Robots and employment

[happy daze john in oz]

We had a couple of instances here wee people put a trolley load through the self service and walked out without paying, one for over $200.
But now they have put some form of stop on the exit so if not paid for you are in deep do, do.

Then fruit and veg on self service, put very expensive though as cheaper fruit or veg. Not any more they have now got a self service machine that can identify, even though the plastic bag what is inside,

But the killer now is the meat department. We are constantly told we must cut down on waste as the land fills are filling up too fast, so what do they do, put all meat in sealed plastic trays with covers that need a saw to open.

[Rodney Mills]

Ivan, re #17.

Jeez mate, how old are you? I'm almost eighty and rock and roll came in when I was fifteen or sixteen, Bill Halley and the Comets and "Rock Around The Clock" , then Little Richard, and Chubby Checker then followed with the Twist, then came the Hully Gull, Watuzy and THEN as the joints started to seize up it became "smooth dancing." Still I do remember every third dance they would throw in SLOW ONE, so we could get our breath back and cop a little feel.

Just kidding.

[Rodney Mills]

Vic #17

I haven't a clue what will happen when robotics are doing everything. I know starting with the Ludites burning out the loom mills because they feared those spinning and looming in their homes would be unemployed. Then came factories for the making of cloth and full employment. Henry Ford invented production lines and mass produced cars and trucks. It put the buggy and wagon makers out of work, but again came full employment in better paying jobs in all sorts of production line factories. Today there's robotics in the car and other factories and very few workers, those that are there are higher paid computer operators rather than factory workers. Yet today in the States the unemployment rate is 4.8%. Five and under is considered by economists as full employment.

I wrote a futuristic novel and sold the screen rights to it. In my novel I predicted in the future 20% unemployment amongst other things. Boy was I wrong. However I did predict self-driven autos, this by the way was in the 1970s.

I have no answer as to how we can have robotics all over the place and only 4.8% unemployment, but somehow it seems to be working.

I think the day of leaving school at fifteen is out unless it's okay living on the dole for the rest of ones life. Today a high school diploma gets one a job in Wallmart's that's about it.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#22 During the war, as you will remember all we had was the radio and a wind up gramaphone, my mother loved music and could sing anything from the then pop songs to Opera. Towards wars end after being bombed out three times we ended up on the Yorkshire Dales near an Italian P O W Camp, by that time the Italians were not supervised to any extent, perhaps one guard per fifty prisoners, our falling down cottage was on their march route to the various farms they worked on. On one occasion the heard mum singing opera and they stopped and a couple of them started to sing along with her, I always remember it, an Aria from La Boheme translated meaning your tiny hand is frozen, I followed in her singing footsteps for some years and still sing that Aria today (after a few drinks) so music was always with me from an early age. At sixteen in Cuba I found a love of Latin music and being a welterweight boxer was light on my feet and the bar girls taught me close dancing, not the 'so-called' sexy type which to a dancer causes you to wince when you see it. On a rare day off in Valparaiso the 3/m took me to Vina del Mar and we went into a beautiful art deco building, which turned out to be the casino with a restaurant and dance area, two beautiful Chilean women were dancing with their husbands and it was beautiful in its symetry. They could see that we were two well dressed (we all were in those days regardless of position on ship) gringos and invited us to join them and the ladies took us on the dance floor and taught us various movements in rumba and tango, and that started me off on a love of free style dance, commonly known as 'American Smooth' these days a dance far better than ballroom where I have found that participants tend to criticise other dancers instead of watching them interpret the moves and mood of the music. I like rock n roll as it keeps me fit, the trick is to let your partner do most of the twirling and lead her so that it makes it look like you are doing most of the work. As long as you are doing the same steps together (except Argentinian tango) then even if you do them wrong it still looks good, my favourite romantic song to dance to (rumba/tango) is 'Beseme Mucho' sung by Andre Bottocelli, the tempo is just right for close contact dancing

[Rodney Mills]

Johno #21

I thought they put all the waste and trim in the snags? (Sausages.)

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Rod.
Me thinks that the 4.8 is part of the false news system, here in NSW it is 5% I don't think, anyone with an hours work a day is now considered employed.
As for John's waste, the council here provide disposable bags and a special bin for food scraps, one for bottles and one for garden waste, and a plastic bin for waste paper, the food scrap's and garden waste is composted the bottles and paper is recycled, the Council sell the compost to recover some of the cost of collection.
Cheers Des

[j.sabourn]

#24... Ivan we never had a radio until well after the war, and that was a hired one. My Cousin Albert ( Tommy) Kempster ex Palm Line used to make crystal sets working off a so called cats whisker and that was in 1943. The first washing machine ( hand driven) and T.V. set my mother didn't have until well into the 50"s only because I bought them for her. As you say to those unaware of what some of their elders had to go through, You don't know you are born, is very true. We still had a better upbringing than most of today. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Des down here in Vic we only have general waste, recycling and green waster from the garden. All food scraps go into the general bin.
But a relative in UK tells me they now have five bins, food, paper, glass and cans, garden and 'other'.

As to robots, well it goes like this, do the vac and don't forget to wash the floors and the windows need a clean and that bush out the front wants a prune.
No I am not a bloody robot just the normal man around the house who is directed by her in doors.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#24... Ivan we never had a radio until well after the war, and that was a hired one. . Cheers JS

As we had no electric, no gas and no running water in our condemned cottage (they had never been installed) our radio was a valve set powered by glass acid filled accumulators, we had to walk two miles to take the empty one for charging and then walk back two miles with a fully charged one, that was in the school holidays, on schooldays we dropped them off on our seven mile walk to school and picked them up on the way back, sometimes we got a lift on a horse and cart part of the way. The cottage we lived in was nearly three hundred years old and had been classified as unfit for human habitation, but the war changed a few rules and we were glad of it, never switched on electric light in a home until we got a council house in Hull when I was twelve, must have been one hell of a relief for our mother, then I shot off to sea on trawlers when I was thirteen......different days

[Keith Tindell]

I remember well the accumulator radio, as a kid , seeing my dad hunched over the radio trying to tune it in. My father was in service, this was in Hampshire, to a retired 1 st world war General, his name was General Sir Authur Warcop, and we lived in the cottage at the end of the long drive. We had no electric, no flushing toilet, no gas. Mother cooked on the range, coal fired, and the food always tasted delicious. We only had oil lamps, and one day, wonder of wonder, we had a Tilley type pressure lamp, that was good enough to read by. I can still see my dear old dad, digging the whole in the garden to bury the contents of the bucket from the toilet. Come to think of it, I don't know I,m born.
I have tried to find out about the history of Sir Authur Warcop, but have not had a lot of luck, other than he spent a large part of his life in India. The spelling of Warcop may not be exact of course, kt