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Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

bbc.co.uk

31–40 of 428 posts

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#31

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

Did the manure shovelers' families all die in squalor once Henry Ford brought the auto assembly line to scale?

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#32
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Looks like a prime example of Whataboutism

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#33

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

The whole history of human civilization is one kind of labor replacing another, with no shortage of people wondering about how the new being a destructive force doesn’t make it a social evil.

The people who would have worked at this kind of shop will find other jobs created or otherwise enabled by the lowered costs of automation.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#34
post #4
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Yesterday on Spanish local tv show they showed how in a small rural town without banks / ATM's, a pharmacy dubbed as a bank / cash retrieval service in a rural town... In another town the banks shared an office and each day of the week was for one of the banks to recieve customers lol. WeBank Could have the same but backwards, give cash, recieve e-coupon, scan e-coupon in store.

Why not just install an ATM in the pharmacy or don't Spanish banks allow their atms's to access other banks?

Having a mobile bank that drives around is another solution.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#35
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Then you're excluded, simple as that. We're rapidly approching the point where you're:

a) Expected to have, engage with and be active on a smartphone

b) Be accessible via the mobile network (have an active phone number that can get SMS)

c) Be "always online", frequently checking the bank in 'real time' to verify transactions, account balance etc

d) Have battery life on your device. It's no good if you have just 5% and your phone turns off, your smartphone to person uptime needs to be very very good (your phone needs to be online quite often to be a very good citizen!).

e) Be verifiable to you. The make, model and other information needs to be tied to you as a person. The SIM card needs to belong to you and you need to be traceable and trackable via your smartphone at all times, 24/7.

If you do not meet those requirements you WILL be locked out of some functions in society. This is already the case today and will be the case in the future. No smartphone? No digital cash? Not for you.

Our phones are becoming and will eventually be a part of "us", they will be a digital heartbeat and will need to output a "pulse", if your pulse stops, so will your societal inclusion (perhaps you can't go to a place without scanning a QR code, for example).

The levels of exclusion will vary depending on criteria, for example, Covid passports will likely use an "app" as most things do otherwise you'll be denied access.

Eventually, it'll be a law to ensure your digital pulse is active and working 24/7, every citizen will be issued a digital ID and a personal device that will need to be kept on your person at all times, it'll talk to various networks (telephony, GPS etc), and will act like a "tag". We're not there yet but the pathway to reach that point has been made obvious during the covid pandemic. "Health passports" are the next step, various smartwatches that record health data (Apple, Fitbit) are getting into that territory. Eventually you as a human will be constantly monitored and uploaded to a server 24/7

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#36
I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders.

This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#37
post #27
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "There are 24-hour surveillance cameras too, which alert the store's manager Domenica Gerlach if there's a break-in or a stock spillage. She looks after four stores in the region, usually visiting once a week to clean, stack the shelves and put together click-and-collect orders made online. Lifvs uses artificial intelligence to work out what stock to order for each store, based on the data it collec…

> Lifvs uses artificial intelligence to work out what stock to order for each store The "AI" is an if test if stock

You can use statistics to determine what can of stock you should favor (e.g. winter clothes vs summer clothes) and the quantity (more Christmas food in December less after). If you have enough data from previous years or a good heuristics, you can start this one easily. Even a plain old markov chains could help.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#38

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

> but not every country is as socially conscious

I think you answered your own question.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#39

So how will the people who would have worked in a shop like this, afford to shop for food? In Sweden this probably isn’t as big of an issue, but not every country is as socially conscious.

Broken window fallacy argument - we can’t artificially keep doing demonstrably less efficient things for the sake of jobs, it has never worked and never will. If it becomes a problem then we have to deal with it by finding new avenues to employ people or not need employment to live a life.

> we can’t artificially keep doing demonstrably less efficient things

Well then it's a good thing adamcstephens didn't suggest that, is it not?

> If it becomes a problem then we have to deal with it by finding new avenues

That's the correct approach, but so far the strategy has been a combination of denial (which I hear an echo of in the word "if") and inaction. Protectionism is a dead end, but so are denial and inaction. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#40
post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Thankfully the Swedes are not as luddites as the Germans and adopt more easily solutions that make their lives easier In fact I wouldn't be surprised if these stores were cashless, in several Scandinavian countries shop attendants handling change manually are already on their way out

And this is a 100% a good thing the Swedish central bank has floated the idea of enforcing -ve interest on accounts in the past.

This drive to a cashless system has downsides for the more vulnerable, poor and elderly - it also pushes extra risks onto the customer (which is why I don't do online Banking the UK)

*edit* Banking for Baking

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