Robot Learns to Grasp Everyday Chores

[red team]

Robot Learns to Grasp Everyday Chores (http://www.communistrobot.com/)

[Clutch]

August 27th 2007: SkyNet becomes self-aware. :ph34r:

Now, if only it'd do something useful. Something that doesn't put someone out of a job...

[encephalon]

putting people out of "jobs" is exactly what leftists should want the most from technology.

I swear to fucking marx, half of you people are closet primitivists.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2006 05:31 am
putting people out of "jobs" is exactly what leftists should want the most from technology.

I swear to fucking marx, half of you people are closet primitivists.
Word. It's fucking dumb when people complain about robots "putting people out of jobs." I mean, what's so horrible about people not having to work anymore? It works against the fundamental principles of capitalist society: You work for money; and all those who do not own, work.

[The Bitter Hippy]

the problem is that right now, robots that have all these bells and whistles that can do the work of thirty people without sleeping represent the continued rise of the capitalist class. Think for a moment who OWNs these robots. It isn't worker A who can now go and play with their kids permenantly. It's the capitalist who can tell his workers that they either go without a pay-rise this year or he will find it cheaper to replace them all with robots.

Which then leads to unemployment, and other employers can say to their employees: "if you don't like getting a below-inflation wage rise this year, worker A is unemployed. He'll be happy to take your job!"

This is an unfortunate trend, but then again it's part of the necessary rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer that leads to the revolution. :unsure: :(

[Sean]

the problem is that right now, robots that have all these bells and whistles that can do the work of thirty people without sleeping represent the continued rise of the capitalist class.

This is completely true. Even in sofar as the use of computers in an office, I often find myself deliberately biting my lip when it comes to automating tasks for fear of losing my own or the jobs of others. I work in an office where a lot of the work is typing information from a page onto a database and then onto a spreadsheet. Now its completely possible to remove the spare wheel, which is, in this place situated between the chair and the keyboard (ie. my good self). So every day I go into work and go through these repetitive tasks a machine is far better suited to. Of course the work would be done nearly instantaneously with only supervision on my part, but the managerial element would see even this as completely superfluous (and rightly so). However, the true defunct link in the chain should actually be the manager, considering a group of skilled workers aided by machines is considerably more efficient than a managerial system.
This however goes against the wonderful hierarchical structure of capitalism and would place too much power in the hands of the worker who actually understands their job, rather than the blinkered one who can simply do it.

Technology in the hands of the worker is a very powerful thing and does not always lead to job losses, but rather, if truly procient in its use, can create job security.

Technology in the hands of capitalist management, on the other hand fears this, and breaks up workers into assembly lines of repetitive tasks, merely to justify their own existance.

I simply feel that technology is misapplied by the power structure, rather than it being an unquestionable threat to us.

[kaaos_af]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2006 10:31 am
putting people out of "jobs" is exactly what leftists should want the most from technology.

I swear to fucking marx, half of you people are closet primitivists.
Ahhhh Primitivists under the bed!

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2006 10:31 am
putting people out of "jobs" is exactly what leftists should want the most from technology.

I swear to fucking marx, half of you people are closet primitivists.
Wait, even in a capitalist society? I don't fully grasp the concept, but let me take a shot at it: Capitalism and industrialization replaces workers with machines, and that contributes to alienated labor. Capitalists using a machine and therefore firing workers, is all part of capitalism, and is part of the exploitation of the worker. Is this not true? Marx talked about this sort of thing in regards to industrialization, so I think the same idea can apply to this situation.

To cite the Communist Manifesto:

"Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequntly, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquiredknack, that is required of him.... In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and dividsion of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc."

Any thoughts on this?

[encephalon]

Marx wasn't an anti-industrialist. He was an anti-capitalist; that against, against the owners of the means of production, not the means of production itself. Marx was one of the first to point out the social consequences of a mechanized labor force, but he wasn't against it--to Marx, it was a natural process.

We aren't going to return to some mystical primitive state where we are no longer alienated from the labor necessary to sustain society. We will, however, make that labor largely unnecessary--or rather, we should do all that we can in that direction. Then, and only then, can we concentrate on less alienating endeavors.

[JKP]

Originally posted by red [email protected] 10, 2006 07:24 pm
Robot Learns to Grasp Everyday Chores (http://www.communistrobot.com/)
Too bad that site is run by "anti-communists" who don't even know what communism is.

It would be nice to have our own blog like that; for us and by us.

[encephalon]

Capitalist economy is not fit for autonomous robot industrialization. A Communist economy however is perfectly suited for the implementation of a fully robotic workforce. In a Communist economy the government controls industry and wealth distribution to insure that everyone is afforded basic amenities. Communism exists as a response to the disproportional wealth distribution of industrialized nations and functions better as an idealist philosophy than an actual economic system because it lacks the incentive of riches and glamour that compel development through Capitalism.
Robots will change all of this.

Aside from the fact that they should have replaced "communism" with "socialism," I wouldn't quite call that anti-communist.

[Clutch]

Originally posted by MonicaTTmed+November 11, 2006 10:50 pm--> (MonicaTTmed @ November 11, 2006 10:50 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2006 05:31 am
putting people out of "jobs" is exactly what leftists should want the most from technology.

I swear to fucking marx, half of you people are closet primitivists.
Word. It's fucking dumb when people complain about robots "putting people out of jobs." I mean, what's so horrible about people not having to work anymore? It works against the fundamental principles of capitalist society: You work for money; and all those who do not own, work. [/b]
You've obviously never lived in fear that robotic automation can put you out of a job, thus, losing your only means of income. Trust me, it's a scary fucking thought when you live in a capitalist world

Edit: I'm not a primitivist, I think new technology and scientific discoveries are great things, I just don't like how they're wielded against us by capitalists.

[Dimentio]

Why not draw the conclusion that capitalism is a scary thing?

Technocracy is the option. Face it ^^

[Clutch]

Conclusion drawn a long time ago. I think I should read up on technocracy as well.

[encephalon]

You've obviously never lived in fear that robotic automation can put you out of a job, thus, losing your only means of income. Trust me, it's a scary fucking thought when you live in a capitalist world

Edit: I'm not a primitivist, I think new technology and scientific discoveries are great things, I just don't like how they're wielded against us by capitalists.

For the majority of my adult life, I've worked in factories; so yes, I do know what it's like and I've lived in fear of it. Hell, most service-sector jobs could be replaced by mechanical agents of some sort, if the owners of the means of production were so inclined. Almost everything the working class does at this point in history either can be or almost certainly will be done by robots, and it is used against us whenever the ruling class deems it prudent.

Marx wrote about proletarians destroying the new looms that put workers out of a job. He said that they were acting out against the means of production rather than those that use those means to further control the workers, and he was entirely correct.

My point is, any technological progress that capitalism has left in it is the singular benefit of capitalist economy--everyone knows that the means of production are continuously revolutionized in capitalism, and will continue to revolutionize until capitalism reaches its apex. This advanced means of production is our only hope for viable socialism, anarchism or communism, and we should not fight against it.

In any case, unless capitalism is in a regressive mode (or on its downward incline), workers will not be adversely affected by technology in the long-run. They will lose their jobs, of course; but the employment created by technological advances, while requiring more skills (which in turn means more education, which means greater logical faculty, which in turn means a greater understanding of capitalism, which in turn means the eventual spread of anti-capitalist ideas.. you get the point), will remain available to them--and the capitalists need those workers to do the new jobs. Some of them will pay less, some will pay more; but you have to remember that we aren't thinking on an individual basis, we're looking at class dynamics.

Thus far, capitalist economy has absorbed the jobs made obsolete with new jobs; that won't continue infinitely, of course, and when it begins to sharply decline we should start to prepare for something of unprecedented magnitude. But the fact is, we need the technological advances that capitalism creates, and fighting that progression is a misdirection of our aggression and effort.

[Clutch]

That's a pretty good point, I never really saw it like that.