[3Pi]

Despite the impact it has on the availability of unskilled manual labour jobs, I think it's great that machines are finally turning to harvesting - having worked on a similar project to do with grapes (specifically, pruning), it's not always the easiest of things.

It does highlight to me that we are getting closer to the point of needing to rethink labour distribution, because the non-technical jobs are the easiest to replace with machines.

[brc]

Even the people who get replaced get some benefit in that they get access to cheaper food. Not enough to replace their income, but the point is that automation is good for humanity.

Only the Luddites want to smash machines and keep a shirt costing a days wages.

[toomuchtodo]

> Even the people who get replaced get some benefit in that they get access to cheaper food.

As long as that food is not then exported to consumers who are willing to pay more for it than the poor are able.

[brudgers]

The article describes [anecdotally] that mechanization makes the remaining labourers' work assignments more physically demanding. All the easy pickings go to machines, not humans and people with an already hard workday for low pay has gotten harder as a result of mechanization. The give in the system for low wage workers is systematically being removed in the age of the unlimited time off meme.

[A_COMPUTER]

Before the machines, just as many humans still had to do that crappy work, they were just a smaller percentage of all the workers. That part didn't make any sense to me. I know this is naive, but maybe with the net cost savings of using machines, the farmers could avoid planting the places that machines can't reach easily.

[generic_user]

Hasn't that been the case for all of human history? Mass Migration has been a thing for thousands of years. Populations grow and shrink to meet needs of the workforce. The United States was settled by mass immigration mostly manual laborers who had 8 or 9 children per family. Now field labour is a rarity. and family size is 2 to 3 children.

The minuet you think Central planning can override natural market forces you run into much bigger problems that usually end in catastrophe for the people you were trying to 'help'.

[eru]

> The minuet you think Central planning can override natural market forces you run into much bigger problems that usually end in catastrophe for the people you were trying to 'help'.

Corporations are central planning. Just on a smaller scale. (Though, companies like the old IBM were bigger then some small countries.)

[xraystyle]

> Corporations are central planning. Just on a smaller scale.

No, they're not. Corporations plan their production and allocate their resources based on market information within their industry in an attempt to capitalize on the market signals they observe.

Central planning is a process by which a central government attempts to control and direct the output of a nation's economy by deciding what to produce and when, ignoring market signals.

These are vastly different concepts.

[eru]

Not so different, see eg http://www.economist.com/node/17730360 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm in general.

eli_gottlieb sibling-comment is spot on.

[eli_gottlieb]

Yeah, but they used to be forms of planning organizations that couldn't drag all of society with them when they fucked up.