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Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

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Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#111

Post by compostor42 »

taco_emoji wrote: post #90
compostor42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You replied to the wrong person. Otherwise explain.

You are equating the encouragement of immigration with the systematic murder of a population. This means that you are either very stupid, or motivated by the virulently racist notion that an undirected, gradual reduction of the demographic status of white people is somehow lamentable. kmicklas did you the favor of presuming you're not stupid.

Undirected? Our elite are encouraging it.

There are countless article published in mainstream media telling us why less white people is a good thing. "White guilt" is pushed heavily.

Can you imagine if the OP had said he was glad blacks were getting replaced in his town because it would help his pet political issue?

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#112

Post by compostor42 »

drdeca wrote: post #105
compostor42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not let the entire population of Africa move to the United States? Borders are an antiquated concept according to you.

Why not let the entire population of California move to Rhode island? Wait, who is preventing the entire population of California from moving to Rhode island? I'm not aware of any regulations that forbid anyone from moving to Rhode island from California, except for things like house arrest or other things requiring someone to stay in one place.

What argument are you trying to make? It is not clear.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#113

Post by compostor42 »

scrollaway wrote: post #104
compostor42 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't need more human drones; when properly funneled, increased immigration can mean a better economy. Agreed. Importing millions of unskilled laborers is insane as automation picks up. Those jobs will be made redundant in short order. (They probably already would have been, but a massive pool of cheap labor meant little incentive for automation. Similar to the first steam-engines being unused by the ancient Gre…

Or bringing in more, and training people better. But this applies to the entire population through a better education system of course...

But as I stated regarding my point about automation, we don't need more people, we need less.

We already spend more than any other country per pupil. Many of the "broken" school systems have received massive influxes of cash (billions) and seen no improvement what so ever. Schools can only go so far it seems.

2 Billion spent in Kansas City to fix the schools. No appreciable result. I'm not convinced in the panacea of education. Something else is at work. The by country PISA scores are quite interesting.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#114

Post by compostor42 »

drdeca wrote: post #97
compostor42 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is being white so important? What's the difference? Replace "white" with "jewish" and you'd fit right in with holocaust deniers/apologist. So just to be clear, you have no problem with ethnically cleansing a nation to change its political disposition?

I'm a bit confused about why you (seem to) think that is a good analogy? One wrinkle that might be part of your idea is that instead of comparing the act of promoting immigration to the act of genocide, you are instead comparing the defense of promoting immigration to a denial or approval of genocide. Perhaps this is what the analogy is based on? However, I expect that you are aware that many people distinguish betwe…

So if the OP had said that he was glad the black people in his city were being replaced so that he could get better support for his pet political issue, you would have no problem with that?

Somehow I doubt you would say that in polite company.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#115

Post by compostor42 »

BuckRogers wrote: post #42
compostor42 wrote: post #36

Automation like this is why I call BS on the "we need more immigrants to keep the economy going!" folks. We will be struggling to keep our existing population employed. The last thing we want to do is import even more low-skilled labor who will soon be made redundant. Increasing automation means a declining population is a godsend rather than a problem. Policy makers must be aware of this. I suspect the call for incr…

You had me agreeing until the part about the NRA base going down with increased immigration. Now I'm all for it.

So if black people in your state were being replaced, and that helped your pet political issue, you would cheer on their replacement?

Somehow I doubt you'd say that in polite company. Funny how blatantly racist rhetoric is okay... if the recipients are those mean old whites!

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#116

Post by compostor42 »

drdeca wrote: post #102
compostor42 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the vast majority of immigrants are non-white.

So if the immigrants were required to have proportions roughly the same as current population proportions you wouldn't have a problem with increasing population for the purpose of changing political opinion?

What makes you think I would agree with that? Doesn't follow.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#117

Post by drdeca »

13thLetter wrote: post #109
drdeca wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit confused about why you (seem to) think that is a good analogy? One wrinkle that might be part of your idea is that instead of comparing the act of promoting immigration to the act of genocide, you are instead comparing the defense of promoting immigration to a denial or approval of genocide. Perhaps this is what the analogy is based on? However, I expect that you are aware that many people distinguish betwe…

Let's put aside the admittedly inflammatory rhetoric. Are you arguing that if the government decided to peacefully change the population's demographics in order to make a currently unpopular political goal more achievable in the future, that would be okay? Because that's about the most anti-democratic thing imaginable. In a democratic society it is absolutely, unconditionally wrong for the government to do such a thi…

No, I'm not really arguing that.

I'm mainly just arguing against the comparison to racial discrimination/eradication.

I agree with your point that replacing the people so that some different things will be voted for is harmful and undemocratic, at least if done by the government.

But the problem would be in corruption, basically, not genocide, as the one I responded to claimed, and I think that is an important distinction to make.

Bad arguments for things one agrees with should be refuted as well as for ones one disagrees with.

Although, a limitation on my agreement: many potential actions by a state could influence the population in an area in a way that might change how the area votes. I think it would be generally not a good idea to forbid all such actions, because that would only make it such that the impact of how it is set up does not change, it would not make it so that it does not have an effect. That's not to say that there shouldn't be protection against changes that would cause a harmful change in voting population, just that not everything that incidentally would have a change to voting population would be inherently bad.

In the end, I think, it should be the choice of the population as to whether the govt takes some action which could impact the composition of the population, provided that there is no other reason which it is either obligatory or impermissible to take the action in question.

If the population freely chooses an action which will impact the way they make future choices, it seems to me kind of like a person , for example, drinking alcohol, or taking a mind altering substance, whether it is a medicine or a harmful substance.

Unless the action is forbidden (such as, for example, an actual genocide) or obligatory (not sure of what an example would be here.) , the population would choose whether to take an action which would change itself.

Edit:

Something I thought of just after sending that:

Consider woman suffrage. That was a decision which influenced the collection of people who constituted the voting population. I think it was a good decision.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#118

Post by cheald »

compostor42 wrote: post #36

Automation like this is why I call BS on the "we need more immigrants to keep the economy going!" folks. We will be struggling to keep our existing population employed. The last thing we want to do is import even more low-skilled labor who will soon be made redundant. Increasing automation means a declining population is a godsend rather than a problem. Policy makers must be aware of this. I suspect the call for incr…

> The last thing we want to do is import even more low-skilled labor who will soon be made redundant.

This is the lump-of-labor fallacy. More immigrants means greater demand for labor (and other goods and services), not just greater supply and results in net job creation and wage increases for native workers. Automation isn't likely to change that, because the demand for labor is not fixed.

Re: Fruit-sorting robot ‘will disrupt the industry’

#119

Post by cheald »

vegabook wrote: post #81
ItsDeathball wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, humanity is better off if we're not paying people below minimum wage under the table to pick pears. If a portion of the surplus value generated by these awful machines can be captured and paid to the people they displace, those people can then do something they actually enjoy.

Very true if, and only if, "a portion of the surplus value generated by these awful machines can be captured and paid to the people they displace". But a very small group of financiers/entrepreneurs/VCs own all the machines, their ownership of the machines gives them an advantage in owning even more machines, and it is not in their nature (ie, human nature) for them to spread the sunshine. That's the problem. That's…

The surplus value created by these machines results in a net cost (and thus price) reduction for pears, which consumers (among whom the displaced count themselves) benefit from. Technology drives down production costs, which results in cheaper goods and eventually substitution of inferior goods with superior goods, which is why even the underclass can afford things today which would have once been the strict domain of the upper classes.
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