Since you mentioned Etaoin Shrdlu and hot type / linotype...
There are a lot of industries (at least historically) that have organized labor.
In the UK, there was the “Wapping Dispute” in 1986 when computer technology enabled journalists to type in their copy directly, doing away with the need for workers to set type using linotype printing.
Linotype was a big improvement on the older letter-by-letter typesetting and sped up composition of text 3 - 5 times compared to hand composition. Its introduction enabled a small number of machine operators to set type for multi-page newspapers, leading to an explosion of print editions in the 1900s.
But in 1986, 100 years after the invention of linotype machines, they were being replaced with computerized direct input typesetting. As a result of the new process, UK print unions held a year-long strike.
Result of the strike: failure. 6000 printers were fired, but there were jobs for 670 new workers who used word processing.
You probably can't force your job to remain (well, I guess some people have).
I live in Oregon. Up until last year, you weren't allowed to pump your own gas in most parts of the state. The law required gas station attendants to do it, as a scheme to keep them employed. The most annoying part of this wasn't the tiny marginal cost, but that it sometimes took forever to get your gas if the attendant was busy. You'd just sit there looking at the pump you weren't allowed to put your credit card into.
You can create laws to keep making work for a class of workers, but it ends up unpopular. Instead of a social safety net as it was intended, it turns into a corrupt drain on society at large, and a relative disadvantage to your economy versus those that are more ... agile, let's say. Check out e.g. the underpaid but overstaffed government bureaucracies and police forces in most Latin American countries. Giving a third of your society badge and a lousy paycheck often does more harm than good.
I don't consider this observation to be right wing (per the sibling post), it's just how things work. While there's nobility in work and psychologically it's better to keep people employed, I'd just as soon give all the gas station attendants a lifelong retirement UBI so they'd get out of the way and let me pump my gas.
They're doing this in the UK right now with security for cultural events.
Since the Manchester Arena terror attack (awful, tragic, evil, and an isolated event), it has been mandatory for music and live theatre venues to have an absolute army of "security" staff checking people's bags.
A full 95 percent of whom would be entirely and totally useless in any actual emergency or danger situation.
It's one of the things contributing to the ever increasing price of show tickets, but basically it's a tax on people who can afford live shows to create jobs for an otherwise fairly unemployable sector of the population (young and not much education - way too little natural demand for that in central London to mop up all the supply).
It would be better if they were paid to do nothing.
As a New Jersey native (the single remaining state that still mandates gas station attendants) I have spent my entire life convinced this is sour grapes from other states. Why would you want to leave your warm cozy car in the winter to pump your gas?!
You're not wrong really, it's just a luxury most people aren't familiar with. My mom would always only go to the 1 or 2 stations in our town that advertised "Full Service" now it's not even a thing at all anywhere around here. At one we even had an account so didn't even have to bother with paying. The attendant would put air in the tires, check oil, top up fluids and if you wanted go grab you a snack. Last one went away around early 2000s.
In Italy this is still a thing. Almost all city gas stations are "multi": If there are 4 pumps usually 2 are self-services, and the other 2 are with the operator that, if you require, it does check oil, clean windshield etc.
My mom did that too. She got an oil check and wiper fluid filled up, and gave a nice tip to the attendant. And that was in Los Angeles where there was definitely no weather-related reason to stay in your car. But my mom was old and I think it was a status thing, too.
On the east coast I could understand not wanting to get out of your car in the winter. And an attendant standing out in the snow is a tough job. Not sure it should be mandated. But in Oregon there's really no time of year it's that great a hardship to pump your own gas.
The attendants weren't fired, btw. At most stations they're still there and they'll offer to pump your gas. You're just allowed to do it yourself now.
> The attendant would put air in the tires, check oil, top up fluids
So today it would be mainly just busywork, I’m doing those like twice a year, but need to put gas in my car once a week (roughly).
In Dubai and other gulf states, you can order gas to your home and they fill your car up in your driveway.
Isn’t that the plot of an episode of Always Sunny?
Do they check your oil and coolant, and wash your windows? That is what Full Service used to mean at a gas station.
> The law required gas station attendants to do it, as a scheme to keep them employed.
I wonder what they’ll do next with EVs becoming more popular? Outlaw home charging?
You're half right. UBI is probably the only path where humanity comes out OK in the not so distant future.
But you don't give out UBI and let people become potatoes. You give out UBI to allow them to meet their basic needs and then have them work a job they kfhr genuinely be OK at, and, ideally, enjoy. Ideally.
I agree with you. People need purpose. Ever owned a Border Collie and spent a couple days without giving it something to do? It's bad for the dog and dangerous to your home.
So yeah, even if no one ever really enjoying being a gas station attendant, getting up and going to a job to earn money and pay rent gives people a sense of purpose. And UBI definitely risks robbing people of that purpose. The alternatives to UBI soon though might be creating fake jobs or letting people starve.
Why would the billionaires do UBI instead of Running Man (latest one)?
Not a joke.
All the folks talking about it, it sounds like some sort of fantasy cope to get people going along willingly into the void.
Because if there's one thing billionaires should be scared of, it's billions of people suddenly becoming estranged from the economy. Having governments pump money into the consumer demand side becomes a no-brainer once you're faced with deflationary depression and mass unemployment. Your investors then get taxed to give UBI to workers to spend money to keep your sales up. It's probably the one form of wealth redistribution that on balance would actually benefit billionaires.
Billionaires don’t worry. Not in the main.
We’re going through a series of ever record breaking heat waves where the only thing you can be sure of is that it will be worse next year.
They’re still pushing fossil fuels and blocking attempts to replace them with cheaper alternatives.
They’re too focused on who got the biggest yacht to care.
That assumes a degree of forethought and worry about consequences that the current set of billionaires seems to be studiously avoiding - along with half of everyone else, near as I can tell.
They dont give a shit about angry masses. Nor is the angry mass a risk to them. They have money for arms.
Not doing the strike would have had similar job losses. People who have nothing to lose can at least spread the pain out.
Collective union Luddite opposition is one part of why there is so much of a plebeian tier pushback against unions, in the very group that should be fighting for unions with their lives. That and right wing propaganda of course.