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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

I understand this person is making a judgement on the state of mind of others, so it may not at all be accurate with regards to the people actually clearing the scooters, but I found this interesting nonetheless, that the author assumes this:

> I just observed a couple of students clearing a path out of pity for the robots.

I understand why people might feel pity for robots. People become attached to all sorts of inanimate objects. But I'm still astonished at the same time. These robots have no feelings. They deserve no pity, they're robots!. Don't donate free labor to corporations. If they know that people will help these robots out of the goodness of their hearts, they'll rely on it and not support these robots themselves.

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I think the we're all sympathetic to the idea that one person's carelessness creates an impossible problem for someone else.

>Don't donate free labor to corporations.

That's absurd, someone takes two seconds to move an object so someone else can get their food on time. That's just being a good human rather that sweating about "free labor to corporations" first.

>>That's absurd, someone takes two seconds to move an object so someone else can get their food on time. That's just being a good human rather that sweating about "free labor to corporations" first.

Someone who can afford a robot delivery can afford a human delivery for an extra 50 cents, or learn from this situation to not use that company again because they use robots and robots... suck, or further incentivizes the delivery company to hire humans instead of destroying what is already a poorly paid and scarce economy of delivery drivers.

All wins in my book.

I'm pretty skeptical of folks who disregard basic human kindness, inserts their own hate for whatever it is they are concerned about and tries to disguise that as caring for others.

Whatever happens to "scarce economy of delivery drivers" is going to happen.

Clearing the sidewalk is just being nice to everyone.

Likewise, not a fan of folks who dismiss others' predicaments via injecting their own misunderstanding into an argument they neither understand, nor engage in earnestly.

Clearing the sidewalk is being nice. Clearing the sidewalk to help multibillion dollar companies so they cause less of a mess while pushing millions of others out of work is not.

Spare me your judgement.

I agree, you should never assist a pizza delivery driver. After all, Dominos makes billions of dollars, they can afford their own pizza-delivery assistance staff.

Maybe we can even make the case you should slow down delivery drivers! Pull in front of them and go quite slow, or block their bike path.

A weird example of false equivalency, as no one would in their right mind compare helping a human being doing their job with helping a robot assist in increasing profit margins for <insert random corporation>.

Jebus...

A weird example of false equivalency, as no one would in their right mind compare helping a human being (who may be busy studying or have trouble walking) get their food on time with helping a robot assist in increasing profit margins for <insert random corporation>.

People are not “50 cents” more expensive than robots…

Robots are also more functional.

What's your cut off for accepting this nuisance and detriment?

In the moment, perhaps it is the right thing to do after all. I won't argue that. But if corporations are allowed to externalize the costs of their service failures onto the goodwill of the public, that's a dark path to go down.

But your point about it taking two seconds to help someone get their food is correct, but it's also why they'll be able to get away with it.

> if corporations are allowed to externalize the costs of their service failures onto the goodwill of the public

I would agree if the problem was the robot standing still, shouting, “I'm lost; Will somebody, please take me to {address}?!” In this case, the issue is people who leave junk in the middle of the road. The same scenario could occur where someone tosses a plastic bag out of their window, and it becomes trapped in the robot's wheels.

I helped two out of a ditch on campus last weekend. Why? Because it made _me_ feel good to do so. Someone wanted to eat and their robot was stuck. And I made a new friend when I did this as they were sympathetic to my cause. I find life to be much more enjoyable when not being cynical at every turn.

I suspect it’s more like pity for the people whose delivery was held up.

If one is engaged in a protest, the inconvenience of having food delivered to a random person via robots is the least of their concerns.

Seems like a silly hilly to fight on.

There’s folks like you, yes, who attempt a global calculus of who is currently benefited etc. and there’s folks like us who sometimes do a thing like this for its own reward. Auxilium auxilii gratis? Haha.

I “donate free labour to corporations” all the time. Here’s the thing: I don’t give a fuck who makes money off what I do for my own amusement. I’ve already got all I want from it.

The robots are feeding hungry people. It's all about people in the end.

Hungry but rich and privileged people, to be precise.

> Robots have no feelings.

Whoa hold up. Absolutely robots have feelings. What are feelings? They're signals warranting theory of mind and empathy. Even a fence gate has feelings, when you see it trying to close but it needs a little help to sit snugly in its well.

Gandhi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." And in a time when animated machines roam campuses, we can look to Berkeley students for a model of moral progress.

> They deserve no pity, they're robots!. Don't donate free labor to corporations.

How do you treat service workers? Do you "shed no pity" because that waiter is employed by a corporation?

I think there is a difference between treating a robot with respect versus treating it as if it were a sentient, feeling being.

It's socially acceptable and encouraged to treat specifically arranged stones with absolute reverence (an important masonry buildings) but no one should treat it as if it was worth of pity or empathy.

A robot is animated by circuitry and code which receive input from sensors, but I personally do not believe they are "feeling" in the way animals are (humans included in "animals" here). At least not these robots. I won't speak to the future here.

There have been a few studies that people have actual sympathy for robots in distress.

Calling Wall-E a “study” is a new take on it :)

If people didn't have sympathy for the robots then it wouldn't have made a good film.

> They deserve no pity, they're robots!

> Robot is drawn from an old Church Slavonic word, robota, for “servitude,” “forced labor” or “drudgery.” The word, which also has cognates in German, Russian, Polish and Czech, was a product of the central European system of serfdom by which a tenant’s rent was paid for in forced labor or service.[1]

1: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/the-origin-of-the-wor...

I doubt they were helping the robot out of pity for the robot, but more because they knew that the robot was taking some delivery to a human who was waiting for that delivery. Or maybe just to free a path so the robots weren't stacking up in the sidewalk blocking people.

Or maybe focus your attention on an area where it makes more sense to vigilant about greedy corporations (join and advocate within a political party).

maybe they pity the students who are going to get cold pizza 2 hours late?

Maybe they should pity the human delivery workers who they are helping to put out of a job?

I don't think anybody is dreaming of being an underpaid delivery worker for ubereats with zero benefits, high risk of accidents, and just overall terrible working conditions

when we invented aqueducts who cared about the water delivery workers?

those are terrible jobs and they should be automated/replaced

We got rid of literally shit jobs with plumbing

https://historydaily.org/night-soil-men

While I was doing a degree I held two types of jobs over time. One was a shop worker, one was delivering food (pizza one summer, chinese the next)

The delivery job was far better than the shop job (I quit the shop job after 2 evenings)

Four hundred years ago on the planet Earth, workers who felt their livelihood threatened by automation, flung their wooden shoes, called 'sabots' into the machines to stop them. ...Hence the word 'sabotage'.

There was also a large group of textile weavers, who belonged to an organisation named after Nedd Ludd[0], that engaged in this practice of sabotage. Hence the term Luddite.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The gig economy isn't great either, though. These are tough jobs.

The development from human workers to robots mimics what happened in delivery of messages. When I was a kid, people would deliver telegraphs to your door - for a substantial markup. These days, e-mails get delivered to your inbox without any human in the loop, and for free.

Until we're out of this labor shortage, reducing the number of unskilled jobs society needs is a good thing.

there is no labor shortage there is benefits and decent salaries shortage

the fact that nobody is volunteering to become a slave doesn't mean there is a labor shortage

Accepting this for the sake of argument, what's the harm in getting rid of a job that nobody was willing to work at anyway?

Why not both?

Yes, pity them, not the robots. And then invoice the company for services rendered clearing the obstructions.

> I understand why people might feel pity for robots. People become attached to all sorts of inanimate objects. But I'm still astonished at the same time. These robots have no feelings. They deserve no pity, they're robots!.

That's what EVE also said.

Regards, WALL-E

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