My whole life I've been mystified by this mad insistence on "saving time". For what? A few more hours in front of the tv perhaps? It never made sense to me, but I'm slow by nature. Thanks for bringing attention to this very overlooked subject.
HI Rob I think to make your point the first photo should have been a factory full of workers as I and I assume many others would like nothing better than to free ourselves of repetitive jobs that offer little chance for social interaction. When the cost of a robot is a fraction of the cost of a human does this not offer the opportunity benefit to the human? We talk about opportunity cost a lot but not opportunity benefit. I never had a dad so maybe I am unable to comment but the first photo offers me hope for greater freedoms and lightens my heart that no one is a slave to a system for my benefit. The whole notion of universities is so our intelligence can set us free, Just saying,
I disagree. I do "repetitive labor" all the time and am dam glad no one has created a robot that can cut trim. Plus, factory work, as you describe it, is simply an earlier stage of efficiency thinking. It frees no one but does speed the pace at which we can exhaust the earth. imo.
By the way, AI is now displacing writers like me from the economy. It used to be a writer, if nothing else, could write ad copy, just as painters could once paint signs to survive. None of this makes me feel free.
we exhaust the earth because of the choices we make no matter what the price, educating the people to make the right choices and prescribe the right costs are all choices. I would think that freeing labor from factories through automation would allow for more artisan work not less.
Automation actually increase the net energy expenditure for each unit of whatever the factory manufactures (though it’s cheaper). And that “freeing labor” is called unemployment (almost always without any retraining for those losing their jobs)
A person who works 40h a week has to expend energy living housing transport food education for the rest of his life, a robotic arm that replaces him may need periodic lubrication. Unemployment is only an issue if the benefits of automation are not passed on fairly, when a robot costs less than a persons annual wage and will work 24/7/365 for decades it then all comes down to distribution of benefit in the notion of living wages. It would be an interesting study as to whether the transport energy expenditure of car travel to get to work would equal the energy expenditure of a robot replacement.
I do not disagree but it is demand driven and I think there are too many people on this planet for production to be any other way. Change demand, and we can change the future otherwise at least automation may free up time for some who are not so demanding or wish to live closer to nature.
Nice piece, Rob. As one poetry prof of mine once put it (regarding an essay suggesting how great it was that we could get all the readings of a poem since so much was published about it)--what's the rush? As Thoreau put it, "Why are we in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises?" There seem to be two competing philosophies based on two basic analogies: the one that goes with the machine, and the one that goes with music (or flow). No doubt the mechanical clock has played havoc with our sense of efficiency. Glad you wrote this.
Efficiency has its uses but as a general principle it is unappropriate, especially with respect to livestock production. Thanks for this piece, I intend to quote it!
Again the over industrialised nature of a production system (in this case farming) begets a bad mental health outcome for the people working in it. The automated factory farm with its ‘acres’ of concrete and barns, the slurry, the noise - a prison like structure.
But also much cattle farming. It’s a factory system if it has factory component; and the slaughter house is the death factory associated with almost all cattle farming.
What a lovely piece. It reminds me of the gift economy concept in Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, based on trust, abundance, reciprocity. I am slowly unwinding the tendrils of efficiency and productivity from my thinking and am loving how expansive this way of living feels ♥️
One of the benefits of aging is being more or less forced to slow down. In my working years, I was always rushing, impatient, why aren't we done yet so we can move on to the next thing. Kinds of efficiency. Now taking the more meandering path, as you say, is also the richer one.
Have I been waiting here all this time to hear you talk more about your work and about things like efficiency? I think the first time I browsed your natural plastering work I'm like why doesn't he write more about this??
That's not at all to disregard all the other amazing writing you've done, it's more to point out that I think the things like efficiency and the current state of our planets health are one and the same. I'd go as far to imagine the reason for all your good writing and the way you see the world is because of your plastering work; the slow, repetitive work, the flow, a less cluttered mind.
Reading a great book at the moment, Remembering Peasants.
Ditto to what Leon's said here, except that I'm fairly new to your work Rob. There is something very important in this piece. Labor as the way in which we articulate our humanness in conversation with the lives and labors of nonhumans. Labor as the articulation of human culture. I've ordered the peasants book, Leon. Somehow I hadn't found that one yet.
Thank you, Adam. And I'm with Leon. "Labor as the articulation of human culture" is a powerful synthesis of a very wide subject.
I loved your piece about the lambs. Thanks you for being so human amidst the wreckage. And you're exercise at the conference around longing, another underappreciate quality being lost to the production mindset.
Thanks for adding a different way of considering "generational wealth."
Thanks, Leah.
My whole life I've been mystified by this mad insistence on "saving time". For what? A few more hours in front of the tv perhaps? It never made sense to me, but I'm slow by nature. Thanks for bringing attention to this very overlooked subject.
Thanks, outsider.
HI Rob I think to make your point the first photo should have been a factory full of workers as I and I assume many others would like nothing better than to free ourselves of repetitive jobs that offer little chance for social interaction. When the cost of a robot is a fraction of the cost of a human does this not offer the opportunity benefit to the human? We talk about opportunity cost a lot but not opportunity benefit. I never had a dad so maybe I am unable to comment but the first photo offers me hope for greater freedoms and lightens my heart that no one is a slave to a system for my benefit. The whole notion of universities is so our intelligence can set us free, Just saying,
I disagree. I do "repetitive labor" all the time and am dam glad no one has created a robot that can cut trim. Plus, factory work, as you describe it, is simply an earlier stage of efficiency thinking. It frees no one but does speed the pace at which we can exhaust the earth. imo.
By the way, AI is now displacing writers like me from the economy. It used to be a writer, if nothing else, could write ad copy, just as painters could once paint signs to survive. None of this makes me feel free.
we exhaust the earth because of the choices we make no matter what the price, educating the people to make the right choices and prescribe the right costs are all choices. I would think that freeing labor from factories through automation would allow for more artisan work not less.
Automation actually increase the net energy expenditure for each unit of whatever the factory manufactures (though it’s cheaper). And that “freeing labor” is called unemployment (almost always without any retraining for those losing their jobs)
A person who works 40h a week has to expend energy living housing transport food education for the rest of his life, a robotic arm that replaces him may need periodic lubrication. Unemployment is only an issue if the benefits of automation are not passed on fairly, when a robot costs less than a persons annual wage and will work 24/7/365 for decades it then all comes down to distribution of benefit in the notion of living wages. It would be an interesting study as to whether the transport energy expenditure of car travel to get to work would equal the energy expenditure of a robot replacement.
You are missing a lot of Rob’s points Theodore.
Look wider and more deeply at what we humans are doing to ourselves in the name of “progress”.
We’re on course to making ourselves extinct on many levels - How clever is that?
I do not disagree but it is demand driven and I think there are too many people on this planet for production to be any other way. Change demand, and we can change the future otherwise at least automation may free up time for some who are not so demanding or wish to live closer to nature.
Nice piece, Rob. As one poetry prof of mine once put it (regarding an essay suggesting how great it was that we could get all the readings of a poem since so much was published about it)--what's the rush? As Thoreau put it, "Why are we in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises?" There seem to be two competing philosophies based on two basic analogies: the one that goes with the machine, and the one that goes with music (or flow). No doubt the mechanical clock has played havoc with our sense of efficiency. Glad you wrote this.
Thanks, Asa. Glad you could relate. It's getting pretty weird out ther.
Thanks for sharing. I loved it! ✌🏼😁
Thanks, Melanie
Efficiency has its uses but as a general principle it is unappropriate, especially with respect to livestock production. Thanks for this piece, I intend to quote it!
Thanks, llse. Agreed
Again the over industrialised nature of a production system (in this case farming) begets a bad mental health outcome for the people working in it. The automated factory farm with its ‘acres’ of concrete and barns, the slurry, the noise - a prison like structure.
Pig and Chicken farming especially.
But also much cattle farming. It’s a factory system if it has factory component; and the slaughter house is the death factory associated with almost all cattle farming.
What a lovely piece. It reminds me of the gift economy concept in Robin Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, based on trust, abundance, reciprocity. I am slowly unwinding the tendrils of efficiency and productivity from my thinking and am loving how expansive this way of living feels ♥️
One of the benefits of aging is being more or less forced to slow down. In my working years, I was always rushing, impatient, why aren't we done yet so we can move on to the next thing. Kinds of efficiency. Now taking the more meandering path, as you say, is also the richer one.
Have I been waiting here all this time to hear you talk more about your work and about things like efficiency? I think the first time I browsed your natural plastering work I'm like why doesn't he write more about this??
That's not at all to disregard all the other amazing writing you've done, it's more to point out that I think the things like efficiency and the current state of our planets health are one and the same. I'd go as far to imagine the reason for all your good writing and the way you see the world is because of your plastering work; the slow, repetitive work, the flow, a less cluttered mind.
Reading a great book at the moment, Remembering Peasants.
I love your comment, Leon. And you are exactly right. I will take the cue and try to weave more of the "work" work in.
Ditto to what Leon's said here, except that I'm fairly new to your work Rob. There is something very important in this piece. Labor as the way in which we articulate our humanness in conversation with the lives and labors of nonhumans. Labor as the articulation of human culture. I've ordered the peasants book, Leon. Somehow I hadn't found that one yet.
Labour as the articulation of human culture, I like that.
The book was something that Chris Smaje had reviewed (I didn’t read the review, thought I’d read it first).
Thank you, Adam. And I'm with Leon. "Labor as the articulation of human culture" is a powerful synthesis of a very wide subject.
I loved your piece about the lambs. Thanks you for being so human amidst the wreckage. And you're exercise at the conference around longing, another underappreciate quality being lost to the production mindset.