Mintball wrote:Nothing I have said has suggested that I object to genuine progress.
Now, explain where all the new jobs are coming from to replace the ones that have been caused by this 'progress' – or how people are going to live if they don't materialise, and how companies are going to sell their good is more and more people are put out of work by this 'progress', as you call it.
Yes it has.
You are objecting to recent progress on the basis that it takes away jobs, just like the word processor, the mechanised loom etc. So, what's the difference between the self-checkout making a checkout operator redundanty and farm machinery making the farm worked redundant? Why do you claim you would not have objected to the latter, whilst objecting to the former? Do you see the discrepancy?
Mintball wrote:I didn't say it was an example of that – rather the opposite.
It's a result of what you appear to think is 'progress' – all this cutting costs and getting rid of staff etc. It is something that follows from that.
You'll need to clarify then what you think you meant then, because it wasn't at all clear.
Mintball wrote:Jesus – can you really not understand or your really just trying to twist everything because you'll do absolutely anything to act as an apologist for big business?
Chill out. The fact that you can't make your contradictory views understood is not my fault. I have made no attempts to "twist" anything at all.
Mintball wrote:and if you could read
Never takes you long to start with insults, longer than usual in this thread, but never long. Anyway, onwards:
Mintball wrote:But if you want more examples, I can do loads – and if you could read you'd know that there were two examples of the loss of expertise in that one anecdote. Only one of them related to specifically to B&Q.
Let's think ... well, there's how you used to be able to go into bookshops and ask them about stuff, but nobody knows anything now. I used to love going into the classical and jazz sections in Virgin Megastore, because they'll always be able to recommend things on the basis of knowledge. Forget that.
It's been replaced by the internet. Progress. Brilliant. I find the staff at Waterstones particularly knowledgeable by the way, but that's soon to be replaced by the progress of the likes of the Kindle: More expertese, better expertese, faster expertese. Progress. Brilliant.
Mintball wrote:try going into a supermarket and asking one of their 'butchers' or 'fishmongers' what to do with a particular cut of meat/fish – or even whether they could prepare it a certain way (see Blythman for specific, cross-UK evidence of this).
Is that what you think most consumers want from a supermarket? The way supermarkets have positioned their service would suggest the significant majority of consumers do not, and instead want low prices and fast service. So the supermarket has progressed to supply what it's customers want.
There is (or should be) still the facility for the minority that want advice from their supplier, if there are enough of them.
Mintball wrote:Yes. I think it's corporate-style BS that avoids actually answering a question.
I thought it answered the question perfectly well.
Mintball wrote:More BS. In a climate where there's high unemployment? Why do you think big business lurves high unemployment? Why do you think big business has been consistently demanding no caps on immigration?
In a climate where there's fear of losing a job and of not being able to find anything else? In a climate where trades unions have been close to emasculated – and where plenty of idiots popping up to say that you should simply accept whatever the bosses mete out to you 'cos that's 'the real world'?
Not BS at all. Try getting an employee whilst offering a pound an hour. You won't get one. Nor at £2 an hour. You will get an employee at a price, a price that represents a price a person is prepared to work at.
