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Comment by 908B64B197 | Hacker News Reader

> I believe Foxconn, the main assembler for Apple, still sleeps 6 workers to an apartment.

The thing is, if Chinese labor becomes more expensive, these workers will get replaced either by an automated factory elsewhere (maybe in America!) and unemployment.

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Considering how we're talking about a manufacturer that famously installed anti-suicide nets for it's worker, maybe some time away from the factory would be a good thing?

They never had high suicide rates so no.

So, the nets work? ;)

In 2010, over 10 workers threw themselves from the building to their death. I guess that's not high enough for you?

That's not a useful rate until you factor in population.

"High suicide rate" is a relative term, and does not describe foxconn.

Specifically, the baseline China rate is either 100 or 220 per million per year depending on source. Foxconn had about 14 suicides that year out of about a million workers (or about half a million at the relevant factories? I'm not exactly sure.) That's an impressively low rate. And for reference the US rate is about 100-140 per million per year.

Again, we're talking about a factory that beats its workers[0], faces them down in riots[1], hasn't paid wages on multiple occasions[2], negotiates against mass-worker suicide pacts[3], forces employees into overtime to fatal extremes[4] and blackmails the families of their workers[5].

Maybe, just maybe, giving authoritarian autonomy to a factory complex full of human workers is not a good idea.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20101009065851/http://shanghaiis...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-09-26/foxconn-w...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/29/apple-fox..., https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/business/foxconn-offer-protes...

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/900698...

[4] https://archive.is/gT0dZ

[5] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-foxconn-trial/family-o...

Cool I didn't say anything about whether they are good or should have autonomy, I said the suicide rate wasn't high.

Ok. I'll defer your attention to the mass suicide threat and move on then.

Even if you go to the hypothetical extreme of pretending every single one those people committed suicide, it still doesn't give them a high suicide rate overall...

You can't automate installing ram, or a bunch of other things.

Electronics will get more expensive.

Maybe that's not only ok, but actually desirable. More expensive electronics might help reduce ewaste (which is VERY hazardous in aggregate) and push manufacturers to go back to repairable and upgradeable designs.

I don't think abusing your employees is ever okay.

If the only reason we haven't fully automated something is because we can force 6 people to live in a 100ft apartment then there is something pretty fucked up.

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