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Comment by samfisher83 | Hacker News Reader

In Europe the McDonalds I have been to already have screen everywhere where you can order food. There still seems to be a bunch of people working there.

I think this might is problem with automation. If you automate everything and you hire no people then who will buy your products. I think its why Henry Ford paid his people so well. So they could buy cars.

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Henry Ford paid a high wage because his new assembly line concept required specialization. It would be highly inefficient to constantly rehire and retrain works. One worker missing probably had a much greater financial impact in Ford factories than in other car factories at the time.

Henry Ford would have automated if he could.

Just because a lot of people are working at McDonalds does not mean that the automation has not replaced people's jobs.

For example there are a lot of people that work in a law firm but there are no secretaries typing up what someone else is dictating.

That Henry Ford story is apocryphal. If you think about it, it doesn't really make any sense.

Maybe, but he was a bit of an idealist and has strong thoughts about how people should and how society should be structured. And the resources to make a noticeable change. HAve you heard of Fordlandia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlândia

Yeah, but each company just thinks in isolation. It's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma.

Edit: I think my comment was misunderstood.

This is wrong. From the perspective of, say, 200 years ago everything has been automated. But everyone definitely hasn't lost.

It's actually the opposite. Automation makes us all better off.

Yes, but if only all the fast food restaurants automate, only a small part of demand is lost.

Clearly, it is optimal strategy to automate because other industries will take longer to automate.

Exactly right.

Please actually provide substantive content to the discussion or don't comment.

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