
The Lonely Future of Buying Stuff - mcone
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-future-of-automation/
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Tijdreiziger
Why are the shoes manufactured in China if no humans are necessary to do so?
The primary reason to do manufacturing in low-wage countries now seems to be
just that: low wages. Take out the need to pay wages and it makes a lot of
sense to manufacture locally to save on shipping costs (and maybe even do
things like manufacturing to order instead of keeping stock).

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bryanlarsen
Why is a lot of software written in Silicon Valley? There are lots of good
reasons why it shouldn't be (labor costs, etc), and nothing is as location-
independent as software, yet networking effects mean that Silicon Valley
remains the hub for software.

China is similarly dominant for manufacturing. It's no longer about cost, it's
about the concentration of expertise and cross-fertilization that results.
Because of automation nobody will ever have the cost advantage that gave China
its current dominance so China will remain the hub for the foreseeable future.

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cepth
This really depends on what kind of goods you’re trying to manufacture.

Speaking from firsthand experience, if you want to have anything with a
circuit in it prototyped, picking a Shenzhen area factory to work with has
many advantages. You can have new circuit boards printed and tested within a
day. This kind of ecosystem may be hard to replicate elsewhere.

On the other hand, for many other physical products proximity to the end
customer is becoming the primary concern. Consider that as real wages in China
are increasing, you’re looking at a 20-30% wage increase over the last 4-5
years in China. This means that any cost advantage over other countries is
rapidly closing. Chinese raw materials and electricity are no cheaper than in
the rest of the world. Due to new factors like increasingly stringent
environmental regulations, many of these other inputs are increasing in cost.
([http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2058175/chine...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2058175/chinese-
manufacturing-hollowing-out))

If I want to have a plastics part mass produced, there are a number of regions
in the US where there is near-parity with China when you factor in shipping
costs, insurance, tariffs, the costs of delays and defects etc.

For industries like textiles, there’s already been significant flight to India
and Southeast Asia.

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dx034
Isn't Adidas building automated factories in the US and Germany to produce
close to designers and customers?

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majewsky
Yes. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-
sell-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/adidas-to-sell-robot-
made-shoes-from-2017)

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gumby
Why “lonely?” This sounds lovely to me. The main cost of most goods is the
labor, and by eliminating that you drive the marginal cost way down (and as
another poster observes, when the cost of labor is eliminated, why ship
finished goods long distances?)

And this will leave more time for people to spend with each other instead of
in drudgery,

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TheAdamAndChe
> And this will leave more time for people to spend with each other instead of
> in drudgery,

This assumes that those increased profits from the increased productivity
would end up in the hands of the lower-class laborers. What makes you think
this would happen?

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gumby
A secular shift in the economics of production by definition can’t be
monopolized, thus competition should, as it has through history, force the
cost of goods towards the marginal cost of production.

Believing this does not require belief in the goodness of people nor some
abstruse economic theory+, just look at the examples of history.

+I love such economics but must admit its predictive power has been poor.

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Dirlewanger
History has also never seen nor experienced anything like the Amazons and
Googles and Facebooks of present day. They make the Rockefellers and JP
Morgans of yester-century red with envy. As much as I like to say that today
is the greatest day in the history of human civilization, I'm quite reticent
and fearful for the future. It's inevitable that we will live with either Big
Government or Big Corps, but both of them in tandem will not be good for
civilization.

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gumby
Have you read history? Rockafeller’s net worth was 1.5% of the gdp. In the
early 20th century a handful of people could solve the government debt crisis.

Going back further Augustus was actually wealthier than the government.

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analog31
_Creating, selling, transporting and buying consumer goods such as casual
footwear now requires just one significant human—the consumer—plus an
individual here and there to oversee assembly and repair robots. Many of the
basics we buy are now constructed, bought, and shipped with no one besides the
customer ever laying eyes on them._

Just to complete the story, _there is no consumer_ because nobody has a job,
so there's no reason to create consumer goods in the first place.

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Tijdreiziger
That, or we have a universal basic income.

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deckard1
Which all comes from taxing... Jeff Bezos?

This all feels like we're sleepwalking into a nightmarish hell far beyond A
Brave New World or 1984. Amazon, drones, mass surveillance, erosion of
privacy. The day will come when we no longer can opt out.

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stinkytaco
Or perhaps a utopia like Star Trek where material needs are accounted for and
people are free to pursue what they want instead of what they need.

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AlexandrB
To get to such a utopia, radical redistribution of wealth would have to be
politically acceptable. This is not even close to being the case in the US.

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dguo
"Creating, selling, transporting and buying consumer goods such as casual
footwear now requires just one significant human—the consumer—plus an
individual here and there to oversee assembly and repair robots."

I've said (half-jokingly) to my friends that in the future, recommendation
systems will know so much about us and be so accurate that we won't even need
to make many purchasing decisions anymore. They will make the decisions that
we would have made anyway.

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digi_owl
Why do i keep finding myself thinking of Accelerando?

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perilunar
"The sneakers' trip from a southern Chinese footwear factory begins on July 5,
2036, and ends on Caitlin’s doorstep 18 weeks later"

18 weeks? Stuff that. The sneakers will be printed on demand at a local fab
and delivered by drone within the hour.

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egypturnash
Seriously, this piece assumes everything will be _exactly_ like it is now
_except_ everything that can be automated will be automated.

It does however have some really pretty vaporwave illustrations so I guess
there's that in its favor. I'd listen to an album that had most of those
drawings as the cover art.

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pascalxus
Doesn't seem any more lonely than now, for the customer, anyways. Perhaps,
it's lonely for the shoes being printed out?

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matte_black
This is the dream, factories that just print out whatever you want and send it
to you. This is what 3D printing was supposed to be.

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harlanji
The main thing I'd want to know is which false incentives are in the system,
eg. subsides, bribes. Those are things that can really be disrupted by the
stroke of a pen. If this is the naturally optimal way to build things at
scale, then I'm all for it. Also, rail and ship costs are marginally low, but
it's hard to get past the visuals created by picturing the vehicles themselves
(ie. it's a marketing problem).

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crdoconnor
This "futurist prediction" assumes that there will be no more innovation in
footwear other than supply chain optimization and no desire for craftsmanship.

Moreover, the kinds of "self driving vehicle" software it is predicting are
kind of assuming a new kind of software that doesn't have bugs (what happens
on your unmanned container ship when something goes awry?).

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syshum
>> The Lonely Future of Buying Stuff

Where the Author says Lonely, I say Wonderful....

The less interaction I have with people to get the things I need/want the
better.

The day I can have all my food, groceries, and Computer parts delivered by
Drone after ordering them on my phone is a day I will be happy.

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hycaria
There's something so enjoyable to me in going to the farmer's market and
buying nice fresh products from the same friendly grocers I see every week.
Maybe this is not available in the US, I don't know, but I always feel sad
when I read such posts, as this feels so much like missing out on little human
pleasures.

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gdulli
I'd guess the desire not to interact with people, whether through this, or
telecommuting, is disproportionately represented here (HN). But not at all a
norm in the US. People here shop online because it's the path of least
resistance, not because of a specific avoidance of participating in the world.

I prefer shopping offline, to have more excuses to get out, not fewer. (Within
reason of course, some stores/experiences really are worth avoiding.)

