I wonder if there is some sort of more incremental way to introduce basic minimum income that won't get legislative pushback and will scale with automation.
Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
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Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#12Despite the impact it has on the availability of unskilled manual labour jobs, I think it's great that machines are finally turning to harvesting - having worked on a similar project to do with grapes (specifically, pruning), it's not always the easiest of things.
It does highlight to me that we are getting closer to the point of needing to rethink labour distribution, because the non-technical jobs are the easiest to replace with machines.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#13It's particularly import for people who are legislating minimum wage laws to read articles like this. Most of the legislation I've seen drafted, always has an exception for farm labor - and here is an example why. If you didn't have that exception, then it would quickly become the case that automation/machinery ends up being cheaper (or soon will), and those jobs will vanish pretty quickly.
Now, that might not be entirely undesirable, from the perspective of the legislator (I.E. Move people up the feeding chain to more productive, better paying jobs, and automate the drudge work like raking berries) - but at the very least, they need to be aware of the impact of what they are doing.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#14How anyone can lament the disappearance of back breaking unskilled field work is beyond me. Mechanisation and destruction of repetitive unskilled work is the driving force for the improvement of living standards and the advancement of civilization since the beginning of recorded history. The invention of agrarian civilization itself displaced hunter-gatherer tribes, should we lament the disappearance of nomads also? This romanticism seems a tad silly.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#15It's particularly import for people who are legislating minimum wage laws to read articles like this. Most of the legislation I've seen drafted, always has an exception for farm labor - and here is an example why. If you didn't have that exception, then it would quickly become the case that automation/machinery ends up being cheaper (or soon will), and those jobs will vanish pretty quickly. Now, that might not be ent…
Basic income is coming. Like it or not. Better if created with debt free fiat money. This way we can have nice inflation - 2-4% yearly.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#16I wonder if there is some sort of more incremental way to introduce basic minimum income that won't get legislative pushback and will scale with automation.
It should be funded by pollution taxes (all types of pollution, let's not myopically focus on CO2).
The same people who pay the taxes (i.e. everyone) will also get the money, only distributed differently.
The biggest problem will be accounting for pollution embedded in imports, and refunding taxes for exports. Otherwise you will have what's going in on in Germany where they export all their pollution to China.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#17Despite the impact it has on the availability of unskilled manual labour jobs, I think it's great that machines are finally turning to harvesting - having worked on a similar project to do with grapes (specifically, pruning), it's not always the easiest of things. It does highlight to me that we are getting closer to the point of needing to rethink labour distribution, because the non-technical jobs are the easiest t…
Hasn't that been the case for all of human history? Mass Migration has been a thing for thousands of years. Populations grow and shrink to meet needs of the workforce. The United States was settled by mass immigration mostly manual laborers who had 8 or 9 children per family. Now field labour is a rarity. and family size is 2 to 3 children.
The minuet you think Central planning can override natural market forces you run into much bigger problems that usually end in catastrophe for the people you were trying to 'help'.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#18How anyone can lament the disappearance of back breaking unskilled field work is beyond me. Mechanisation and destruction of repetitive unskilled work is the driving force for the improvement of living standards and the advancement of civilization since the beginning of recorded history. The invention of agrarian civilization itself displaced hunter-gatherer tribes, should we lament the disappearance of nomads also?…
It's because the major proportion of those laborers have little to offer beside manual labor. Therefore as a labor force at a disadvantage, the publication takes the side of the plight of the disadvantaged. Of course a lot of the blame can be placed on the societies who value education too little to educate their population. On the other hand many of the laborers are unprivileged in their home countries as well. So it's also a double whammy for them.
This particular issue is of less concern to American workers and if anything it's a good thing in that no one has to do backbreaking labor. It's like decrying the loss of coal mining --yes, it's a loss for the people losing those jobs, but society as a whole and the labor force as a whole is better off without those kinds of thankless and really hard jobs.
The sad part is that we have unskilled people willing to do these jobs.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#19I wonder if there is some sort of more incremental way to introduce basic minimum income that won't get legislative pushback and will scale with automation.
This story says nothing about your "minimum income" can you at least try to explain how it relates to the story your commenting on. It looks fairly copypasta.
Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms
#20It's particularly import for people who are legislating minimum wage laws to read articles like this. Most of the legislation I've seen drafted, always has an exception for farm labor - and here is an example why. If you didn't have that exception, then it would quickly become the case that automation/machinery ends up being cheaper (or soon will), and those jobs will vanish pretty quickly. Now, that might not be ent…
My local McDonalds is experimenting with touch screen menus. I guess automated kitchens won't be far behind.
It will be a shame when such an entry level job is no longer available to teenagers to learn about doing a job and working in a team.