Originally published by ANewDomain.net:
Now that the FAA has approved Amazon drones for commercial delivery, Amazon complains that FAA procedures are so slow, its drone plans are obsolete. But that obscures the real issue.
Amazon Drones: Need An Anvil To Drop On Someone?
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6 Comments.
Once again, reality catches up with science fiction and I’m left feeling less enthusiastic than when it was all just imagination. I can’t decide whether to embrace the new technology or blow it out of my airspace. (hmmm, I think I’ve still got some of my old model rockets around…)
Amazon is redefining how we get our goods. They do away with thousands of stores, with inventories and storefronts and other overhead, we do away with driving to the store to get those items. It’s obviously cheaper overall, and that’s a good thing, right? Except for all those ‘overhead’ employees who now have to find other work.
At some point, we’re going to have to start making some hard decisions. Do we replace the workforce with robots, thereby freeing up humans to take up poetry and pottery in their copious amounts of free time? Or do we make up jobs just to keep people occupied? Unfortunately, economics always triumphs – most of use will buy the cheaper goods even if they are delivered by robots.
Hey, here’s an idea – let’s replace the CEOs with robots! All they have to do is look pretty and play golf.
Since, for example, flea markets and fairs and garage sales and antique shops still exist, my feeling and hope is that there will continue to be enough people who enjoy those parts of the experience that cannot be had online. As for shopping at a brick and mortar department store, I couldn’t care less.
Though I’m not a fan of overpaid CEOs, I’d still like to know where you get the impression none of them do anything useful or even anything resembling work.
> I’d still like to know where you get the impression none of them do anything useful or even anything resembling work.
And I’d like to know where you got the impression that I believe none of them do any work.
For the record, I believe that most of them provide no value, and that the overwhelming majority are vastly overpaid. Very, very, few ever do any productive labor whatsoever.
But never “all.”
“Atlas Shrugged” is a work of fiction. In the real world, new alloys are discovered by people in the R&D department, not the capitalist in charge.
Andrew Carnegie founded US steel. He used new manufacturing techniques that other people invented. He didn’t do research, nor did he actually do any manufacturing with his own hands. He simply acquired the capital to make it happen. That’s certainly a worthwhile endeavor, but it is really worth making him the world’s richest man at the time?
If he hadn’t supplied the capital, someone else would have. However, inventing those new techniques is something that very few people can do. He would have been nothing if it weren’t for all the people he employed. THOSE are the people who created that wealth, not Andy. He merely pocketed the bulk of it.
I got that impression from all your comments about how CEOs are useless. Could you be more boneheaded?
Carnegie did more than ‘just’ get the capital together. He got the team together and led them. You know; made the decisions. Somebody has to choose who is in R&D in the first place. And being able to led a team of smarties who are often even smarter than oneself is a challenge very few seem to meet. In any case he is a poor example since he was more than a CEO. He wasn’t just the top employee. He was the founder and owner.
And if we are going to talk captains of industry, Rockefeller is the one who came up with long distance oil piping and who knew gasoline could be more than a waste product.
Dude, you’re like a slave defending the massa. You keep thinking that some day you’ll get your own plantation.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I never said that Carnegie was useless, only that he was overcompensated. He could have made all the decisions he liked, but without the engineers are laborers, they would have been just smoke dreams.
I know you’re not real big on thinking, but let’s try a thought experiment anyway. Let’s go over to Ford & fire everyone who makes over 150 k a year. Do the cars keep rolling out? Instead, let’s fire everyone who makes under 150 k a year. Do the cars keep rolling out now?
Of course not. Here’s another new economics term for you, “Productive Labor” – the UAW produces wealth (“Makes cars”) … the CEO does not. What he does is called “Unproductive labor”
If the CEO went on strike – as in “Atlas Shrugged” it would have far less an impact on society than if the UAW went on strike.
The point isn’t what laborers do is unimportant. It is that there are far fewer people who have the perception, creativity, leadership ability, or tolerance for risk and responsibility that a successful civilization requires.
And I’m willing to bet that without executives coordinating and calling the shots, the whole process would break down almost as quickly and you’d be left with a stream of new cars with nowhere to go. And it would take longer to replace the executives than the laborers.