We can't feasibly stop automation, nor should we. We SHOULD be taking the profits back from billionaires that they've stolen since time immemorial. Automation means less work overall. But we need to ensure the workers actually benefit from that.
Self checkout is not automation. It's making the customer do the work.
Automation would be: Stick an RFID-tag to all your items, make me check in with my phone at the entrance. Automatically "scan" all the items when my cart and my phone leave the store at the same time. Bill me.
Yeah. That's like saying a buffet automates waiters.
As the customer you're already taking stuff out of your cart and putting it on the counter. Maybe automation isn't the right word, but it's certainly more efficient than having a human clerk. It removes a bottleneck.
The 'job killers' argument is kinda bullshit. I want to kill jobs - I want to eliminate all labor that can be automated, such that in the ideal perfect future, no human ever has to work; they can spend every moment doing things they enjoy without worry.
But self checkout is not automation. No human work has been eliminated. It is the same exact fucking checkout process, only now the customer does it instead, and the store doesn't pay the cashier. And no they don't pass that savings on to you because of course they don't, they just pocket the difference.
That's all true, but just to be a bit nitpicky I'd argue some human work has indeed been eliminated by self checkout.
Cashiers main job is to scan your stuff, but in order to do that they also have to stand around waiting for you and other customers for hours on end, and when you arrive they have to do emotional labor of acting cheerful and upbeat
Still I wish we didn't live in a society where increased efficiency leads to people being homeless with no jobs.
This is a bad, regressive argument.
We need to legislate the benefit of automation for society.
Trying to bury the technology never works if it is indeed an improvement. Technology is benign, people twist it for malice.
This is the same argument as still using oil based street lamps, just to maintain a the lamplighting jobs that don't need to be done anymore.
It's a Bizaare hill to die on to fight to maintain jobs a robot can do faster and better, rather than fighting to make society the beneficiary of such advances through taxation. Either way, you have to fight the billionaires and will probably lose, so why not fight for a better outcome than maintaining shitty, menial jobs?
This isn't automation though. The self checkout tech is the same tech that a cashier uses. It's not automated. A human still does the work, they just don't get paid for it.
Past advancements in medicine has destroyed a lot of jobs... in funeral business. Some jobs should be let go of, if it makes everyone's lives easier ultimately
I disagree with your analogy. The death rate has held steady at 100% for quite some time now. The only difference is how wrinkly the corpses are.
I would love a "robotax" where automation is encouraged, but with the caveat that it is also heavily taxed. Not so much that it's cheaper to have employees, but enough so that the people who's jobs have been replaced can still get an income. Be it through major subsidies or the ultimate subsidy: universal basic income
Okay but fuck those stores where the self checkout “bagging area” is smaller than the size of a hand cart. Like what fucking idiot designed those.
Heh. I know that idiot, at least one of them. Personally. At least for some of the major retailers that are making the switch who have very small bagging areas.
It's not his fault, it really isn't.
He got a list of requirements. Table is so big, scale is so big, computer is so big, and so many checkouts in so much area.
Every component has a minimum size requirement, and when the client isn't willing to bend on how many check outs must fit, the only other option is to shrink the one thing that can, and that's the bagging area.
Then they pile a bunch of shit in the bagging area, they have these giant caddies to hold thousands of bags, and they put three of them up there.
"job killer" automation in a reasonable society should mean less need for work and the same amount of resources available (if not more).
But we will never reach the point where we consider picnics, parties and painting more valuable than manipulative marketing, unnecessary polluting but profitable industry, and especially the all-important busywork. Do something profitable. Anything profitable. It doesn't even matter if it's a net negative to society, just do something.
I don't want to interact with a cashier either but fuck if I want to scan my own shit either.
It's also way more awkward when something goes wrong and now I have to initiate.
"Warning! Shopping bag content is 0.00003pg heavier than expected. Please call an assistant or remove the excess items."
Self checkout is so much faster than waiting in like with all the other goobers
If self checkout is optional, yes it's great for small order quick shops. However too many stores are moving to 100% self checkout with just a single lane or two for full service and that's when it becomes a problem.
Grandma's got a cart full of clothes, no computer experience, and all day to scan and fold each item one at a time...
Only if the goobers aren't also using the self checkout in front of you and fucking up every other item somehow requiring assistance.
I think that a lot of people here are confusing "introversion" with having social anxiety.
Being an introvert doesn't mean that you're scared of socialization. It means you generally prefer quiet time over socializing.
From Merriam Webster:
A person whose personality is characterized by introversion : a typically reserved or quiet person who tends to be introspective and enjoys spending time alone.
You can be both, but they are definitely not the same thing.
no one wants to be a checkout clerk at walmart for $6 an hour. This is a good thing. The problem is that the people displaced aren't taken care of. We should be pushing for ubi instead
I prefer self checkout but I do feel you should be getting a discount for using it.
You can give yourself a discount, if you know what I mean
I would like self-checkout a lot more if those cost savings were passed on to the consumer instead of being hoarded by ownership.
It's the classic paradox. Technology and automation could be used to reduce the amount everyone needs to work and enrich everyone's lives as long as those gains are distributed properly. The distribution is the problem.
I use it because it's faster.
I'm not waiting in line for someone else to scan my 5 items.
For a few items, sure. But even I, a rabid introvert, will seek out a cashier for my weekly shopping. To say hello and goodbye. You all forget to be human beings. Stop making being InTrOvErT yet another singular form of personal identity.
I don't mind using a self checkout except that they're all terrible. The rep has to come over so often, it's just a regular checkout with extra steps.
I had that experience when they were new, but barely ever need assistance for almost a decade.
I only use self checkouts, it eliminates like the only major variable of shopping.
It should be
"Billionaires make thousands of dollars per second every day even if they don't get out of bed in the morning, we need UBI for every amercian citizen and double that of a living wage as the minimum wage.
I've always been fine with it. It doesn't feel like I'm forced to do someone else's job to me because they can be convenient if you have a small order, and it reduces lines. That said, I'd much rather see people employed and sometimes I like the personal interaction.
I’m fairly allergic to human interaction, but there is now way I’m manually scanning 12 packs of the same soda 4 times.
Everywhere near me has the anti-theft devices turned up on self checkouts to the point that traditional checkouts are both faster and require less human interaction.
The people who deny self-checkout sometimes have quarrels with the cashiers.
As a weekly shopper who only gets 20-30 items at a time, self checkout is better. The cashiers tend to have customers with 100+ items and I usually have to wait 5-10 minutes. At the self checkout, I'm done and out the door in 3.
You can bet a lot of people who hate self-checkouts only hate it because they can't yell at and order the employee around to do their bidding.
My elderly parents don't do so well with self checkout, its definitely not for everyone. I will use them if I have a few items but they are really finnicky at least the ones my local grocery store has. I wish there was an option to mute them so I don't have to hear 'PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG, PLEASE SCAN ITEM, PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG' on loop. also an 'I know how to bag things please fuck off' button
I used to be against these, but when it became clear that jobs were not actually being cut to accommodate these things, I slowly caved that said there's a register open I'm going to use it instead of self service
Because as boomer as it sounds... "I don't work here."
Everything less than 5 pounds is a banana. Mistakes happen when untrained people do the job for the company
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
