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Peak HN right here. Top comment is on semantics but not on the original content.
Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
181–190 of 224 posts
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
That's the argument for universal basic income in a nutshell. I'm not so convinced, I think this comes from the limited mental model of thinking of the economy as a system for making widgets. Rather, the economy is what happens when a society organizes its member's aggregated needs and desires. Being a valued member of a community is a rather basic human need. As such, the economy will find novel ways to meet that ag…
It's also a pretty strong argument that the means of production should be taken from the upper class and shared when and if we get to the point where production is limitless.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not even. Humanity would consist of a small elite who owns everything, a small, continually shrinking middle class that consists of the remaining few workers who are actually needed for some reason (eventually, this tiny middle class would shrink to just the members of boards of directors, or something -- someone has to supervise the machines even if it's just rubber stamping them) and a vast underclass experiencing…
I dread that we are going to see a _lot_ of of cults appear, and a disturbing concentration of political power around cult leadership as a social modality. With a large overlap with the despair-distraction-escapism industry as entertainers become increasingly valorized into spiritual and thought leaders, and eventually leaders, full stop. They will, as did monarchs in feudal times, draw their power base from the mult…
I would argue that we already are seeing cults appear and concentrate political power.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#184> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
Eventually the "fully-automated factory in a box" will be widely available and the race to the bottom will work its way up the chain.
You can already see this at work on platforms like Etsy or Amazon. People are buying tools like crickets, CNC, or 3d printers, then starting a business selling their products (often copies of other successful products) on these platforms.
Eventually, someone will make copy-cat platforms, then someone else will build a tool for building copy-cat platforms, etc. There's no end game, it's just a loop of people trying to replicate the success of others.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#185Why only the women? Aren’t men working in the same conditions? I’ve read the article, but it doesn’t explain why the disparity between sexes.
I've heard accounts of that type of sexism before in Japan. From what I recall hearing many programming shops are all female because the market as a whole is sexist enough that they can get away with paying women lower wages. I have neither cite-able sources nor first hand experience admittedly so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#186> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
The "logical conclusion" is frankly a bad extrapolation as hinted by the number of times 'magical' appears in it. A magical fully-automated self-maintaining and repairing factory isn't a very good model for the real world even with advances.
We've already seen how over-invested LLMs have gotten relative to their financial returns. A magical AI box with optimal business decisions is even more fantastical - computibility isn't there, and the resulting homogeneity of a 'perfect' approach in business strategy would by game theory promote decisions counter to the prevalent strategies.
The more likely result in a dynamic world is a market crash in the domain of factories as everyone and their dog tries to get in on the "free easy money, last chance to get rich!". The end profit margins would be tight indeed and collapsed values of good.
Not to mention the whole value of money is that it can get you other goods and services while shielding you from the logistical hellscape of trying to DYI. If everything is being auto-produced anyway then currency isn't even desirable a commodity, now is it?
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As such, the economy will find novel ways to meet that aggregated desire, if it's not being met anymore by jobs that employ many workers today. I'm sorry. You are claiming that the poor will buy job-alternatives from the market once they don't have a job to sustain themselves? You seem to be missing a slight power imbalance.
If you could get your hands on a humanoid robot that was capable of repairing itself and with enough time and resources the ability to do full self replication by building up the necessary infrastructure to produce it's raw parts, what is the first thing you would do with it? I'll tell you what I'd do with it. I'd ask that genie for more wishes and have it start making copies.
It'll be too expensive, you wont have access to affortable resources.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "you'll basically have zero wlb for the first 2-3 years while we are getting this fab off the ground" This doesn't sound like you were interviewing for a typical job with Samsung then. Getting a fab off the ground seems to imply it's a newly constructed, or under construction fab. You were interviewing to be part of the crew that builds and sets up a new fab. There's a reason salaries for this type of work as so la…
> There's a reason salaries for this type of work as so large... That's not the reputation that salaries of places like this have.
In the US?