Towards the end of Labour; what then for Class, Money and Society?

[yield]

But the consumers time is free from the perspective of the retailer.

Alex

And from the perspective of the consumer many of the goods have become free.

Nation of shoplifters: the rise of supermarket self-checkout scams
20/05/18

And though the machines were outwardly advertised as being strictly beneficial for the customer, they offered retailers perks, too, notably the freedom to slash labour costs. The more self-checkout machines a supermarket had, the fewer cashiers it required. There were savings to be made.

But any financial gains now appear to be marginal, at least in part due to unforeseen spikes in self-scanning theft. In a recent study a team at Voucher Codes Pro, a sales coupon website, quizzed 2,532 shoppers about their supermarket habits and found that close to a quarter had committed theft at a self-checkout machine at least once.

 

[eoin_k]

But the consumers time is free from the perspective of the retailer.

Alex

No shit.

 

[MickiQ]

And from the perspective of the consumer many of the goods have become free.

Nation of shoplifters: the rise of supermarket self-checkout scams
20/05/18

Well they do say that technology helps to redistribute wealth

 

[Poi E]

I guess it's like an honesty system. I'm not in a position to need to nick stuff (yet) but it's nice to know it's available.

 

[Supine]

If only they didn't put security caps on bottles of wine!

 

[Poi E]

It's just for essentials.

 

[Edie]

I guess it's like an honesty system. I'm not in a position to need to nick stuff (yet) but it's nice to know it's available.

I nick stuff out of principle. What’s wrong with you?

 

[Poi E]

Guilt-religious upbringing. It's fucking awful.

 

[Edie]

Sympathies.

 

[nuffsaid]

I contracted at a car insurer a couple of years ago and was told while I was there that there are now Japanese insurance firms that have all the claims handling done by AI.

They made a whole layer of office staff redundant as they were no longer necessary. A few were kept on for the really complicated cases with numerous vehicles and large sums involved, but all the humdrum prangs that occur daily are now dealt with by AI.

You need people to program and maintain that AI, but that would be far less than the numbers of claims handlers. And programming AI will be far more skilled than all the office jobs it will replace, so it's not as if those office workers just re-train. Developers (computer programmers) will be needed to do the programming.

 

[two sheds]

Some pick & place machines can place 100,000 so-small-they're-nearly-invisible components/hour with defect rates below 1 ppm. Up against me with my soldering iron.

 

[Supine]

Some pick & place machines can place 100,000 so-small-they're-nearly-invisible components/hour with defect rates below 1 ppm. Up against me with my soldering iron.

And your requirement for a pension and not a scrap heap

 

[two sheds]

Indeed. You ask them to make a banana sandwich though, they just can't do it.

 

[eoin_k]

It's just for essentials.

Even in purely practical terms, shop lifting essential is a really bad idea. They're far too bulky and you're bound to get caught, especially with that guilty expression.