[garyfirestorm]

Why is it dystopian? This is how you keep cost of stuff low. Many people don’t realize that prices of cars have remained stable over last 20-30 years (beating inflation), because we outsourced and made a global economy work for us. Similarly the ‘cheap robot factory’ will output more and should cost less. Maybe we get a 20k car in next few years…

[lm28469]

> Many people don’t realize that prices of cars have remained stable over last 20-30 years (beating inflation)

Many people don't realize that the average real wages remained stable over the last 30 years either lol. You can buy more subscriptions and other useless gadgets but the basics are the same (cars) or higher (rent/building). You're in a blind spot because you're in the top 30%, go ask the bottom 70%...

Even if everything was "stable adjusted to inflation" it would hardly be a win, and definitely not something to cheer for or call "progress", that's 30 years of stagnation with a few bells and whistles

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/blog_...

https://inflationdata.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2023/1...

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/HFNnYrqruqvI_-Skg2C7ZYjdcX...

[s1artibartfast]

>Even if everything was "stable adjusted to inflation" it would hardly be a win, and definitely not something to cheer for or call "progress", that's 30 years of stagnation with a few bells and whistles

not if you have wage growth that exceeds inflation.

[tomw1808]

If I imagine I run into a factory full of "thinking" (current LLM level top of line benchmark) humanoid looking robots who are collaborating on tasks dynamically as needed in the dark (because they don't need light, ... or oxygen ... or basically anything but electricity)...

In my book that is as dystopian as it gets and has nothing to do with the current level of automation with robots that's happening, that's a whole new level. Production efficiency is one thing, but not far and the DOD or someone else on the other end of the world has some creative ideas how to use that to "make the world great again"...

[LunaSea]

> This is how you keep cost of stuff low. Many people don’t realize that prices of cars have remained stable over last 20-30 years (beating inflation)

They absolutely haven't.

[tw_wankette]

Correct. They've become significantly cheaper to run, and their lifetime costs are vastly more affordable.

In the 1960's, getting a car to 100,000 miles was an achievement; now, the car is just getting broken in.

[LunaSea]

Car repairs have increased as well. So I'd like a bit more sources regarding your assertions.

> In the 1960's, getting a car to 100,000 miles was an achievement; now, the car is just getting broken in.

The average car reaches 160K miles before end of life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity.

So by 100K miles, 50% of cars have already lived two thirds of their life.