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Comment by JohnJamesRambo | Hacker News Reader

I think I'd go insane if that was my job. It seems so utterly dehumanizing to have a human do that job every day. I don't mean just the pointing but the standing and doing things that surely computers and cameras could easily do.

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Wow, my reaction is exactly the opposite. Good on the Japanese railways for employing intelligent and responsible adults to care for everyone's safety instead of cheaping out with cameras and computers. These are solid, respectable jobs, and it means there will always be competent people around to help when things go awry.

Should a human being have his life's work be forty years of checking if bags are caught in a door? Modern society is weird. Automation can free us from humans having to be automatons.

That sounds crazy. Someone should help them transition to a more modern and healthy lifestyle of spending forty years improving the conversion rate of small digital advertisements.

Couldn't said it better myself.

Quite a strawman.

BAM! Well done. :D

I have seen for numerous times that said human also help tourist (although local tourist, because most of them don't speak English well) confirm this is the train to take, and also help signaling the conductor that there are more people running to board etc.

They are not there just for checking bags. There are customer service providers.

I think this is a key philosophical difference: if you think of the job as finding the cheapest way to avoid bags in the doors, with low respect to match, you're missing out on so much that a human can do. If the job is smoothing operations and helping people, however, you get a much better return.

Automation must not be not become destiny.

I would not choose to do that job. Neither would you, of course. Yet there are many who do willingly sign up for such work. And there is little doubt that they are largely fulfilled and do contribute to society.

It's a caring profession. People spend their working lives mopping floors, wiping noses, changing bedpans, picking up road kill, helping little kids cross the street, caring for the elderly and disabled. Others -- repetitively -- cut up chickens all day, fasten on car doors, or fill out tax returns. How is that any different as a means of earning a living?

On the contrary I find it humanizing: everywhere you go there is a human that can help you. As an anecdote, I was amazed to find someone at the train station of a an Osaka suburb at 11 pm. He was of great help since with his very precise map of the surrounding area I found the place I had to go for which the GPS wasn't of any help.

I think for people doing this kind of job having a job -- regardless of how stupid it seems or is -- really mean having a social life. Japan society is really harsh with non workers and living without the regularity and human contact of a job it really hard too. In a sense compagnies hiring for very low-productivity jobs are doing what the social welfare is doing in European country except self pride included.

You can't let go of the American upper middle class conceit that you are your job. Many people find meaning, worth and dignity outside the workplace.

Before I respond to your comment, you should understand that the job that these people do is not just looking for bags. They help people get where they want to go. They help people with disabilities. They help people understand how the train schedule works. I've even seen them help passengers figure out alternative connections in the rare cases when their train is late. But a big part of their job is simply interfacing with people who have dropped something off the platform and are likely to do something stupid like try to get it back (losing their heads to a passing train in the process). They literally save lives.

Having said that, it's a job that requires a lot of interpersonal skills, but not a lot of mental ability. But if we want a "humanised" society, we have to realise that there are a lot of people who like that kind of job. It's not for me, but I know quite a few people who would be very unhappy doing something else.

I was watching a TV program the other day. There was a guy who started a very small company to make kompeito. It's basically just sugar, but it is tumbled in a certain fasion so that it is knobbly and doesn't melt easily. Anyway, this guy used to work in a normal company doing accounting or something like that (I can't remember). He gave it up to spend 8 hours a day drizzling sugar water on his candy and making sure that it is tumbling perfectly. He takes a 10 minute lunch break and then rushes back to work because he wants to make sure that the kompeito is perfect every time.

I could not do that job, but he loves it. Why is that bad? There are lots of people who want jobs where they can be helpful, but where there isn't a huge amount of stress every day. They don't want to work with their minds, they want to work with their body. Or they want to interact with people. This doesn't cheapen them. Why must we destroy these kinds of jobs?

Should people care?

Yes.

Automation can free people from this basic work, and it very likely will too.

But, it's not about that. This ethic means people will just care about other things.

Is it really "cheaping out" when you computerize a system. CBTC systems cost in the billions, and as such NYC's subway is almost entirely running on 1930's relays. It's a solid system, but it requires the drivers to be on point 24/7. Very little pieces of the system enforce speed limits, as this has to be done mechanically with trip cocks, and while trip cocks will often pull the brakes if a driver runs a red signal, there's usually nothing that prevents the driver from going the wrong way on a one way track [1][2].

But ignoring that, computerizing the system can lead to better headways. Right now most systems, and almost all of the NYC subway, use a fixed block system to enforce braking distances. That means it doesn't matter if a train is 1001ft away or 1999ft away, the following train can't enter the next block until the train completely clears it. It's a safe system, but it means trains can bunch up in a stop and go pattern. Modern computerized systems can behave essentially like our self-driving car dream, where they match their speed safely to the train in from and keep the breaking distance block moving. For people in the Bay Area, BART uses fixed-block signaling (but is actually computerized), and Muni uses moving-block signaling. The difference is especially notable on the BART, which tends to speed up and slam on the brakes when there's train traffic ahead.

Also, it's federally mandated that we computerize trains, anyway, [3] mostly because of incidents like the Metrolink collision.

[1] http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/25/mta-a-train-operator-...

[2] http://nypost.com/2015/04/06/rookie-subway-operator-reversed...

[3] https://www.fra.dot.gov/ptc

Rituals can be tricky things: when perceived as meaningful they can be beneficial, engaging, focusing.

When perceived as futile and hypocritical they become soul crushing.

Please be aware of this instead of just downvoting JohnJamesRambo's comment.

This is a cultural difference. Nothing dehumanizing if you consider the stakes and increased safety that results from this.

It's not even really a cultural difference. It's perfectly normal and ordinary for a job to be repetitious, and most people do spend their entire lives going through one or a small number of set routines. That's not dehumanizing, it's the human experience.

And, at least these rail workers get to travel. Most developers sit at a desk that doesn't even move, and maybe they get to see a window, out of which the view never changes.

I dunno, it seems a dramatically more reasonable response to preventing accidents than the disaster that is PTC[1][2], which has cost billions and will probably never work properly.

[1] https://www.aar.org/policy/positive-train-control

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control

Works just fine on the NEC, where it's been in use for over a decade. The real problem is that this was a huge unfunded mandate imposed by Congress on the railroads, both public and private, which is why they've been less than eager to meet the deadlines. In some particular cases, notably Caltrain, it's been a disaster, but that's because they decided that they have totally unique requirements and want a totally custom system rather than going with either of the relatively proven solutions.

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