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New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

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Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#71

Post by sqeaky »

icebraining wrote: post #63
elevensies wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He will contribute the majority of his wealth to charitable foundations. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat... ). I believe this will allow him to avoid the taxes. I don't have any objection to Bill and Warren choosing strenuously avoid giving their money to the government, and I don't object to what they are doing. What I really object to is Warren advocating for other people's money to p…

Right, but this clever tax loophole called "giving all your money away" is not in any way limited to Buffett, and in fact he's been pushing others to do the same. He's advocating for increasing the tax rate on realized income, including the part that he and his heirs will be realizing.

When these people "Give all their money away" it goes to groups like the Sherwood foundation or the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and does massive good for science, education, fighting malaria....

That is not a loophole, that is a good thing.

Taxing wealth or income none of it matters. The tax schemes both proposed by either of them would be beneficial for society. Stop trying to find fault because you already knew it was there (by some means I cannot fathom) and just look at the real results of taking their advice.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#72

Post by sqeaky »

snrplfth wrote: post #70
sqeaky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a matter of competition. The unpowered loom does not enable you to compete, but some amount of powering it and accepting a lower wage does allow you to compete with shops that have slightly more tech. Accepting lower wages is how these shops came into existence in the first place. This is the first production quality version of this robot the next one could be twice as fast. How do you compete with that…

The point is that if the robot really is that fast, and that cheap , then you don't compete - you start doing something else where the robot cannot compete at that price. Textile workers aren't robots - they have the capacity to shift to other work, and there's an enormous amount of work to be done. This objection to automation has been brought up every time anything's been invented, for hundreds of years - if we do…

I don't think this is the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. That argument is about the west. Here in the USA we could in theory train our coal miners to write software or build build bridges or do some other useful task.

China has way more people and much less ability to train them, but that is not 0 ability to train them. But Bangladesh... They are pretty fucked. This will cut them out of a huge swath of the economy they were participating in yesterday. You can't efficiently make roboticists in Bangladesh today.

EDIT - I also think complete automation is fundamentally different than performance enhancing tools. Clearly Bangladesh has sewing machines, but that is an entirely different price and profit category than a full blown sewing robot.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#74

Post by snrplfth »

zdkl wrote: post #69
snrplfth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe you're misharacterising the issue. The trouble with technology is that well, you either have it or you don't. Technology is always a matter of degree. Let's say I have a handloom barn making fabric and clothing. Is that already "technology"? If not, then what if I install a diesel generator to power the looms? Then I get some treadle sewing machines to replace hand-stitching? Then I get a laptop to replac…

I'm all for rhetorical points, but surely you realise the magnitude of difference in complexity of operation-maintenance between 19th century looms and motors versus non-analog assets. Not only there's a major difference in degree of difficulty as you note but also the question of support ecosystem.

I disagree. Literally billions of people, many of them living on $4 to $10 dollars a day, without indoor running water or reliable electricity, have cellphones - compact computers connecting to a massive global telecommunications infrastructure. Computing capacities (and hence, productivities) which would have had their own floors of buildings and dedicated staff in the 1950s are now semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better.

How do they operate them? Well, through the relatively simple, user-friendly interfaces. How do they maintain them? Well, they're modular and inexpensive - if a single component, like a battery, breaks, you replace it. If too many components break, you just get another one. Of course this does require a certain level of local support and expertise, but no, I absolutely don't think it's that much more difficult than maintaining 19th C. industrial assets, especially because of how fast and affordable modern telecommunications and transportation are. Is it broken? Call an expert on another continent, or have one fly in. Do you need new parts? Already ordered, and they'll be here next week, for a low freight charge. Sure beats waiting for the steamship to come in, or the telegraph boy to bring a message from head office reading "Could not replicate the engine malfunction, please try halting and re-starting the steam boiler."

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#75

Post by snrplfth »

sqeaky wrote: post #72
snrplfth wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that if the robot really is that fast, and that cheap , then you don't compete - you start doing something else where the robot cannot compete at that price. Textile workers aren't robots - they have the capacity to shift to other work, and there's an enormous amount of work to be done. This objection to automation has been brought up every time anything's been invented, for hundreds of years - if we do…

I don't think this is the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. That argument is about the west. Here in the USA we could in theory train our coal miners to write software or build build bridges or do some other useful task. China has way more people and much less ability to train them, but that is not 0 ability to train them. But Bangladesh... They are pretty fucked. This will cut them out of a huge sw…

This is exactly the same argument that has been made hundreds of times. "Oh, they're simple peasants now and forever, they can't work in factories, they'll never learn to read, they can't invent productive industries" and so on.

You seem to be implying that training for jobs is somehow something that's done mainly by the governments of countries - that people are just passive receptors of whatever training and education the state can provide, and can't seek it out, or create it for themselves. This is of course wholly wrong, and almost none of the specialized skills developed by people in the course of industrialization are gained through formal education.

You don't have to make lots of roboticists in Bangaldesh anyways (and there aren't many of those in industrialized economies either) - people can and will move into the sectors that have been small simply because labour was more valuable elsewhere - services, like health care, education, retail, et cetera. These are useful tasks no less than textile work, and largely don't require a massive "training program".

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#76

Post by icebraining »

sqeaky wrote: post #71
icebraining wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but this clever tax loophole called "giving all your money away" is not in any way limited to Buffett, and in fact he's been pushing others to do the same. He's advocating for increasing the tax rate on realized income, including the part that he and his heirs will be realizing.

When these people "Give all their money away" it goes to groups like the Sherwood foundation or the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and does massive good for science, education, fighting malaria.... That is not a loophole, that is a good thing. Taxing wealth or income none of it matters. The tax schemes both proposed by either of them would be beneficial for society. Stop trying to find fault because you already kn…

That is not a loophole, that is a good thing.

Yeah, sorry, I was being sarcastic.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#77

Post by zdkl »

snrplfth wrote: post #74
zdkl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for rhetorical points, but surely you realise the magnitude of difference in complexity of operation-maintenance between 19th century looms and motors versus non-analog assets. Not only there's a major difference in degree of difficulty as you note but also the question of support ecosystem.

I disagree. Literally billions of people, many of them living on $4 to $10 dollars a day, without indoor running water or reliable electricity, have cellphones - compact computers connecting to a massive global telecommunications infrastructure. Computing capacities (and hence, productivities ) which would have had their own floors of buildings and dedicated staff in the 1950s are now semi-disposable consumer goods.…

> [...] semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better.

In my humble opinion this is the flawed assumption in the line of thought you advance. Technology isn't universally disposable, that depends on the replacability and support structure around any specific source of complexity (edit: and purchasing power)

You haven't solved much of anything with automation if the final word is "don't worry how it works, we'll come over and bill you to fix it"

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#78

Post by snrplfth »

zdkl wrote: post #77
snrplfth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Literally billions of people, many of them living on $4 to $10 dollars a day, without indoor running water or reliable electricity, have cellphones - compact computers connecting to a massive global telecommunications infrastructure. Computing capacities (and hence, productivities ) which would have had their own floors of buildings and dedicated staff in the 1950s are now semi-disposable consumer goods.…

> [...] semi-disposable consumer goods. Because technology got better. In my humble opinion this is the flawed assumption in the line of thought you advance. Technology isn't universally disposable, that depends on the replacability and support structure around any specific source of complexity (edit: and purchasing power) You haven't solved much of anything with automation if the final word is "don't worry how it wo…

> You haven't solved much of anything with automation if the final word is "don't worry how it works, we'll come over and bill you to fix it"

Odd, because that's how almost all "automation" in everyday life works. How many people actually understand the operation of, or could fix, their dishwashers? Their cars? Even their coffee-makers? Yet dishes are washed, cars are driven and coffee is made, mostly uneventfully.

Is industrial technology different? A little, but not that much - if it doesn't work, there's someone out there who can fix it, for a cost. If communications are too difficult, you might keep them in-house and pay them a wage. If not, maybe they work for another company, and you pay them for their time. Or just buy a new machine when the old one stops working.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#79

Post by bmcusick »

snrplfth wrote: post #32
bmcusick wrote: post #2

$0.33 per shirt, anywhere in the world, is nearly as cheap as the cheapest sweatshop markets. I expect most commentary will look at this using a US vs China thing, but I'm more worried about SE Asia and Africa. They need to climb up the development ladder that China's already 1/2-way up. Say what you will about clothing and sneaker sweatshops, but they were a tried and tested method for building up the basics of an i…

You could say that about basically every labour-saving device though. Tractors, earth-moving equipment, container ships, whatever. And even textiles are almost wholly automated now - lots of textiles are grown or spun, woven, dyed and printed almost entirely by automated machines - robots, in effect. Final assembly is in many cases the first time a given piece of textile has been touched by human hands. So why is the…

> More productivity is not somehow a bad thing.

I didn't say it was bad! I'm pro-productivity. My contention is simpler; that going from a pre-industrial economy to an advanced economy has a path that's been well trod by the West and now by east Asia too.

There's a give-and-take, or zig-zag path, between automating the old jobs and finding new jobs for people to do. You need to automate farming to free up farm labor to do more productive things, but you also have to have a large demand for jobs to absorb all those ex-farm laborers. Otherwise you just get urban slums full of the unemployed.

India tried to jump directly from pre-industrial economy to a financial and technological services economy, and it's not working as well as China's model. India's GDP/capita is still a fraction of China's. The problem is that you can't take a billion subsistence farmers and turn them into the 10 million specialties needed to run a modern economy. Growing human capital is an organic process that takes decades and requires intermediate steps of sophistication.

And for centuries now, garment production was a good stepping stone to more advanced kinds of manufacturing. It's like if you take the middle three rungs out of a ladder, how do you get to the top? You can't. The top is still there, but you're stuck at the bottom.

Now maybe there's another path from Pre-IR to OECD-level economics that doesn't involve sweatshops, but if so, can you point to a country that's done it?

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#80

Post by sekou »

ams6110 wrote: post #35
bmcusick wrote: post #2

$0.33 per shirt, anywhere in the world, is nearly as cheap as the cheapest sweatshop markets. I expect most commentary will look at this using a US vs China thing, but I'm more worried about SE Asia and Africa. They need to climb up the development ladder that China's already 1/2-way up. Say what you will about clothing and sneaker sweatshops, but they were a tried and tested method for building up the basics of an i…

Kenya hasn't developed yet, why do we think it will? Putting it another way, Kenya's development has not been held back by lack of sweatshops but by corrupt government and misguided go-gooderism.

While growth has slowed in recent years, 6 of the world's 10 fastest growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2010 (https://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/01/daily_cha... ). While Kenya isn't included among those countries it has also shown robust growth. It may be that this growth is unfairly geared toward the wealthiest Africans but I think you'd find that the life of the average Kenyan has improved markedly in the last 20 years.
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