this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
741 points (94.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

29325 readers
1 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I have seen a few of these with similar story lines and realized we are living it right now. They have the best healthcare, the best food, the best everything and most of us are a few dollars from disaster. That scares some of us to death literally from all the stress it causes.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure @[email protected] was trying to create a simplified example. To include a generic autistic tech we can modify the example to "40 people making 10 things an hour. A clever autistic person comes along and writes a computer script that improves efficiency. Now 19 people make 20 things an hour, the autistic tech makes 5 times as much as one of the original people and has the specialty job of maintaining the script, the business owner lays off 20 people (4x of their pay compensates the tech) and the business owner pockets the other 16x as extra profit"

The 19 people still employed don't get any more pay for their extra efficiency, nor do they get any more time off.

The 20 people who were let go at no fault of their own now apparently don't get to eat or live or have any kind of security until they reeducate themselves to a new line of work.

The autistic tech doesn't understand where their additional pay comes from, but is happy to get rewarded well for their good work.

If questioned about why the 20 people needed to be let go, the business owner will blame the scripts efficiency instead of their own decision to pocket the money.

However, to answer your question directly: it does not matter how many new jobs or specialty positions are created - if the net pay available to workers is reduced and the net jobs workers can fill are reduced, some workers are destined to get the short straw.