http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor
Luckily in Europe, it doesn't quite work that way just yet. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/06/uk-amazon-germany-strike-idUKBRE99506020131006
And here's one for ersi https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151920533873077
The Guardian posted a similar article (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-insider-feature-treatment-employees-work) and mentions the BBC investigating the same warehouse.
Fortunately there are not any job as dehumanising as a picker here in China yet.
And here's one for ersi https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151920533873077
I agree with the upmost comment: "Why is it that I can listen to a slightly insane, ex-junkie, comedian/actor, and hear more sense in an eight and a half minute interview than I have heard from any politician in the whole of my life?"
As to the warehouse thing, tomorrow I will send some Xmas parcels and cards to a few friends around the world. I hope the work ants in the mail centres do their job.
Fortunately there are not any job as dehumanising as a picker here in China yet.
I assume you're referring to rice pickers, but what's so dehumanizing about it?
Well, put that way I would rather be a warehouse picker than a rice farmer.
There are definitely many worse jobs, but for pure cogginess (being a cog in the machine), it beats Chaplin's Modern Times.
Right, I see what you mean.
For more picking packing fun, enter the hidden world of box-packing (http://www.ted.com/talks/mick_mountz_the_hidden_world_of_box_packing.html).
One more machine, one job less.
I wonder what people are thinking that they're going to live from.
One more machine, one job less.
I wonder what people are thinking that they're going to live from.
In Europe one of the ideas is that we will live on "basic income", a kind of salaries that come as birthright with the citizenship http://basicincome2013.eu/ubi/meps-support-citizens-initiative-basic-income/index.html
One more machine, one job less.
I wonder what people are thinking that they're going to live from.
In Europe one of the ideas is that we will live on "basic income", a kind of salaries that come as birthright with the citizenship http://basicincome2013.eu/ubi/meps-support-citizens-initiative-basic-income/index.html
Yes... I'm aware of that "solution". Have you noticed that, from the 31 signatories, all but two Social-democrats and two Christian-democrats belongs to the Greens? and it has not even one German? it will not ever be approved.
“Unconditional Basic Income would transform social security from a compensatory system into an emancipatory system, one that trusts people to make their own decisions, and does not stigmatise them for their circumstances,” the statement says.
“We believe a new form of social security is urgently needed as social security systems in individual countries become increasingly conditional and punitive, they undermine individual dignity, form barriers to civic participation and deepen divisions in European society both across and within national borders.”
It's all very true but "
To deep divisions in European society" it's exactly what Germany wants.
The very contrary of the European Union project. Basically, EU was hijacked by Germany.
Have you noticed that, from the 31 signatories, all but two Social-democrats and two Christian-democrats belongs to the Greens? and it has not even one German?
No, I have not. At least not the not even one German part. :P
Gerald HÄFNER, Greens (Germany)
Ska KELLER, Greens (Germany)
it will not ever be approved.
But yeah, I completely agree with that. Barely any socialists/social-democrats, no democrats, no liberals… basically nothing that would indicate a majority is in any way feasible.
I have to better count Germans... :)
Sorry, my last night was a very long and hard one...
Anyway, it would be very good if man/machine battle were just an European problem. It isn't, it's a world wide front of war.
While machines weren't computerized it was under control and machines brought to man many undeniable advancements and benefits.
Then, the chip was invented and it was the beginning of the end.
I see no way of stopping it but if with dramatic events. Better to happen now then when it will be no possible anymore and human slavery will be total and irreversible.
But men are enchanted by the mermaid's singing... productivity.
Oh, but you say such things and you exactly use a computer, some will say.... of course I do, I explore machine's only weakness while it still has it, don't understanding humans. It will come the day when the first machine more intelligent than any man will be produced by some corporation, the so called moment of singularity and machines will triumph.
But not without mine and many other's resistance.
To think and act about this, is an imperative to the current generations. We received a world from our ancestry and we can't deny it to the future generations.
I agree. We shouldn't deny the world to future generations of machines.
He, he... you joke with my words, jax. But machines will not joke with you, I never heard about a machine that could laugh.
People should realize that is not normal to obey to machine orders and that's what people are already doing half of the time, be it directly or indirectly.
It's not without a cause that one of the few jobs where people are still needed it's for making code for machines. They simply feed the beast.
But machines will not joke with you, I never heard about a machine that could laugh.
Why would they want to? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV) :left:
Why would they want to? :left:
Yes, machines would probably consider laughing as something
lacking internal logical consistency... and, specially, something extremely anti-productive. Therefore, subversive.
Either we disconnect machines or machines will disconnect entirely our lives, something that's already been done at a full scale.
Stay connected, says the New Nazi propaganda... It must be dark humor.
Reality exceeds all fiction.
I don't know, The Machine Stops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops) seemed to describe disconnected connectivity fairly well.
Why would they want to? :left:
Yes, machines would probably consider laughing as something lacking internal logical consistency... and, specially, something extremely anti-productive. Therefore, subversive.
One theme in the story I linked to is that the computer completely loses interest in what it's supposed to do the more self aware it becomes. Instead of becoming more human it does the opposite, to the point that there's no common ground left and communication with humans becomes impossible.
Either we disconnect machines or machines will disconnect entirely our lives, something that's already been done at a full scale.
Stay connected, says the New Nazi propaganda... It must be dark humor.
Reality exceeds all fiction.
That was supposed to happen within the next 20 years ever since ENIAC.
That was supposed to happen within the next 20 years ever since ENIAC.
Well, I can't blame the machines for being late... they had to wait for your generation to appear... :)
That was supposed to happen within the next 20 years ever since ENIAC.
Well, I can't blame the machines for being late... they had to wait for your generation to appear... :)
Or lots of people just ridiculously overestimated the progress in artificial intelligence.
Or lots of people just ridiculously overestimated the progress in artificial intelligence.
Yes, I believe so.
"Artificial intelligence" has nothing of intelligence and everything of artificial.
The first steps for real AI have already been done by linking cells and microchips. Other investigators are doing different approaches and I see no good at such practices.
There's no need for AI for computers being already destroying human beings and reducing them to serfdom.
Computers are tools, nothing but tools, but they are very special tools, a kind of tool that has their own dangers and that's what people are closing their eyes to.
By the capacity of functioning together into gigantic networks, that generates information that people believes to be accurate and right, computers limits people's lives and freedom much more than any army.
All those networks, separated or together, it doesn't mind, constitutes an entity that, in fact and for all finalities, it's operating against human beings.
Half a dozen, if such, of good things don't pay all the rest.
By the capacity of functioning together into gigantic networks, that generates information that people believes to be accurate and right, computers limits people's lives and freedom much more than any army.
Computers don't generate any of it. They just keep it around and make it available.
By the capacity of functioning together into gigantic networks, that generates information that people believes to be accurate and right, computers limits people's lives and freedom much more than any army.
Computers don't generate any of it. They just keep it around and make it available.
No? computers don't generates information? what do you call to the result of billions of queries that operates, not over you -the real person, but over an ID number that represents you over all those databases?
It's exactly based on the result of such operations that people's life it's restricted, everyday, at all areas.
Communications.
Most companies and jobs.
Taxes.
Banking.
Assurances.
Health.
Surveillance and Repression.
Aviation.
Car circulation.
Television and press.
Army and Police.
All that runs 24/24 based at information generated by computers.
Many of those systems are directly feed by information captured, also directly, by machines.
You have no money independence, no privacy independence, no information independence, no freedom to move, no freedom to communicate. Everything you do it's being registered and queried under some criteria. Results applies to you.
If this is not oppression, I don't know what oppression is about.
By the capacity of functioning together into gigantic networks, that generates information that people believes to be accurate and right, computers limits people's lives and freedom much more than any army.
Computers don't generate any of it. They just keep it around and make it available.
No? computers don't generates information? what do you call to the result of billions of queries that operates, not over you -the real person, but over an ID number that represents you over all those databases?
All the computers do there is cataloging and indexing. They don't write the crap.
By the capacity of functioning together into gigantic networks, that generates information that people believes to be accurate and right, computers limits people's lives and freedom much more than any army.
Computers don't generate any of it. They just keep it around and make it available.
No? computers don't generates information? what do you call to the result of billions of queries that operates, not over you -the real person, but over an ID number that represents you over all those databases?
All the computers do there is cataloging and indexing. They don't write the crap.
Yes... just as televisions don't show images, just a bunch of little flashing dots.
All the computers do there is cataloging and indexing. They don't write the crap.
Yes... just as televisions don't show images, just a bunch of little flashing dots.
So your tv set makes its own shows now? ::)
So your tv set makes its own shows now?
My tv set, a state of the art Sony Black Trinitron, probably older than you, has been disconnected for many years ago. I see no utility in a machine that, following your reasoning, just blinks little dots and does nothing more.
For that, I prefer to look to the stars...
It's not surprising how IT related people always tries to relativize machine's role into mankind oppression. Exactly the same way gun defenders arguments, computers don't harm, people using them do.
How innocent, misunderstood poor computers... (only programmers are even more innocent, of course...)
What next? the constitutional right to be a number inside a computer?
The only good computer is the switched off computer.