
Everyone here needs to seriously step back and consider the immense benefits this will eventually have. Our world will become a better one when we don't have fucking slaves in factories working for little pay in shitty conditions repeating the same task over and over for God knows how many hours. It's better this way.

It only becomes beneficial if society as a whole becomes a shared owner of all the production capacity. As long as these factories are privately owned and capitalism rules this is going to ceeate major poverty.

If all of these factories eventually phased out factory workers, the world would become a better place. That's what I'm saying. This has nothing to do with who owns what and all that shit you're throwing at me. It has to do with the progression of society and the saving of people who are working themselves to literal death.



I bet the Wii U would sell more than 15M LTD by the end of 2015. He bet it would sell less. I lost.

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spurgeonryan said:
ohmylanta003 said:
Everyone here needs to seriously step back and consider the immense benefits this will eventually have. Our world will become a better one when we don't have fucking slaves in factories working for little pay in shitty conditions repeating the same task over and over for God knows how many hours. It's better this way.

Yes, in China those slaves will move on to better things, like eating bamboo as they are forced to become tentless or homeless. Much better, but at least they will be free.

TL;DR: "We shouldn't free slaves, because they won't know what to do with themselves when we do."



I bet the Wii U would sell more than 15M LTD by the end of 2015. He bet it would sell less. I lost.

if it makes our iPhones, PS4s, Xbox Ones cheaper......



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

hershel_layton said:
WolfpackN64 said:

And it's not like Foxconn or Apple weren't making enough money. Funny thing is that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. Chinese companies like Oppo have better pay and better means in their factories.

Fuck Apple. Overpriced shitty products that I'll never buy again. Even if they didn't go to robots, I'd still hate them.

 

$1000 for a 1.3 GHz computer? Hah, good one. Love to see the justification for this from apple fanboys

 

Edit: I am interested to see what Apple does in response to this. They'll probably just hide this though, act like their workers are treated perfectly

XD. I'm a long time Apple, user. But don't tell me about it, I'm tired of their BS (and it's not only their BS in the tech industry).

Just a small correction. GHz don't matter all that much. What matters is the IPC (Instructions Per Clock). One of the reasons current 3GHz Intel CPU's are faster then 4.2GHz CPU's from AMD atm.



People here seem disappointed because people lost jobs. The thing is, this is only going to get more severe and a lot more people are going to lose jobs. Most of you who are reading this are going to lose your jobs in the next few decades. It's crucial that we start thinking how we can ensure the income of those people that lose their jobs.



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method114 said:
Ljink96 said:
Here we go, lack of human respect and understanding. 60K people out of work. Unable to provide for their families let alone themselves. How cruel and greedy. True, a business is made to make money, not break even. But Foxconn wasn't hurting for money last time I checked.

"It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who is inefficient, making $15 an hour bagging French fries," he said.

Once again, as I posted in a similar thread, thinking this way will destroy the gradient from rich to poor and there will only be rich and poor people. No middle class. And man, what a corrupt world that's gonna be.

It's like I said in that same thread. This day is coming no matter what. Sooner or later robots will do almsot everything. The only middle class jobs will most likely be fixing those robots. Will most likely reach a time where people will have a guaranteed income and not have to work. I don't really see any other solution because if the rich just continue to make more and more will the rest of us continue to lose jobs there will be a revolt and the rich will lose everything.

I also said that but they wouldn't go to those 60K workers. And you'd have to be trained or educated. Something that doesn't take  a few weeks to do. Soon robots will do everything and WALL-E will come to pass. We'll be so lazy, Americans are already lazy enough, but we'll become more lazy. Once the middle class is wiped out and a revolt happens, it won't end up too well I'm thinking. The gradient of poverty to wealth will diminish and there will only be poor or rich. Many investors are saying this including owner of Berkshire Hathaway and billionaire, Warren Buffet.

 

ohmylanta1003 said:
Ljink96 said:
Here we go, lack of human respect and understanding. 60K people out of work. Unable to provide for their families let alone themselves. How cruel and greedy. True, a business is made to make money, not break even. But Foxconn wasn't hurting for money last time I checked.

"It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who is inefficient, making $15 an hour bagging French fries," he said.

Once again, as I posted in a similar thread, thinking this way will destroy the gradient from rich to poor and there will only be rich and poor people. No middle class. And man, what a corrupt world that's gonna be.

How can you be so naive? Do you realize the conditions that these workers were working in? They literally became fucking machines doing these jobs, and it was driving a large portion of the population literally insane. This is a better way. And this is the future.

ALL 60K OF THEM? I doubt all of them wanted out. The conditions are poor yes. But for some, this was their only way of income. It's greed. Why can't people see the underlying reason behind all of this? True, technology is supposed to make lives easier but once the human contact is taken out of that equation...what's the use? Yes, people did commit suicide, I know the backstory of Foxconn but this reaches far beyond Foxconn. If China is doing it then believe me the US isn't far behind and that my friend will be hell on earth.

You think Carrier moving its jobs from Indiana to Mexico caused a mess, just wait for the Robots to take over. The ratio from robot to human won't be the same. You think they'll install 60K robots? Are you insane? No, they're gonna install a few hundred to do what 60K people could do. The Cotton Gin is a prime example of this. What used to take hundreds of people to do, now took 1 machine and one operator. Maybe 2 but you get the point. That's going to be 100 robots that do work of 60,000 people. You can't hire 60,000 people to do matinence work on 100 robots. And that's just China. If America goes robot crazy... God help us all.



Foxxconn got alot of negative press employees killing themself etc. This type of work seems better suited for robots without emotions.



Huh. Well that's 60k people screwed out of having a chance to reach the middle class.



Ljink96 said:
method114 said:

It's like I said in that same thread. This day is coming no matter what. Sooner or later robots will do almsot everything. The only middle class jobs will most likely be fixing those robots. Will most likely reach a time where people will have a guaranteed income and not have to work. I don't really see any other solution because if the rich just continue to make more and more will the rest of us continue to lose jobs there will be a revolt and the rich will lose everything.

I also said that but they wouldn't go to those 60K workers. And you'd have to be trained or educated. Something that doesn't take  a few weeks to do. Soon robots will do everything and WALL-E will come to pass. We'll be so lazy, Americans are already lazy enough, but we'll become more lazy. Once the middle class is wiped out and a revolt happens, it won't end up too well I'm thinking. The gradient of poverty to wealth will diminish and there will only be poor or rich. Many investors are saying this including owner of Berkshire Hathaway and billionaire, Warren Buffet.

 

ohmylanta1003 said:

How can you be so naive? Do you realize the conditions that these workers were working in? They literally became fucking machines doing these jobs, and it was driving a large portion of the population literally insane. This is a better way. And this is the future.

ALL 60K OF THEM? I doubt all of them wanted out. The conditions are poor yes. But for some, this was their only way of income. It's greed. Why can't people see the underlying reason behind all of this? True, technology is supposed to make lives easier but once the human contact is taken out of that equation...what's the use? Yes, people did commit suicide, I know the backstory of Foxconn but this reaches far beyond Foxconn. If China is doing it then believe me the US isn't far behind and that my friend will be hell on earth.

You think Carrier moving its jobs from Indiana to Mexico caused a mess, just wait for the Robots to take over. The ratio from robot to human won't be the same. You think they'll install 60K robots? Are you insane? No, they're gonna install a few hundred to do what 60K people could do. The Cotton Gin is a prime example of this. What used to take hundreds of people to do, now took 1 machine and one operator. Maybe 2 but you get the point. That's going to be 100 robots that do work of 60,000 people. You can't hire 60,000 people to do matinence work on 100 robots. And that's just China. If America goes robot crazy... God help us all.

You're being silly. Factories should attempt to replace humans that are performing mundane tasks with robots as much as they can. They've been doing it for fucking decades. Why is this any different? We've been automating processes forever. This is just more automation. There's nothing wrong with any of this. And I'm not saying Foxconn should offer jobs to these 60,000 people. Most of them will lose their job, and that's okay. That's life, that's the economy, that's progression.



I bet the Wii U would sell more than 15M LTD by the end of 2015. He bet it would sell less. I lost.

Zkuq said:
People here seem disappointed because people lost jobs. The thing is, this is only going to get more severe and a lot more people are going to lose jobs. Most of you who are reading this are going to lose your jobs in the next few decades. It's crucial that we start thinking how we can ensure the income of those people that lose their jobs.

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.