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More Fast Food Restaurants Are Now Automating (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Wendy's is adding self-service ordering kiosks "to at least 1,000 restaurants, or about 15% of its stores," reports the Los Angeles Times, while McDonald's and Panera Bread are now planning to add kiosks to every restaurant. "Lots of restaurants, not just fast-food chains, are really trying to mitigate the costs of higher wages," says one market research firm, while also citing a survey which found 40% of millennials willing to use kiosks (compared to 30% of restaurant-goers overall).
But in some cases this means more work for human employees. Quartz points out that McDonalds doesn't plan to reduce its workforce after installing kiosks, and Panera Bread "has said that at some locations where it has ordering kiosks, it has actually increased human hours to help the kitchen keep up with the higher number of orders that come in through the more efficient ordering system."
But in some cases this means more work for human employees. Quartz points out that McDonalds doesn't plan to reduce its workforce after installing kiosks, and Panera Bread "has said that at some locations where it has ordering kiosks, it has actually increased human hours to help the kitchen keep up with the higher number of orders that come in through the more efficient ordering system."
after going to japan where many of the major chains had at-table ordering device of some sort and no tips, i cant go back
Libertarians tend to weigh everything in monetary terms, and tend to overvalue the contributions of people with higher wages, which allows them to dehumanize low wage earners.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Not necessarily. If food is faster, it might make it more likely for some people who might otherwise keep lunch meats in their refrigerators and a loaf of bread on their countertop.
But in practice, yes, it probably does. And of course the next step is to automate the making of the sandwiches, at which point there won't be a human in the place other than maybe the person who cleans the tables and bathrooms (and only until they perfect the self-busing table). At that point, the destruction of those low-end jobs becomes near-total. In the long term, the only jobs available for humans will be:
That's about it. I might have left out a few things, but that's about it.
The good news is that this will take longer than most people think. As those displaced workers enter the job market, there will be more people willing to do various jobs, which will bring down the cost of that labor to the minimum wage and make automation much less attractive.
The bad news is that automation will indirectly decrease the number of non-minimum-wage jobs by turning them into minimum-wage jobs.
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All these people whining about minimum wage increases causing more automation like it's a bad thing. You've all got it backwards. Human labor has been undervalued, so nobody bothered to put effort into being more efficient. If anything, this suggests that we need to raise wages globally so we'll actually quit wasting so much human effort.
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Minimum wage has only in some cities, it is absolute 100% crap that this has anything to do with the minimum wage. With the current administration there is 0% chance the federal minimum wage will go up.
Sure businesses would like to use this as an argument against higher wages but they will 100% do this because it saves money *now*. Not as a hedge against some future increase. Businesses don't spend money unless it makes sense to do so, and in this case they believe this is the best choice.
Libertarians would have us live in a dog-eat-dog society. They ignore the rule of law that allows them their freedom. And they'd like everyone armed to the teeth to defend their property.
They'd like everyone to have the right to be bankrupted due to medical issues. Social Security and Medicare keep Grandma off the Libertarians' front lawns. In Ayn Rand's world, airlines could allow for a certain number of plane crashes a year consistent with their profit margins due to customers deciding not to fly and employees finding alternate jobs. Smog and pollution would exist only up to a threshold number of deaths due to pollution. Mercury would not be a controlled pollutant; if you ingest too much, it be your own fault. What? You didn't know you were eating it in that seafood? How come you didn't pull out your home chemistry kit and do your own testing?
What Libertarians do not get is statistics. If you ignore statistics, then you get the every doofus for himself mentality. If you pay attention to statistics, a lot of government programs make sense.
What Libertarians do not get is statistics.
Just taking a good look at the Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons should be enough to understand that you need government programs to enforce cooperation for the benefit of all.
People who are employed, even in low skill jobs, need a living wage. Without it the rest of us end up subsiding their existence through things like Welfare, SNAP, higher health care costs, etc. E.g. Walmart employees who need food assistance because they don't earn enough working a full time job; while the owners of Walmart (and ASDA) are among the richest people in the world .That's you and me subsidizing their existence through our taxes while the Waltons just keep getting richer.
Pick how you want to pay for it. Higher prices – perhaps – for discretionary things like a burger at MacDonalds? Or through non-discretionary things like your taxes and your health care premiums? Personally, I think the people who are buying Burger King Whoppers should be paying for the people who make their burger. If I buy a burger at Wendy's, I kinda expect the price I pay to cover the cost of making it, and that should include paying the people who work there a living wage.
Helping the poor break the poverty cycle costs society less overall. Look it up, there are plenty of studies that show it to be true. Get past your prejudices about giving people stuff they didn't earn.If you claim to be a Christian, good Christians help those who have less than themselves. (Lots of good people who aren't Christians also help those who have less.)
Iin places like Australia they pay $14+ per hour to fast food workers, and somehow the price of a value meal is the same there as it is here.
It's kinda sad, IMO, that this has to explained. Even once.
Libertarians tend to weigh everything in monetary terms, and tend to overvalue the contributions of people with higher wages, which allows them to dehumanize low wage earners.
As a libertarian, I value freedom and liberty. I think you have a fundamental right to live your life free from outside meddling to the greatest extent possible.
When I talk about choices, it's easy to talk about possible outcomes in terms of dollars. But that's not the only important measure. Individual happiness and satisfaction are the real end goals. I don't presume to know what will make you happy and I'd prefer you let me make my own decisions about that, thank you very much.
My experience lo these many years shows that increasing liberty and trusting people tends to lead to greater happiness, serenity, and wealth for the most people. Meddling seems very frequently to be motivated by moral/ethical judgement, paternalism, tribalism, fear, and greed. At this point, I just don't trust anyone who's saying they need to butt in for someone else's good. I'm always looking for their ulterior motive and too often, I find one.
Since we live in an imperfect world of scarcity, it seems inevitable there will be those who aren't happy and aren't wealthy, for many reasons. As someone who likes to think of himself as caring and compassionate (and I know I'm fooling myself), I get great fulfillment helping those people out.
If someone wins the lottery you say 'wow good for them! All their needs are met!' But if someone were to work for 1 hour and meet all their needs for a whole week, suddenly this is 'wrong'?
Of course it's wrong. When you look at the lottery winner, you're forgetting about the 10 million or so other people who bought a ticket and lost. There's no free ride. The lottery company made a profit. The winner keeps a bit of money. And all the losers paid for it.
Hey don't get me wrong I would love to live in a world where I could meet all my needs by working 1 hour per week. However it doesn't work that way. Perhaps one day, when automation has reached a point where everything basically runs itself and all people need to do is a bit of tweaking here and there. But not yet.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How terrible! We should stamp out morals and ethics right away.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nah, Tragedy of the commons is a red-herring.
The simple (simplistic) answer, including the Libertarian one, is to not have a commons. That is - everything privately owned.
Of course in the real world this would leave to massive inequality and unchecked externalities, resulting in extensive pollution and death on a huge scale. Huge!
The real issues are more complex, and mostly have to do with externalities. Using a court system to manage these as opposed to legislation and regulation is the stock Libertarian answer. However all that does is shift regulatory and legislative capture to judicial corruption.
TLDR: Real life, in particular dealing with externalities, is very complex and requires multiple trade-offs.
How terrible! We should stamp out morals and ethics right away.
What I meant was more along the lines of "I think X is bad. Ban it!" where X is in "dancing", "drinking", "women voting", "pacifism", "homosexuality", "women's voting rights", and so on.
Morals and ethics are a find thing. They're the only thing which makes society work. Just let's please agree where yours end, mine begin, and what are the ones we agree on.
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