Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Meanwhile, the warehouse down the road underwent a strike that put them out of commission for weeks, forced expensive wage concessions, and incurred NRLB fines, costing them like... 60 million dollars.

One of these things can be fixed, the other will always be a risk as long as humans are involved.



Those peaky humans and their stupid quality of life needs!


> One of these things can be fixe

That's correct, the second one can get fixed with higher wages and benefits, like when Ford introduced the “$5 a day” (doubling market average).


Yes, if you're going to pay humans to suffer the indignity of doing a robot's job, it makes sense to pay well.


There's no indignity in “doing a robot's job” unless if you think working is indignity, because every job is a “robot job”.


I didn't flag your other reply, by the way, but I did vouch for it. Your retort about LLMs is spot-on, as was your point about how "they're all robot jobs." We just currently disagree on whether eliminating such jobs -- all of them -- is a good goal or a bad one.

You defended your perspective by arguing, correctly, that people take undesirable jobs because they don't have a choice. We agree there as well, and my point is that this is a form of coercion in itself. The status quo treats humans as if they were robots.

(And I really don't care if someone thinks I live in a cave. Life in my cave is actually pretty comfy. It beats the hell out of a warehouse or a cube maze at a click farm. It's a privilege, one I'd like to see more equitably distributed.)


Of course there is! Since you're here, you're probably a programmer or engineer, a student, or a dedicated professional in some other IT-adjacent field. How would you react if someone offered you a job in a warehouse?

Once you've thought that through, apply the same reasoning to human beings in general, not just white-collar HN denizens. Few people want to work a hard blue-collar job for the same reason you and I don't want to: we have better things to do with our time.


if you incurred nrlb fines aren't you breaking the law?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: