[HN Gopher] Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
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       Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
        
       Author : eric__cartman
       Score  : 195 points
       Date   : 2024-07-15 16:41 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (english.hani.co.kr)
 (TXT) w3m dump (english.hani.co.kr)
        
       | eric__cartman wrote:
       | I had to slightly rewrite the title to get it to fit within the
       | 90 character limit.
        
         | tohuvavohu wrote:
         | Perhaps rewrite the title to: "Mangled fingers, no time off:
         | Women who make Samsung semiconductors go on strike"
        
           | OJFord wrote:
           | It has been edited since the submitted title GP was talking
           | about, which was something like your suggestion; possibly by
           | mod team to desensationalise (I don't know).
        
       | abdullahkhalids wrote:
       | > Samsung's 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport
       | (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along
       | tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers
       | called "lots." On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation
       | is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch
       | wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes.
       | The 8-inch line, however, is outdated.
       | 
       | While abuse of assembly line workers has always happened, as
       | factories become increasingly automated,
       | 
       | 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation.
       | 
       | 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their
       | jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more
       | incentive to abuse them.
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | > 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation.
         | 
         | > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as
         | their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even
         | more incentive to abuse them.
         | 
         | I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything
         | play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners
         | will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-
         | automated factory that maintains and repairs itself, and a
         | magical AI box that makes optimal business decisions, and then
         | just sit there owning these magical things and harvesting money
         | every quarter. Humanity consists of the few who own all the
         | boxes, living in opulent luxury, and the many who don't and
         | barely subsist enough to buy the products.
        
           | Blackthorn wrote:
           | Historically, violence has been at least somewhat successful
           | as a disincentive for this. Hasn't always fixed the immediate
           | problem but the threat of it, and eventual implementation,
           | kept too much of a gap from happening.
        
             | kybernetikos wrote:
             | I doubt it'll work this time though though, since we are
             | beginning to make big strides in automating violence too.
             | The people who own the boxes will own the murderbots too.
        
               | Blackthorn wrote:
               | They always owned the police anyway.
        
               | kybernetikos wrote:
               | True but police are people too with their own
               | expectations and morality and the number of police
               | required to suppress a population is relatively large.
               | 
               | There's still enormous room for abuse, but automating
               | suppression drops even the imperfect checks that we have
               | on the power of the few to oppress the many
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | > True but police are people too
               | 
               | That can be solved, too. Some other (now deleted?)
               | comment mentioned the inevitability of killbots, which
               | will have to be created and deployed for this dystopia to
               | stick. The elite living in Elysium will need a
               | controllable, automate-able, way to keep the underclass
               | in line, one that doesn't involve less-reliable human
               | enforcers.
        
               | shiroiushi wrote:
               | >The elite living in Elysium will need a controllable,
               | automate-able, way to keep the underclass in line, one
               | that doesn't involve less-reliable human enforcers.
               | 
               | I thought the rich elites living in Elysium had to
               | completely depend on one weird mercenary dude on Earth
               | with a shoulder-fired rocket launcher that somehow had
               | rockets that could achieve escape velocity in order to
               | protect Elysium from spaceships with illegal immigrants
               | attempting to invade and use their magic healing
               | machines.
        
               | Blackthorn wrote:
               | It's a historical fact that the police (or police-
               | adjacent things before they were called the police) have
               | always been quite willing to crack the skulls of workers.
        
               | dotancohen wrote:
               | > police-adjacent things before they were called the
               | police
               | 
               | It seems that you have some history you could share, I
               | would love to hear it.
        
               | reginald78 wrote:
               | You probably don't even need automated violence for this
               | anyway. High quality cheap pervasive surveillance allows
               | you to deploy a small group of thugs to crush any smaller
               | movements before they get large enough to be a real
               | threat. Kill bots would make it even easier, more
               | efficient and even less limited of course but I don't
               | think it changes the equation much.
        
           | alfiopuglisi wrote:
           | If you own enough of these automated factories, you don't
           | need to sell anything at all. Just produce whatever luxury
           | item you want, in addition to mundane things like food and
           | shelter (in the form of caviar and villas, because why not?).
           | 
           | That will mark the time when technology is advanced enough
           | that humanity will fracture with small independent groups
           | going out and fending for themselves, possibly in outer
           | space. Some SF scenarios call them "great houses", because
           | they somewhat resemble feudal kingdoms where a kind of
           | extended family rules, except there are no peasants.
        
           | bibliotekka wrote:
           | The richest and most powerful will lobby for universal basic
           | income because it will benefit them at some tipping point,
           | where the masses will need to be subsidized to keep the
           | consumption machine running, maybe?
        
             | cjbgkagh wrote:
             | I think the middle class feels safer with the notion that
             | the economy will not survive without them, thus whatever
             | system results must maintain some sort of middle class. I
             | don't think this is true at all, while not ideal many
             | places continue to operate just fine with a few very rich
             | and everyone else very poor.
             | 
             | The consumption machine has a wealth effect which is an
             | artifact of a ponzie economy. This mathematically cannot
             | last forever, even if it has lasted for a long time and
             | will continue to last for a long time. What matters to
             | wealth is production. Traditionally highly technical
             | production needed a decent middle class, but efficiencies
             | mean fewer such people are needed to maintain the same
             | proficiency. Coupled with globalization where a smart
             | person anywhere can design technical things that can then
             | be used everywhere. This decouples the wealth of the rich
             | from the health of the middle class and the rich would be
             | happily sacrifice the middle class in the alter of cheaper
             | labor and will whisper sweet nothings in your ear while
             | doing so. Not them personally but the people they pay to
             | operate on their behalf. To me it makes perfect sense to
             | promise UBI to undermine resistance and then not deliver on
             | that promise to again undermine resistance. I think the
             | middle class would be fools to believe that UBI will come
             | and save them.
        
               | kwere wrote:
               | yeah, to bargain one needs strenght, on such scenario,
               | UBI would mostly like benevolence of the powerful to
               | stabilize their power structures. The masses will comply
               | with UBI or not
        
             | csomar wrote:
             | UBI will benefit them in the sense that work will no longer
             | be a right; since now you get that government pay check. No
             | one wants to keep the consumption machine running for
             | _your_ benefit. The rich can always get a bigger yacht and
             | more holiday residences.
             | 
             | UBI is a power play and the worst outcome for a sovereign
             | citizen.
        
             | hermannj314 wrote:
             | In a post scarcity society, capitalism dies as will most of
             | the population on Earth. The elite will live in an amazing
             | utopia with AI slaves and like a few million fellow humans.
             | 
             | Eugenics has always been the end game for the monarch
             | class. Capitalism was a stepping stone.
        
           | Aperocky wrote:
           | I think this is purely focused on the supply side and
           | neglecting demand and its role in the economy.
           | 
           | The world economy today isn't driven by lack of supply (for
           | the vast majority categories of products), rather it is by
           | lack of demand. Whoever owns the demand owns the power in
           | this dynamic. One can have all the factories in the world
           | when consumer stop buying it's in for a rough time, like
           | China is finding out.
        
             | immibis wrote:
             | Demand can be easily manufactured, it seems. Just look at
             | all the bullshit people buy, from fidget spinners to
             | timeshares to ready-made chocolate cake.
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | We have entire industries dedicated to creating demand
               | for things that would otherwise not be demanded
               | (advertising), and enabling people to buy things they
               | cannot afford (debt). I'd expect both of these industries
               | to balloon during the late stages as people get further
               | squeezed out of voluntarily participating in the economy.
        
               | corimaith wrote:
               | On an aggregate level, no. Those things you've listed
               | only occur when times are good and the gravy train is
               | running. In a recession or hyperinflation it's a
               | different matter altogether. China would certainly want
               | that magical ability for their economy right now if they
               | could.
        
               | shiroiushi wrote:
               | I don't think anyone with half a brain is buying a
               | timeshare these days. Those things have been going down
               | for many years now I think. They were a stupid fad, and
               | the fad's over. Of course, some new bullshit fad will
               | come along for people to waste their money on.
               | 
               | What's wrong with ready-made chocolate cake? Freshly-
               | baked might be better, but there is value in convenience.
               | It's the same reason people buy pizza: if you're a master
               | pizza chef and have a proper pizza oven at home, you
               | could probably make a better pizza, and of course have it
               | a bit fresher, but most people simply can't make a pizza
               | that comes close to those made in real pizza ovens by
               | people who make them every day. Some people don't even
               | have an oven in the first place.
        
           | huijzer wrote:
           | I think you can find businesses like this already. They only
           | have a few capable people and that's it. For example,
           | MasterCard, Visa, RenTec, and probably some hedge funds
           | somewhere.
        
             | prewett wrote:
             | You're telling me that of MasterCard's 33,000 employees and
             | Visa's 28,800 employees, only a "few" are "capable"? Either
             | management is negligently incompetent or, well, maybe the
             | hubris is from a different direction.
        
               | huijzer wrote:
               | Well Visa does have about half a million net income per
               | employee (assuming 17 billion net income which they
               | reported in 2023), but yes you're right. I thought the
               | number was lower.
        
           | svara wrote:
           | That's the argument for universal basic income in a nutshell.
           | 
           | I'm not so convinced, I think this comes from the limited
           | mental model of thinking of the economy as a system for
           | making widgets.
           | 
           | Rather, the economy is what happens when a society organizes
           | its member's aggregated needs and desires.
           | 
           | Being a valued member of a community is a rather basic human
           | need. As such, the economy will find novel ways to meet that
           | aggregated desire, if it's not being met anymore by jobs that
           | employ many workers today.
           | 
           | That's a rather unconventional view maybe, but I'm rather
           | convinced it's the right one.
           | 
           | Of course, it leaves all the details open and the path to get
           | there might be rocky.
        
             | its_ethan wrote:
             | I think there's something very true about your idea here.
             | 
             | I don't know that there's really any study or data that
             | would back it up, but if a large amount of people don't
             | have the structure and expectations that employment
             | provides, things would deteriorate quickly.
             | 
             | Obviously there's a spectrum here, and mindless jobs that
             | pay as little as legally allowed aren't exactly providing
             | fulfillment that people need. In any individual case, of
             | course it makes sense to say "why should I/they have to do
             | this? they should be able to chase passions or find other
             | opportunity" but when you talk about that being "granted"
             | to large chunks of the population (happening at essentially
             | the same time).. I don't see it working out super well in
             | the short or long term.
        
             | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
             | _> Rather, the economy is what happens when a society
             | organizes its member 's aggregated needs and desires._
             | 
             | I like that definition.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | > As such, the economy will find novel ways to meet that
             | aggregated desire, if it's not being met anymore by jobs
             | that employ many workers today.
             | 
             | I'm sorry. You are claiming that the poor will buy job-
             | alternatives from the market once they don't have a job to
             | sustain themselves?
             | 
             | You seem to be missing a slight power imbalance.
        
               | Teever wrote:
               | If you could get your hands on a humanoid robot that was
               | capable of repairing itself and with enough time and
               | resources the ability to do full self replication by
               | building up the necessary infrastructure to produce it's
               | raw parts, what is the first thing you would do with it?
               | 
               | I'll tell you what I'd do with it.
               | 
               | I'd ask that genie for more wishes and have it start
               | making copies.
        
               | waynesonfire wrote:
               | It'll be too expensive, you wont have access to
               | affortable resources.
        
               | Teever wrote:
               | You expect the cost of a self replicating object to
               | remain out of reach of the average person?
               | 
               | Why don't you think it would follow the same cost curve
               | as integrated circuits?
        
               | svara wrote:
               | Not really, no.
               | 
               | First:
               | 
               | Human desire literally knows no bounds, yesterday's
               | luxury is today's basic necessity.
               | 
               | If the prices for many products go towards zero, they'll
               | become uninteresting and new products will be invented
               | for which, for whatever reason, the price can't be zero.
               | 
               | Second:
               | 
               | The aggregated desire of billions of people is a
               | formidable force. Whoever finds a way to satisfy it will
               | have found a way to become incredibly wealthy.
        
               | lesuorac wrote:
               | > Human desire literally knows no bounds, yesterday's
               | luxury is today's basic necessity.
               | 
               | I hear this quite often but I don't think it's true. I
               | don't think we've quite hit the stopping point yet for
               | consumption but I mean you give somebody 2 Yachts and
               | they'll probably try to sell both of them and bank most
               | of that money. Like ask yourself what'd you do with a
               | 100k, 1M, 10M, 100M, 1B, 10B windfall? Surely at some
               | point you stop spending it on yourself (possible save it
               | in a rainy day fund but w/e; consumption stops).
               | 
               | Of course you give everybody 10M right now it'll cause
               | massive inflation as there isn't enough stuff actually
               | being produced. However, GDP (adjusted for inflation) has
               | been increasing so at some point we'll make more stuff
               | than one can reasonable consume and at that point it'll
               | probably be Wall-E world. However, we are talking about a
               | windfall of 10M which is 151x the US GDP/Capita so
               | assuming current rate of growth remains linear it'll take
               | another 250 years for the Real GDP/Capita to be 10M (~1k
               | in 1790 [1] to ~66k in 2023 => 151 / 66 ~= 2.5).
               | 
               | > If the prices for many products go towards zero,
               | they'll become uninteresting and new products will be
               | invented for which, for whatever reason, the price can't
               | be zero.
               | 
               | I generally like the argument that price (of a
               | competitive good) should reflect the amount of energy it
               | took to create. So if energy becomes significantly cheap
               | in the future I'd expect a lot of new goods to be cheaper
               | than today's goods (which also makes it easier for
               | everybody's consumption to go up). Of course many goods
               | are sold by few suppliers and monopoly pricing reflects
               | the value perceived by the consumer so there's a giant
               | wrench.
               | 
               | [1]:
               | https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/usgdp/result.php
        
               | svara wrote:
               | > Surely at some point you stop spending it on yourself
               | 
               | Only for a limited definition of "spending on myself".
               | Self actualization is where desire truly is boundless.
               | 10B is not a lot of money if your goal in life is now to
               | end malaria or build a city on Mars.
               | 
               | Another issue with your thought experiment is that you're
               | now relatively rich. If in some distant future you have
               | the purchasing power of a billionaire of today without
               | being relatively rich, many people will be looking for
               | new ways of outdoing each other.
               | 
               | Of course, consuming zero cost goods is not a measure of
               | wealth, so they'll be consuming whatever isn't zero cost
               | then.
               | 
               | > I generally like the argument that price (of a
               | competitive good) should reflect the amount of energy it
               | took to create.
               | 
               | I don't. The price of physical energy fluctuates with how
               | _difficult_ it is for humans to tap it.
               | 
               | I prefer the mental model that the price reflects the
               | human difficulty - perseverance, pain, time,
               | intelligence, physical force, ... - required to provide
               | something.
        
             | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
             | You naively ignore the power of mentally ill people in our
             | society. The social contract should be continuously
             | improved to weaker their power and marginalize their
             | obsessions but the corporate workplace is a rotting carcass
             | for these dysfunctionally productive people to twist to
             | their ends. They fight losses to their power over others
             | more than anything else. It's terrifying to watch the
             | banality and casualness that people engage in these
             | antisocial behaviors with.
        
             | ruined wrote:
             | the economy is a _mode_ of organizing aggregated needs and
             | desires, but it has never been total, and it is only
             | capable of accounting for needs and desires that can be
             | expressed financially.
             | 
             | the past couple centuries have seen a great advancement in
             | application of the economic mode to greater areas of life.
             | there are both clear and nominal benefits and downsides.
             | its advance doesn't necessarily mean it's satisfying
             | equivalent needs and desires, nor that it is more effective
             | or objectively preferable.
             | 
             | it's well-documented that often it has advanced by threats,
             | dispossession, and violence. and it's certainly possible
             | that could continue, or that it might lose ground on some
             | externality, or sustain hegemony by those same tools.
        
             | throwway120385 wrote:
             | It's also a pretty strong argument that the means of
             | production should be taken from the upper class and shared
             | when and if we get to the point where production is
             | limitless.
        
           | Tade0 wrote:
           | The many will quite simply stop having children, because why
           | bother? Then the mgic box owners will attempt doing something
           | to have a population to sell to, but that will ultimately
           | fail.
           | 
           | It can be argued that it already started - globally the
           | number of children born peaked around 2013-2017. The pandemic
           | only accelerated the process.
        
             | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
             | There was a short in the second batch of _Love, Death and
             | Robots_ [0] (Netflix), that had a cop, whose job it was, to
             | kill children of "poors," as the rich could live
             | practically forever, and didn't want the competition.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.netflix.com/title/80174608 (Volume 2: "Pop
             | Squad").
        
           | mschuster91 wrote:
           | Well... yes, for capitalism, that _is_ the endgame. Neo-
           | feudalism to be precise.
           | 
           | And unlike the last times where feudalism was overthrown,
           | these days police is often enough on par with the military,
           | and the governments can track us whenever and wherever we
           | want by the tiny little bugs we carry around in our pockets.
           | Call for a revolution or for violent acts online, and a day
           | later the FBI knocks on your door and takes everything
           | digital you have.
        
             | cjbgkagh wrote:
             | I worry that people don't understand how much violence it
             | took to obtain enlightenment values and that such values
             | may only be a quirk of history. We are very fortunate to
             | live in such a time that is not the natural and default
             | norm for humanity. I worry that attempts to further the
             | gains will fail and we will not only not make additional
             | gains but lose what we had with no possible way or regain
             | even enlightenment values in our lifetimes or any number of
             | lifetimes.
        
             | shiroiushi wrote:
             | >these days police is often enough on par with the military
             | 
             | I'm pretty sure this is completely unique to the USA.
        
               | AngryData wrote:
               | And even then it is bullshit. US cops have dogshit
               | training and the majority of them are cowards. Sure they
               | got more guns than cops in other countries, but the
               | population has even more.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at
           | all_
           | 
           | Maybe? This has been hypothesised since the Industrial
           | Revolution. We're nowhere close to labour obsolescence.
        
           | theamk wrote:
           | Have you seen "good vs services employment" graphs, like this
           | one? [0]
           | 
           | Number of people producing goods has been shrinking for a
           | longest time, its under 20% now. It'll likely keep shrinking
           | as automation becomes more advanced, and in the future
           | "service" would be much more important.
           | 
           | When I was a kid, I've read some sci-fi stories about
           | societies like those, where most people were working in
           | service industry.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2023/0
           | 9/0...
        
             | hammock wrote:
             | That graph is US only
        
               | vivekd wrote:
               | Good point - the graph being US only means it misses
               | offshoring manufacturing jobs to places like China. We
               | can't assume that the loss of manufacturing jobs was
               | solely caused by automation
        
               | eru wrote:
               | Why call it 'loss', if it was outsourced? UnAmericans are
               | also human.
        
               | trealira wrote:
               | Why do you think the word "loss" implies they think non-
               | Americans aren't human?
        
               | justinclift wrote:
               | Pretty sure the point was that the jobs are just being
               | moved around, not "lost".
        
               | TOMDM wrote:
               | Where else would you apply this reasoning? If I lose my
               | phone it doesn't stop being a phone...
        
           | Ajedi32 wrote:
           | That sounds like a very low-margin business, if literally
           | anyone can create and maintain it with close to zero human
           | input. Its like the sci-fi equivalent of generating books
           | with AI and selling them on Amazon. The cost of goods
           | produced by your hypothetical business would plummet, and the
           | real value would simply shift somewhere else that is still
           | able to benefit from human labor or ingenuity.
           | 
           | If you're talking about a world where AI has become so
           | advanced that humans have literally nothing to contribute to
           | society, in any field, then that's called a post-scarcity
           | society, where the very concept of a "business owner" (not to
           | mention the concepts of "business" and "owner") starts to
           | lose all meaning.
        
             | dangrossman wrote:
             | The fictional automated business may cost tens of billions
             | of dollars to build. That means almost no one, not
             | literally anyone, can create it. If a small group of giant
             | conglomerates are the only companies wealthy enough to
             | build these automated factories, then there's no
             | competition to drive down prices, and no automatic path to
             | a post-scarcity society. Instead, it's the dystopia
             | ryandrake described.
        
               | Ajedi32 wrote:
               | > If a small group of giant conglomerates are the only
               | companies wealthy enough to build these automated
               | factories
               | 
               | So AI can build everything except the factory itself?
               | Sounds like there's still a need for human labor.
               | 
               | And if the opposite is true and AI _can_ build the
               | factory, then it 's not going to "cost tens of billions
               | of dollars to build"; the factory will be just as cheap
               | as the goods its producing. Literally everyone could have
               | their own factory.
        
               | mewpmewp2 wrote:
               | Maybe the resources, materials and land is the constraint
               | here.
               | 
               | So whoever builds the first one will be able to quickly
               | expand, buy more land and solidify their lead.
               | 
               | Land is likely what would cost billions in this specific
               | scenario.
               | 
               | If you don't have land or materials then there is nothing
               | your AI can do, because it doesn't have anything to build
               | things from.
        
               | kwere wrote:
               | high tech "machinery" is the constraint for most capital
               | intensive businesses
        
               | Ajedi32 wrote:
               | I do think in the case where a company is benefiting from
               | the exploitation of limited natural resources (like land)
               | that don't naturally belong to any one person, imposing a
               | tax on that does make sense.
               | 
               | There was a podcast I listened to on this subject "The
               | Plunder of the Commons" which I found really interesting.
               | [1]
               | 
               | That said, we're a _long_ ways away from reaching the
               | point where literally not having anywhere left on the
               | planet to build becomes your primary obstacle to starting
               | a business.
               | 
               | [1]: https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-plunder-
               | of-the-com...
        
               | hgomersall wrote:
               | Or the state will do it.
        
           | immibis wrote:
           | Pretty much this. We see it starting to happen already.
           | When's the last time a really big company actually did
           | something to improve its product for its users and thereby
           | get more money from users, as opposed to either raising the
           | price, or improving its product for people who are not the
           | users at the detriment of the users? They do this because the
           | users aren't where the money is - money is concentrated among
           | rich people, and the best way to make more money is to pander
           | to other rich people.
        
           | DonnyV wrote:
           | The end game is once corporations don't need people to work
           | or for security. Thats when kingdoms will return. They will
           | act like monarchy's. We're already starting that transition
           | now. Different parts of the US State departments have been
           | captured by corporations. Bending them to their will. They're
           | stealing public waterways, land, ground resources.
        
           | galdosdi wrote:
           | Not even. Humanity would consist of a small elite who owns
           | everything, a small, continually shrinking middle class that
           | consists of the remaining few workers who are actually needed
           | for some reason (eventually, this tiny middle class would
           | shrink to just the members of boards of directors, or
           | something -- someone has to supervise the machines even if
           | it's just rubber stamping them) and a vast underclass
           | experiencing a life similar to an urban homeless today or a
           | hunter gathering tribe in the amazon or something, existing
           | in the margins, trying to steal, beg, scam a bit here and
           | there to survive another day in whatever weird insect-like
           | social niches are left to be found, that are just too
           | marginal for the elite to even care about, even with their
           | optimal AI.
           | 
           | Look at life in Gaza or on the streets of Kensington today,
           | and that is the sort of destiny we are bound for -- if fully
           | replacing all humans really ever happens -- to become totally
           | disposable people, who only continue to survive because
           | someone has found it too much hassle to get around to getting
           | rid of you at least just yet.
           | 
           | But that's an endgame state, it's not a path for getting
           | there, thank goodness. I believe it would not be so simple.
           | It would happen gradually, and it would engender resistance,
           | eventually violent resistance once people have little to
           | lose.
           | 
           | Power grows out of the barrel of a gun after all.
           | 
           | Now, OTOH, if at that point, robot/AI weapons are sufficient
           | so you only need 10 people to run the entire US Army.... then
           | it's game over.
           | 
           | But can you even get to that state without provoking a war
           | before you get there? AI is extremely vulnerable in war
           | because of its reliance on datacenters and fabs, which are
           | fantastic military targets in wartime. So easy and quick to
           | sabotage and so expensive and slow to build.
        
             | SI_Rob wrote:
             | I dread that we are going to see a _lot_ of of cults
             | appear, and a disturbing concentration of political power
             | around cult leadership as a social modality. With a large
             | overlap with the despair-distraction-escapism industry as
             | entertainers become increasingly valorized into spiritual
             | and thought leaders, and eventually leaders, full stop.
             | 
             | They will, as did monarchs in feudal times, draw their
             | power base from the multitude of disenfranchised commoners
             | seeking guidance, respite from the bleak outlook for those
             | with little or no prospect of upward mobility, and a
             | rallying point from which to focus any semblance of
             | pushback against the landed baronial classes. But they will
             | all the while be paying a hefty tax to those who maintain
             | the broadcast infrastructure that enables them to marshall
             | and monetize their followers, so even these kings and
             | queens will need to stay in the graces of some potentate or
             | other.
        
               | throwway120385 wrote:
               | I would argue that we already are seeing cults appear and
               | concentrate political power.
        
             | cutemonster wrote:
             | Kensington in Philadelphia right:
             | 
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington,_Philadelphia
             | the Crime section
             | 
             | But you didn't mention the Soldier class. Some security
             | people are needed, with an ok decent life, to keep the
             | masses in check, and put up surveillance cameras and
             | collect everyone's photos and biometrics
             | 
             | A bit like in Uganda, _" Uganda's surveillance state is
             | built on national ID cards"_
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40603692
        
             | kriops wrote:
             | Utterly absurd premise that doesn't even make sense as a
             | dystopian thought experiment.
             | 
             | 1. Supply drives demand. If nobody produces anything with
             | which to buy the factory output, then the factories will
             | not be valuable.
             | 
             | 2. If most people are somehow living "outside" the economy,
             | then they would form their own economy.
             | 
             | Those are but two trivial rebuttals, and by no means
             | anywhere near exhaustive.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | That's not the end game because ultimately voters determine
           | the rules of the economic system.
           | 
           | And if voting doesn't work, there's the possibility of a
           | revolution.
           | 
           | So the capital owners will probably make it so that they
           | please a majority of people just enough to stay in power.
        
             | p1esk wrote:
             | Or they simply kill everyone who complains.
        
           | fuzzfactor wrote:
           | >Humanity consists of the few who own all the boxes, living
           | in opulent luxury, and the many who don't and barely subsist
           | 
           | To me that represents lingering inhumanity.
           | 
           | There are still plenty of people around the world who have
           | maintained this high lifestyle proudly since their early
           | ancestors first got into opulent condition. But there are
           | even more descendants who have not been able to maintain a
           | previous level of opulence at all and would do anything to
           | get it back.
           | 
           | Then you've got a whole bigger group who never came close and
           | are even more envious than those who once had luxury. So much
           | of the time it's easy to recognize that improved wealth is a
           | result of fortune one way or another. When you get an
           | aggregate amount of greed focused on manipulating fortunes,
           | the best they can do for themselves is when everyone else
           | ends up barely subsisting.
           | 
           | IIRC, civilization was supposed to bring an end to the barely
           | subsistence thing.
           | 
           | Doesn't look too civil when things trend backward toward
           | medieval.
        
           | squigz wrote:
           | Where are they going to harvest money from? If people can't
           | work, they can't buy things.
        
           | ClassyJacket wrote:
           | Kind of like the system we already have with landlords.
        
           | Teever wrote:
           | The eventual end game is a self replicating machine.
           | 
           | It'll start with just businesses owning the prototypes of
           | them but once common folk know that such a machine is
           | possible they'll build one themselves and then use it to
           | build as many as they want.
           | 
           | If it's a very large machine it will be miniaturized until it
           | fits inside the human body and everyone will have synthetic
           | ribosomes that can be used to produce whatever they want
           | provided they have access to enough energy and raw material.
           | 
           | What happens then is anyone's guess.
        
           | Xen9 wrote:
           | The end game is that average human becomes a pet.
           | 
           | Horses weren't needed and they became pets; same for average
           | human.
           | 
           | This can only happen perfectly if the manufacturers
           | eventually start to come after those who are self-reliant,
           | which I believe is in line with the psychology of humans.
           | 
           | Funny thing is this is ALSO analogous to what we have done
           | certain animals.
        
             | Xen9 wrote:
             | Further analogy: Holding $100 US dollar bill in front of
             | the pets, one can make them do lots of tricks. The pets are
             | willing; like dogs that want to play, they will send tons
             | of CVs to potential owners and give do anything to gain
             | advantage in an interview.
             | 
             | This makes me wonder, what happens to the dogs.
        
             | csomar wrote:
             | Onlypets.com. I see the future now.
        
               | Xen9 wrote:
               | The most correct use for this analogues of owners,
               | hermits and pets is as tool of desconstructing the
               | cyberpunk genre.
               | 
               | It's no longer human culture in animal nature; but owner
               | culture in anthroposcenic nature.
               | 
               | What happens when one that can live centuries in an
               | intellectual enlightened form lives in a world of
               | pollutatition, cities, old infastructure--and of course
               | the organic leftovers?
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | Noteworthy to say this makes up perhaps half of
               | cyberpunk's foundations--one should not ever define
               | cyberpunk solely with this idea.
        
             | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
             | You're thinking of slavery with extra steps.
        
               | jncfhnb wrote:
               | Don't think that needed clarification from "pet"
        
               | cutemonster wrote:
               | Pets are treated pretty well usually? "Cattle" may be a
               | better word?
        
               | jncfhnb wrote:
               | A well treated slave is still a slave
        
               | snapcaster wrote:
               | Pet ownership is slavery
        
             | john2x wrote:
             | Horses don't revolt
        
               | cutemonster wrote:
               | Humans also won't, in tomorrow's surveillance society
               | 
               | (or today's, in some places)
        
               | Xen9 wrote:
               | Soviet revolution comes to mind.
        
               | cutemonster wrote:
               | That's not comparable to Russia today. Now there are
               | surveillance cameras, internet surveillance and machine
               | learning, but not back then.
               | 
               | Also it wouldn't have happened hadn't it been for
               | Gorbatjov who introduced the glasnost (transparency)
               | policy reform. Another Stalin, and history would have
               | looked different.
        
             | indigoabstract wrote:
             | I wonder who decides which humans are needed and which ones
             | are not (whom you call pets) and will it be someone other
             | in the future than who has made those decisions today and
             | in the past?
             | 
             | What exactly will be different in the future from the
             | current situation?
        
           | csomar wrote:
           | In this case, there is no end game since Samsung exports
           | these products. The money will keep flowing. Your logic makes
           | sense only in a closed system.
           | 
           | The government will then redirect that labour to other stuff
           | they can make and export; and make more money.
        
           | cageface wrote:
           | It seems increasingly likely to me that we're going to see
           | the standard sci-fi script flipped. Instead of AI and robots
           | doing grunt work for humans, AI will be doing most of the
           | decision making, perhaps guided by a small human elite, and
           | humans will do most of the grunt work.
           | 
           | Making machines that think will turn out to be a lot cheaper
           | and easier than building machines that can do general purpose
           | physical work. People are cheap to make and maintain,
           | especially if you're not very concerned with their well-
           | being.
        
             | eru wrote:
             | People are pretty expensive.
             | 
             | So far we have automated more and more, including and
             | especially grunt work.
             | 
             | Why would grunt work come back?
             | 
             | Especially if you have machines that can help you design
             | more efficient machines, and can help you re-design
             | production processes to be more efficient and amenable to
             | further automation.
        
               | cageface wrote:
               | People in first world countries, with education, health
               | care, good housing etc are expensive.
               | 
               | If you're willing to deny them all that then they're
               | cheap and easy to replace.
               | 
               | Whereas building a machine that can do even the basics of
               | what a human hand can do is quite expensive.
        
           | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
           | Hopefully a land tax
        
           | analog31 wrote:
           | Going further, if nobody can afford to buy goods, then there
           | will be no need for factories.
        
           | geraneum wrote:
           | > harvesting money every quarter
           | 
           | How? Who pays for their stuff when most of the people are out
           | of work. Sometimes people forget that the workers are also
           | consumers. You may displace some, but to replace all, blue
           | and white? Not that easy.
        
             | shiroiushi wrote:
             | >How? Who pays for their stuff when most of the people are
             | out of work.
             | 
             | The idea is that you sell your stuff to people who are
             | employed in other industries/companies that haven't been so
             | successful at automating all their employees out of a job.
             | 
             | At Samsung, for instance, the workers are _not_ the main
             | consumers: Samsung is a _huge_ exporter, and most of their
             | customers are outside of Korea. Even if all their current
             | and former employees suddenly decided to stop buying
             | Samsung products, it wouldn 't even be noticeable in their
             | balance sheet.
             | 
             | What you're describing is a situation where all the
             | companies have managed to eliminate most of their
             | workforces, which has never happened. If it comes even
             | remotely close to that point, societies will be forced to
             | change their economies somehow, perhaps with UBI.
        
             | alexey-salmin wrote:
             | This is the theme of the "Twenty-fourth Voyage of Ijon
             | Tichy" by Stanislaw Lem. Goods are mass-produced but no one
             | has income to buy them. In the end they asked AI to find
             | the way out of this deadlock. The AI found the solution of
             | crushing them all and arranging their remains in visually
             | aesthetic patterns. Funniest part is that they voluntarily
             | went along with this plan because they could see no other.
             | 
             | The whole "Star Diaries" series is such a gem. Many stories
             | are exploring this question of "what is the endgame for
             | societal trajectory X" in a form of some remote planet that
             | Tichy visits on his trip.
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | The notion of a factory that repairs itself is so hilarious
           | to anyone who has worked in a real factory. After a few years
           | of operation, all of the production machinery is constantly
           | on the edge of breaking down. It takes continuous effort to
           | keep things working at all, plus there are always changes for
           | design updates and new models.
        
           | kelseyfrog wrote:
           | > I wonder what the eventual end game is
           | 
           | The end game for the US is a small group of people(approx
           | 36M) having fun. It's not too different from how it is now,
           | but rather than be supported by human labor, it's supported
           | by the labor of machines.
           | 
           | If all wage labor is automated, and ignoring the issue of the
           | social and political implications of a mass of people with
           | nothing else to do, the remaining professions will be SME
           | business owners, investors, and landlords[1].
           | 
           | We can estimate the size of this population.
           | 
           | There are approximately 28 million American SMEs[2]. SMEs can
           | have owner-employees or hired labor, all of which will be
           | automated. Considering SMEs as financial black boxes, the
           | inputs, and outputs remain the same with the exception that
           | salaries are replaced by a presumably smaller figure
           | representing either the purchase or rental of automated
           | labor.
           | 
           | An estimated 7 million[3] high-net-worth individuals(HNWI)
           | reside in the US. These are people with large investment
           | portfolios who can live off gains indefinitely. It's
           | difficult to estimate the number of full-time investors, but
           | some estimate range from 200k-1million, and arguably, and
           | these are folks who are doing potentially automatable work
           | anyways.
           | 
           | The upperbound of US landlords is 10.6 million people[4], or
           | 7.1%. There are 5.9 million[5] commercial buildings in the
           | US, compared to 44 million[6] residential rental properties.
           | Let's estimate the number of commercial landlords to be
           | around 1 million people in the US. We can also presume that
           | maintenance and repair is automatable labor.
           | 
           | The common features these groups share is the ability to
           | generate income without labor. Presumably, this leaves them
           | plenty of time to engage in leisure activities.
           | 
           | Looking toward HNWI individuals as an indicator, they spend
           | much more of their time engaged in "active" leisure, that is
           | to say praying, socializing, exercising, hobbies, and
           | volunteering[7].
           | 
           | 1. I'm assuming self-employed people are automated away.
           | 
           | 2. https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-
           | agreements/tran...
           | 
           | 3. https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/world-
           | we...
           | 
           | 4. https://www.doorloop.com/blog/landlord-statistics-by-
           | categor...
           | 
           | 5. https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-
           | environm...
           | 
           | 6. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187577/housing-units-
           | occ...
           | 
           | 7. https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2019/07/13/how-
           | do-t...
        
           | yMEyUyNE1 wrote:
           | > Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at
           | all.
           | 
           | Who will they sell to? For business/markets to exist, it
           | needs people who can buy.
        
           | mywittyname wrote:
           | Eventually the "fully-automated factory in a box" will be
           | widely available and the race to the bottom will work its way
           | up the chain.
           | 
           | You can already see this at work on platforms like Etsy or
           | Amazon. People are buying tools like crickets, CNC, or 3d
           | printers, then starting a business selling their products
           | (often copies of other successful products) on these
           | platforms.
           | 
           | Eventually, someone will make copy-cat platforms, then
           | someone else will build a tool for building copy-cat
           | platforms, etc. There's no end game, it's just a loop of
           | people trying to replicate the success of others.
        
           | Nasrudith wrote:
           | The "logical conclusion" is frankly a bad extrapolation as
           | hinted by the number of times 'magical' appears in it. A
           | magical fully-automated self-maintaining and repairing
           | factory isn't a very good model for the real world even with
           | advances.
           | 
           | We've already seen how over-invested LLMs have gotten
           | relative to their financial returns. A magical AI box with
           | optimal business decisions is even more fantastical -
           | computibility isn't there, and the resulting homogeneity of a
           | 'perfect' approach in business strategy would by game theory
           | promote decisions counter to the prevalent strategies.
           | 
           | The more likely result in a dynamic world is a market crash
           | in the domain of factories as everyone and their dog tries to
           | get in on the "free easy money, last chance to get rich!".
           | The end profit margins would be tight indeed and collapsed
           | values of good.
           | 
           | Not to mention the whole value of money is that it can get
           | you other goods and services while shielding you from the
           | logistical hellscape of trying to DYI. If everything is being
           | auto-produced anyway then currency isn't even desirable a
           | commodity, now is it?
        
         | eru wrote:
         | The negotiation power of workers largely relies on what their
         | outside options are. If the rest of the economy is booming,
         | they'll have more power, because they can walk away.
         | 
         | If the rest of the economy is doing badly, they can't threaten
         | to walk about (or at least they can't threaten that as easily
         | and credibly).
        
         | Joeri wrote:
         | But the article mentions the 8 inch production line is always
         | shorthanded on staff. You would think workers on a line that
         | has shortages of employees would have negotiating power. The
         | article also mentions better circumstances on other lines. The
         | workers on strike also say they're not even really asking for
         | better circumstances, just to not be treated like parts in a
         | machine.
         | 
         | I think this is a typical case of a bad manager at the top of
         | the 8 inch line, and not of some larger theme of automation
         | leading to worker abuse.
        
           | eternauta3k wrote:
           | > You would think workers on a line that has shortages of
           | employees would have negotiating power
           | 
           | Depends on whether we re looking at a system in equilibrium
           | or out of equilibrium. Maybe the "shortage" is the
           | equilibrium for the unyielding crappy conditions the company
           | is offering.
        
         | fred_is_fred wrote:
         | Swap out 12-inch line to something like weaving and you could
         | have posted this in 1770.
        
       | colordrops wrote:
       | My brother had back surgery in Scottsdale, and his roommate was
       | getting surgery to repair his pinky, which was destroyed in a
       | welding incident in the Samsung plant being built in the area.
       | Made me wonder about the safety of the workers there.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Burns, cuts, mashed fingers, all part of the picture when you
         | work in trades, especially construction.
        
         | throwaway2037 wrote:
         | > which was destroyed in a welding incident in the Samsung
         | plant being built in the area
         | 
         | I am confused. How is this related to the story? Is Samsung the
         | general contractor to build the fab? I doubt it.
        
         | lmpdev wrote:
         | How does one destroy a pinky from welding?
         | 
         | I don't doubt it, just curious how that occurred?
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | I worked for a giant Korean company (offshore, third party
       | outsource). Their view of workers right is very different from
       | "the west". It was said, among my colleagues at the time, that in
       | our country their main headquarters had a law office exclusively
       | to handle abuse cases quickly. I heard stories of Korean lifting
       | their voices and a case where the chair of a programmer was
       | kicked by a Korean manager because he let a bug pass.
       | 
       | AFAIK, this is actually part of their culture. They are very
       | strict about hierarchy and it is seen as a kind of honor that is
       | ingrained even in their language. There's even a case where this
       | resulted in an air disaster.
       | 
       | I really hope that the current trend of culture interchange
       | between Korea an "the west" may influence both societies for the
       | better.
        
         | alephnerd wrote:
         | I'd be pessimistic about a cultural change - look at what
         | happened to the Doctor's strike.
         | 
         | The only option is to become an expat and end up perpetuating
         | the same traumas, as Pinoy, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian,
         | Indonesian, etc employees of Korean companies in their
         | countries can attest to.
         | 
         | Korean work culture is itself a reflection of Japanese work
         | culture back when SK was Japan's version of Mexico before the
         | 2010s.
        
           | makapuf wrote:
           | Can you tell us what happened to the Doctors strike ?
        
             | alephnerd wrote:
             | When Korean Legislative Elections were around the corner in
             | early 2024, the incumbent govenenent announced an increase
             | in the number of seats at medical programs in SK as a
             | populist Hail Mary.
             | 
             | Yet they did NOT increase the number of resident positions
             | and left reimbursement rates at the same level as almost a
             | decade ago. Also, the average doctor in SK works 100 hours
             | a week instead of 60 like in the US.
             | 
             | This meant that both junior and senior doctors ended up
             | having to work more (they'd need to increase the number of
             | medical students per training doctor post-degree) while
             | still earning their existing salary and needing to pay off
             | college loans (which in Korea are state school level
             | despite incomes being a fraction of the US).
             | 
             | Instead of negotiating with doctors, the government decided
             | to instead revoke striking doctor's medical licenses.
             | 
             | There is now a significant brain drain as Korean doctors
             | look to immigrate to Japan or the US.
             | 
             | And this is how a strike was resolved against white collar
             | workers.
             | 
             | Blue collar unskilled workers have even less leverage,
             | because you can always import a "Trainee" from Vietnam,
             | Phillipines, Indonesia, Nepal, etc for a pittance.
        
               | pastage wrote:
               | They seem to have dropped the plan to suspend licenses,
               | but that is still a scary move.
               | 
               | https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
               | pharmaceuticals/...
        
           | lifthrasiir wrote:
           | Doctor's strike is much more complicated than the outsider
           | view, because the Korean Medical Association had a very
           | conservative view for the number of seats anyway. It is true
           | that residents are indeed overworking, but that's more like
           | 80 hours per week, not 100 as you have suggested; and
           | established average doctors work even much less---48.1 hours
           | per week in 2020. Resident doctors take such burden because
           | they'll eventually get out of resident positions and most of
           | them will enjoy the occupational leisure, which made doctors
           | one of the most sought occuptations for the current Korean
           | generation.
           | 
           | The imbalance in medical accessibility and quality for urban
           | vs. suburban areas was well known for decades so that the
           | reform itself was very much desired, but the current
           | government did it so ineffectively that they just had to give
           | up after the strike.
        
         | moandcompany wrote:
         | Some aspects of hierarchy-based power dynamics (i.e. bullying
         | and abuse) have been captured into a relatively new, and unique
         | Korean word, "Gapjil" (gabjil).
         | 
         | Gapjil (Korean: gabjil) is an expression referring to an
         | arrogant and authoritarian attitude or actions of people in
         | South Korea who have positions of power over others.
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapjil)
         | 
         | Gapjil is typically used to describe the abusive dynamics of
         | one person above another in a hierarchy but has also been
         | extended to describing the power abuse dynamics of large
         | businesses interacting with smaller ones (e.g. small
         | suppliers).
         | 
         | As you mentioned, Korean language and society reflects a "high-
         | context" culture where language itself uses and encodes social
         | hierarchy position through the use of "honorifics," speaking to
         | or addressing to people above by their title/rank or
         | "treatment."
         | 
         | "Over 80% of public perceive 'gapjil' problem as serious:
         | survey" (2021)
         | https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210113000769
         | 
         | The practice was made illegal in South Korea (2019) under its
         | Labor Standard Act (LSA), but the effectiveness of that law has
         | been scrutinized quite a bit, as many surveyed state it remains
         | highly prevalent in the workplace:
         | 
         | (Law fails to protect Koreans from workplace bullying)
         | https://asiatimes.com/2020/01/south-korea-fails-to-stamp-out...
        
           | palad1n wrote:
           | Really? In 2019? This is the first I've heard of it, and I've
           | been working here since 2017. I have no notion that this
           | problem has been actually addressed anywhere.
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | > There's even a case where this resulted in an air disaster
         | 
         | Lets not forget Sewol disaster 'recovery efforts'
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_A8dq2fA5o
         | https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sinking-of-the-...
         | where no rescue was even attempted before letting President
         | decide (establishing video feed to command center).
        
       | SiempreViernes wrote:
       | > "When someone is exempt from overtime due to a pregnancy, they
       | don't send anyone in their place, which means those of us left on
       | the line just have to do more work," said Worker A.
       | 
       | > "Technically, we get an hour for lunch, but the machinery never
       | stops operating, so someone has to fill that spot at all times,"
       | Worker A added.
       | 
       | Samsung being the successful company that it is, I can't imagine
       | they don't know that they don't understanding that taking people
       | out of a work team requires putting in a replacement, so I'll
       | take "Malicious compliance with work safety" for 500 Alex.
        
         | alephnerd wrote:
         | This is the hidden reality of how consumer electronics assembly
         | work.
         | 
         | Doesn't matter if it's South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam,
         | China, Philippines, India, Indonesia, etc - these are common
         | work conditions, and it's usually the same managers in all
         | those countries.
         | 
         | If native SKeans, TWese, JPese don't want to do these jobs the
         | employers just bring "Interns" from Indonesia, Vietnam,
         | Philippines, etc and pay them $7,000 a year - which beats
         | earning $2,000 a year either underemployed or doing the same
         | job in those countries.
         | 
         | It's horrid, but that's the reality of the gizmos you and
         | everyone else likes using.
        
       | vondur wrote:
       | I rarely hear positive stories about the work conditions and
       | culture in Korea.
        
       | Kalanos wrote:
       | To the employer: rotate them into different roles to prevent this
       | kind of stress on the body/mind.
       | 
       | To the employee: find a new job if you can get the above
        
         | Kalanos wrote:
         | can't*
        
       | wormlord wrote:
       | Samsung is the only job interview I have walked out of. I was
       | told "you'll basically have zero wlb for the first 2-3 years
       | while we are getting this fab off the ground". I immediately said
       | I was withdrawing my candidacy. I can't imagine what the floor
       | workers jobs are like if that's how demanding the SWE side is.
       | 
       | It's especially soul-crushing when you think what the next Xnm
       | process translates to in the real-world. Incrementally better
       | performance for encoding cat videos or whatever. No thanks.
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | wlb?
        
           | knoebber wrote:
           | I assume 'work life balance'
        
           | esalman wrote:
           | Work-life balance.
        
           | wdh505 wrote:
           | Work life balance
        
         | Alupis wrote:
         | > "you'll basically have zero wlb for the first 2-3 years while
         | we are getting this fab off the ground"
         | 
         | This doesn't sound like you were interviewing for a typical job
         | with Samsung then. Getting a fab off the ground seems to imply
         | it's a newly constructed, or under construction fab. You were
         | interviewing to be part of the crew that builds and sets up a
         | new fab.
         | 
         | There's a reason salaries for this type of work as so large...
        
           | wormlord wrote:
           | That's fair enough. The salary was not high though lol.
        
             | Alupis wrote:
             | I'm just curious - was this a US based fab as part of the
             | CHIPS Act fallout, or a fab in Korea? I would assume
             | salaries are localized to COL.
        
               | wormlord wrote:
               | USA
        
           | justinclift wrote:
           | > There's a reason salaries for this type of work as so
           | large...
           | 
           | That's not the reputation that salaries of places like this
           | have.
        
             | Alupis wrote:
             | In the US?
        
         | stevage wrote:
         | wlb?
        
           | mettamage wrote:
           | work life balance
        
       | fortran77 wrote:
       | I completely misunderstood the title, and wondered before I
       | clicked how it could possibly have reached the front page.
        
         | kbelder wrote:
         | Didn't stop you from clicking...
        
           | apantel wrote:
           | Me neither.
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Humans shouldn't be doing this type of work or most industrial
       | line work, robots can do it easily 24/7
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Humans are probably cheaper in these cases.
        
       | hbogert wrote:
       | This is one of the reasons I'm pessimistic that intel will regain
       | the Fab crown. How can you compete with this?
        
         | idunnoman1222 wrote:
         | With samsung?
        
         | mathiasgredal wrote:
         | In a society where the abuse of human labour was factored into
         | the cost of the product, the 8-inch fab line would have been
         | shut down, since the cost of the 8-inch wafers would now be
         | prohibitive and not be competitive with the wafers from the
         | 12-inch line. This in-turn would mean that customers would have
         | to switch over to the 12-inch wafers.
         | 
         | We are not supposed to compete on who can abuse their workers
         | the most to improve efficiency and to cut costs. Thankfully,
         | knowledge work does not seem to scale the same way as manual
         | labour, meaning that more abuse of the workers does not mean
         | more output over the long-term.
        
       | fuzzfactor wrote:
       | >Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
       | 
       | I would say they're quite photogenic myself ;)
       | 
       | One of the original advantages of semiconductors over vacuum
       | tubes is that they were built to last.
       | 
       | Tubes were expected to eventually wear out and be replaced sooner
       | or later, sometimes on a regular basis. So they came in sockets
       | and many were very easily user-replaceable.
       | 
       | Other than that, the equipment was usually built to last for
       | decades. It would have been the stupidest thing in the world to
       | get a new radio every 5 or 10 years when all it needed was a new
       | tube or two. And once you had a radio that was satisfying, most
       | people never wanted to buy another radio again. They most often
       | went forward focused on additional types of long-term technology
       | acquisitions, like TV sets and an automobiles with automatic
       | transmission.
       | 
       | Semiconductors made almost all tube equipment obsolete as fast as
       | the expanding variety of devices could be developed, so silicon
       | booms are nothing new. Corresponding bust cycles must also have
       | been endured by semiconductor companies who have prospered over
       | the decades.
       | 
       | The demand for semiconductors is real strong again, especially
       | the more complex and innovative developments.
       | 
       | But as time goes by, the demand for the semiconductors needed to
       | produce products having long-term value is not the demand causing
       | the complaints about overwork.
       | 
       | It's the extreme demand for _disposable_ semiconductors, and the
       | manufactured-for-landfill products that incorporate them, which
       | has been gradually putting more pressure on fabrication workers
       | in the same production facilities where it didn 't used to be
       | this bad.
        
         | fuzzfactor wrote:
         | Didn't intend to hurt the feelings of any silent lurkers.
         | 
         | Obviously there is more than one who would prefer a completely
         | disposable society, built on the backs of exploited women.
         | 
         | Not sorry.
        
       | knighthack wrote:
       | The word "striking" in the title initially made me think this was
       | an article about the feminine beauty of women working in the
       | Samsung semiconductor industry - i.e the adjective, not the verb.
       | 
       | I thought a more apt phrase should have been "on strike".
        
         | wavemode wrote:
         | Somewhat similarly, I had to do a double take at a billboard I
         | saw recently - "Southwest Pilots Are Ready to Strike"
        
           | m463 wrote:
           | After the mh370 murder-suicide theories...
        
             | Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
             | Or the not-theory involving Germanwings 9525
        
         | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
         | I was looking at the pictures of their thumbs trying to figure
         | out which thing was being struck against which other thing.
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | This might be a regional thing; "striking workers" in a
         | standard usage in, at least, British and Irish English.
        
           | 1970-01-01 wrote:
           | Striking in American means it will be shocking and arresting
           | to view or behold. The Grand Canyon is striking in size.
           | 
           | Striking in EU is put on the calendar for Monday. The pilot
           | union is striking until the coffee is served at the perfect
           | temperature.
        
         | sameoldtune wrote:
         | That says more about your relationship to women than the
         | headline
        
           | hju22_-3 wrote:
           | No, it really doesn't. It does, however, say something about
           | the region wherein such phrasing fits. And it says more about
           | how the title becomes misleading due to linguistical
           | differences.
           | 
           | And, since we're already doing this: since this is the way
           | you reply, it says _even more_ about you.
        
         | twen_ty wrote:
         | Peak HN right here. Top comment is on semantics but not on the
         | original content.
        
         | jiveturkey wrote:
         | I thought so too. I suspected clickbait but this is a
         | paraphrase by the submitter. The original headline is
         | reasonable.
        
         | robertlagrant wrote:
         | Sir! The workers are revolting!
        
         | undersuit wrote:
         | I would need a definite article on women to consider striking
         | to not be a verb.
        
       | wtcactus wrote:
       | Why only the women? Aren't men working in the same conditions?
       | 
       | I've read the article, but it doesn't explain why the disparity
       | between sexes.
        
         | Nasrudith wrote:
         | I've heard accounts of that type of sexism before in Japan.
         | From what I recall hearing many programming shops are all
         | female because the market as a whole is sexist enough that they
         | can get away with paying women lower wages. I have neither
         | cite-able sources nor first hand experience admittedly so feel
         | free to take it with a grain of salt.
        
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