Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Definitely agree. People who rail against this don't understand economics much further than my mom sold yard bird eggs for less than the corner store --corner stores are opportunist capitalists with no heart who take advantage of people. If they had to sustain a business I'm afraid they could not. Every wannabe post-capital economist should try to run a restaurant (profitably).

View on HN

Can I ask what a "yard bird" is in this context? Does it mean home kept chickens?

I would think so, but M-W doesn’t list a fowl:

  Definition of yardbird
  1 : a soldier assigned to a menial task or restricted to a limited area as a disciplinary measure
  2 : an untrained or inept enlisted man

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yardbird

The OED apparently agrees:

  *"Mil.* A recruit, a newly-  enlisted serviceman; also, a serviceman under
  discipline for a misdemeanour; one assigned to menial tasks. Also
  *transf."*First
  ex.: (late) 1941.

The person who made this citation claims that comic strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” made reference earlier.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2014-June/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yardbird (3rd one on the list).

In your restaurant experiment, are we allowed to use robots to make and sell food to the customer? Or will they walk out?

Yes, please! Anyone who hasn't run a business should definitely try to run one with Robots to appreciate that human factor isn't going anywhere.

Doesn’t matter. Make food people want to go in enjoy and pay for, pay the bills (ingredients, rent, insurance, marketing, labor, management, equipment, etc.) and remain profitable. No dipping into moms coffers.

That’ll put an end to “I can make myself a Reuben with store bought stuff for $3!!!, $13 at the deli is goddamned capitalist pig ripoff”

Do you mean will the robots walk out?

It is good to know the failure modes of your AI.

Also the cost to develop, deploy, and maintain your robots.

BTW, most fast food does use robots as far as possible; these are highly automated processes. The robot might not look like you'd expect, but that aint a problem with the robot.

Well I mean people won't order from a 100% automated fast food shop. The customers expect human hands to touch and labour over the food, even if it's financially unviable.

Corner stores also have their own expenses to deal with. They rarely have the same access to suppliers as grocery stores, nor do they have the access to the same prices for their goods. They may be paying the same for labour, but they are typically dealing with much lower volumes. I don't have a clue on how the cost of their leases compares, but it is going to affect the price consumers pay. If it really was as simple as them being opportunist capitalists yaking advantage of people, we would see far more corner stores in this world.

Absolutely. One cannot compare one’s own subsidized hobby with an enterprise that must maintain itself to survive. As my other example of making your own sandwich vs getting one at a deli. One cannot compare the naive costs vs the reality the delikatessen deals with.

> Every wannabe post-capital economist should try to run a restaurant (profitably)

I would guess most people don’t start a restaurant to be financially profitable, instead they start it for ego and status. A failed restaurant is both an example of capitalism, but also some very uncapitalist incentives.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com