Will Fast Food Workers Be Replaced By Computers?

You'll never change the world my ignoring the problem, simply not shopping their isn't going to hurt them. What you need to do is get in on the inside, play their game, by their rules. Educate yourself on how and why what they do works. Once you figure that out, you manipulate their game to suit your agenda, whatever that might be.

 

Mhm and how do you think I'm so knowledgeable in the first place?

 

This is a developing concept that has been in progress for ages. Making less work.

Look at the wheel. Industrialization. Ford. Assembly line. Pre-packaged foods. Fast food in general is a rip off of farmers and housewives. Now men can avoid marriage by buying hot pockets and jack in the box. #bullshit

 

Thats the basis for capitalism, reduce expenses increase profits. There's nothing wrong with that.

Companies like WalMart only have power because it's given to them by the people that shop there (typically lower income and uneducated). Take away the consumer base and you take away their power.

Oh and I'm a gourmet chef so cooking has nothing to do with me avoiding marriage.

 

While I agree with you, its not "only" because of shoppers. Lower cost of goods does mean increased purchase power however the supplier needs to continue to meet the demand of said purchaser. So delve deeper, how do they maintain lowest prices? By ripping off manufacturers, distributors and small businesses. Im a firm believer in locating the source of a problem and removing it.

Small businesses need better incentives to operate, and big businesses need more incentive to localize.


Haha & ok you can cook for yourself. I wanted to be a pastry chef but thats beside the point.

 

That's not art, it's commercialism.

 

You can definitely hurt a business by not shopping there. One of the reasons these chains are so popular is because of social pressure and the whole 'if I didn't go there, other people would so I don't make a difference' line.

As for the whole 'it's for the poor' thing-- that might be the cliche, but if you look into it, it's not at all true. 60% of Americans shop there.

If you hate them, why wouldn't you want to attack them in every way possible?

 

I worked in retail for years and you get those low prices by buying in bulk, and to get the kind of wholesale prices WalMart gets from it's distributors takes money and lots of it.

One thing I learned for all those years and retail and customer service is the nuts and bolts of any business is your customer base. Customers provide incoming revenue, and once you have lots of money to work with everything else falls into place.

Edit: The governements seems to be support big business and leaving the little guys hang out to dry. Thats another part of the problem.

Brb gotta start prepin for dinner.

 

www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/04/stop_the_bullying_wal-mart.html

 

What makes you think that small businesses don't rip people off? If anything the bigger businesses are in a better position to make the kinds of sacrifices and have the kind of accountability that small businesses can't afford. I don't think all of the big businesses have that same accountability, but when a business is big there's more pressure on them to maintain a public image and to respond to accusations of exploitation, etc.

I would imagine that unless they're a niche thing any small business that wants to succeed is probably taking advantage of cheap manufacturing overseas... if they don't, they're never going to be able to compete with even the big businesses who choose local sources. If you've ever watched Dragon's Den, most of those people are dealing with China/the third world... and since they're too small to be noticed, nobody asks them any questions. They can get away with all kinds of shit that does a lot more harm and involves a lot more shady practices. This depends on what they're doing, of course.

BUT doing this isn't always the horror story you think. I met a guy who ran a small clothing line and travelled to Nepal to hire a local family to make his clothing. He saved a lot of money on labor costs and paid them more than they would have gotten locally. Sure, the people in his home country might lose out, but the money ended up going to people in serious need.

This is actually the global trend now... money is moving away from the middle class in the west and into the underclass in developing countries. My parents grew up with a rich west and an extremely poor developing world... but the time I'm their age, this is going to be turned on its head. I think I've heard something like 65% of the wealth is going to be in the developing world, with 35% in the west... as opposed to the 20/80 split in favor of the west that my parents enjoyed.

AND I've actually looked into this and Wal-mart really is taking steps in the right direction-- they sell produce grown locally, they buy domestically-produced goods in bulk to cut costs for consumers, etc. BUT their employees aren't treated as well as they should be and they DO make it difficult or impossible for local businesses to compete... and it's shitty that people have to give up the dream of owning their own business, and that there are fewer opportunities in general since everything is so 'efficient' that people simply aren't needed to keep things going... so what do we DO?

I think we're experiencing the misfortune of being born in a time when this wealth transfer has gone far enough to be shitty for us and yet we're also not at the point where the developing world is demanding better conditions. If they do, then things COULD be better all over the world and manufacturing will come back... and I think that this is inevitable, but unfortunately we might not live to see it.

 

Where do you get the idea that I said small businesses don't rip people off? haha wtf

Trust no man, fear no bitch. haha

The problem with Wal-Mart or any big business, is that it places too much power in one entity's hands. They are a "super store" and as an example they now sell "organic" goods whilst removing aggregate businesses that would likely thrive on their own. It creates an interdependence between the two but totally in Wal-Mart's favor. They're like a schoolyard bully, bigger badder and stronger than you.

You see in the past, there were book stores, music stores, art supply stores, fresh foods stores, dairies, butcher shops etc. The concept of one stop shopping, and super store drove those small businesses into non existence. I'm looking at it from the peoples point of view. Who owned those mom and pops? Your mom and pop. Those jobs are gone now. Now you can go be a robot tester because you support the big boss Wal Mart.

 

i worked in fast food in my late teens, early 20s, and my coworkers were mostly single mothers. the owner and manager were stingy and never gave raises, understaffed and would tell you there's growth opportunities, but never give anyone the chance.

 

song composition
screenwriting
theatre
nude modeling
lifeguard
etc.

 

It seems to me that you're big on local, small business as opposed to big business... which I suppose I took for supporting them despite the fact that they contribute to destructive processes as well, and in some cases they do so more than the bigger chains.

I get that there used to be more local shops, but it's not just Walmart that is to blame for their decline... it's also the Internet. I'm kind of surprised that I'm defending Walmart here, but I think they get a lot of flack from people who don't really look at the reality so much as buy into the whole 'big business killing local businesses' thing.

They ARE promising to use only renewable energy and in effect 'go green', and that's something I really can't disagree with... no matter how many jobs are lost, you really can't make up for a devastated environment and if a big player agrees to take that kind of initiative then it's easier than trying to convince hundreds of thousands of local butchers across Canada and the US to do the same thing. I know it's not good for some people, but I would still rather have a cleaner world than a working relationship with my local butcher.

And the thing is, we still have local butchers/shops, and they definitely rip people off. I've gone into one of them and noticed a 20% markup on stuff that they bought at another store just down the road. They don't even bother to change the labels. Sorry, but you don't get that at Walmart.

They should be treating their workers better but at the same time I'm not sure you'll find too many local dairies or butcher shops offering their workers health care or 401ks. It's expected of Wal-Mart because they're big, but if a local shop can't give their employees proper benefits people just accept it as a fact of life. Are these the kinds of people that you would rather see making a profit? Not all of them are so wonderful.

I guess there's a human connection in those places and I do think that even small towns have less of a community feel than they did in the past, but at the same time I'm not sure that overall things are that much worse... you don't see as many small business owners on the streets but you do see them online. There's a book store just down the road from me that wouldn't even be able to stay open and be as enormously huge as they are without the Internet.

My home town has a Wal-Mart and there is a lot of poverty, but there are still music stores and book stores and toy stores and the poverty isn't so much because of Wal-Mart as much as the death of manufacturing and the rise of online shopping.

I don't think you're ever going to get back to the whole 'mom and pop' thing unless you convince people to stop using the Internet. I DO think Wal-Mart should be regulated and that more businesses should be forced to choose more ethical practices, but it doesn't bother me that there's a larger concentration of power in one place. It's rather impractical for a corporation not to be at least a little decentralized and furthermore I think there's more of a trend towards that. It might be a Wal-Mart, but it's still managed locally.

All that would need to change is salaries, benefits and share of local profits, with more reinvestment in local economy and then it would be ideal... though they still do need to pay taxes and I know that that money goes into the local economy. The problem isn't Wal-Mart, it's that the people who own Wal-Mart have too much money and aren't sharing enough of it or putting to good use.

If your big issue with Wal-mart is that it kills local businesses, then can you actually prove that Wal-Mart is worse than a local mom and pop-style operation? What's the big deal if we're dependent on Wal-mart instead of the small businesses? You don't think that the advantages of being able to apply policies like their 'green policy' actually make them a better option than hundreds of thousands of others who wouldn't even dream of doing the same thing, and who couldn't possibly be co-ordinated with the same degree of efficiency?

Here's an article that claims that small business generates 60% of all commercial waste and contributes to half of all environmental damage worldwide:

http://environment.about.com/b/2007...al-environmental-cost-of-small-businesses.htm

Everyone assumes that the corporations are causing the damage because they're big, evil, and faceless... and they are responsible for huge amounts of pollution, but that's mostly because they're also responsible for huge amounts of product. People need to look at the size of the operation and take that into consideration.

I consider myself to be a social democrat, so I often wonder if it's possible for a stronger government to regulate the corporations to the point where they're effectively state enterprises that provide the greenest, most efficient service possible while at the same time a large amount of their profits are rerouted into programs designed to help the needy and improve socioeconomic mobility. And as long as things are divided into all kinds of little parts and subject to weak regulations, then that's probably not going to happen.

 

This has already happened, actually. And considering a lot of mainstream music is the same chords and melodies being recycled over and over, I'd be willing to believe that a computer could actually surpass a human being in this aspect.

Most mainstream films use the same Save The Cat! template over and over, and the dialogue isn't always original either. It wouldn't be too hard to create a computer that could do the same thing.

They've had animatronic actors for several years now... it's not such a stretch that robots could be used in the future.

How difficult would be it be to produce a lifelike robot that doubles as a posable model?

Maybe not now, but in the future it could definitely happen.

 

If robots are as close to reality as the capitalists say, they will arrive no matter what the wage may be. High or low.

Plant will still get real estate tax write-off though.

Those write-offs ought to be tied to employment.

 

I asked myself this question about 12 Years ago. That's why I learned how to install, repair, and maintain machines and technology. Someone needs to fix the stuff.

Over the next two years a major project of mine is to automate an entire department at the factory I work at. The department currently employs five people, but after about $750,000 worth of machines and technology one person can easily handle the same workload. They say that the plan is not to cut jobs but to expand business. Although I have some doubts, I do believe them. But if I'm wrong I won't feel guilty. I'd feel bad for the guys but the reason I got into this line of work is because of job security. So I won't end up in their position

 

Well you may see some robots working at your local hospital soon.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66zz8ZgLGzo"]Robots Take Over... Hospitals - YouTube

 

I was in a fast food place the other day. I watched the three "workers" trying to make my order. I'm sure they were making between 7 and 8 bucks an hour. One good worker could have done it for $15 an hour and saved the place a ton of money.

 

I wouldn't have thought so, no.

Both the articles are old (2011 and 2012) and rather cynical.