So yeah. People are leeches and sheep and feel some odd need to interact on simple transactions.
Since I'd rather those unskilled workers be actually doing a job [1] rather than my taxes paying for them to be on welfare while being disgruntled that they don't have a job, I purposefully do not use automated check out or do not use the machines.
Of course you can keep thinking that everyone who doesn't do the same thing you do are leeches or sheep and don't actually have a clear reason for why they do it but maybe try and learn to keep an open mind and be more empathetic about the world.
[1] Assuming the shops passes the savings of having automated checkouts to their customers, I would be paying slightly more to subsidize their salary (of course, I'm rather doubtful that the shops would pass on the savings)
In my view, just bring on UBI already.
And yes, I know, plus self checkout is generally faster especially since a lot of supermarkets now only have less checkout lanes. So, most people will chose convenience and avoiding human interactions over ideals. I just wanted to explain to the OP that is assumption that people who decide not to use automated checkouts or automated shipping label creation might not be because they are sheeps or leeches.
But with regard to how to preserve social opportunities under UBI, I think the Nordic countries suggest the best approach. There in places of terminal unemployment where quite a lot of people are already on the dole, the state also offers a large amount of social and cultural infrastructure: libraries, concerts, clubhouses, etc. Sure, some people choose nevertheless to drink their lives away, but there are productive ways to spend one’s time. Conversely, I think things would be a lot tougher in countries like the US where everything is privatized and the decline of “third places” has been a trend already for decades now.
I mean I've lived in a few countries, I've socialized with the cashier from the local supermarket in France after seeing the same person 20+ more times. I currently live in Hong Kong and after going often enough to some restaurants I've socialized with the waiters, chef, etc. Including becoming friend with the owner. I've done the same while living in Japan where I became good friend with a cashier at my local supermarket who was a student working part time and was invited to her wedding and became friends with restaurants owners too by coming often enough (I'd say Japan makes it easier than in other countries because people expect to meet other in small restaurants when sitting around the counter, see Midnight Diner on netflix for an example of that culture). I've also had similar experience in Malaysia, especially with street sellers. I feel that once you keep seeing the same faces repeatedly, over time you can start making a connexion. And at least that's held true in every countries I've lived in.
I haven't lived long enough in the US to say if that would work and I do think that it works better with walkable cities where local supermarkets/grocery stores in the center of the city are tiny...
Probably not; the whole point of UBI is to make it easier for people to have and transition jobs (compared to means-tested welfare) and to survive when the the valie of their labor in the economy is low, not to eliminate work.
UBI is conceived to enable more people to work, at better jobs on average, than not having UBI (by not penalizing people for work the way means-tested welfare does, and by enabling voluntary transitional breaks from work for retraining or taking a temporary downgrade to get on a career path that doesn't dead end as soon, etc.)
I like a later analysis of the Butlerian Jihad from Leto II of Dune (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad) that says
> "I point out to you […] a lesson learned from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned. The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."
The more we use machines for these “easily handled” use cases, the more we tend to expect machine interfaces for more interactions, and at some levels, I think that’s dangerous.
The only upside to self-checkout is lower labor expenses for the store. That turns into profit for the shareholders, not savings for the customers, so I don't care about that. And I guess maybe some people don't like the social interaction implied by human cashiers, but if you're not in the mood for that you can just keep your eyes down and grunt or something. Cashiers are used to people who don't want small-talk, they can generally take a hint.
But as someone shopping in Europe, I have never felt using self-checkout burdensome, because I’m usually just getting a few items for that evening or the next couple of days. Using the touchscreen is pure muscle memory, and the advantage of being able to listen to headphones or avoid social interaction outweighs the very slight inconvenience of ringing up my own purchases. Moreover, the queues for self-checkout are always shorter now than for the human cashiers.
No matter the quantity of groceries, a professional can ring it up faster than I can.
> Moreover, sometimes the bagging had been historically done by paid staff, so people weren’t used to doing it themselves
Sometimes, but usually there is something like a 1:5 ratio (or lower) of baggers to cashiers so bagging your own while the cashier rings you up has always been common. The way I see it, bagging isn't really a real job, usually the store hires mentally disabled people to do it as a sort of charity to the community (also the feds pay half of their wages.) Anyway, bagging is easy. I don't have to deal with an obtuse machine to put some stuff in a bag.