zlacker

>>claude+(OP)
The treatment of warehouse workers and of people with different non office jobs is a strong reason why I will never work at a place like Amazon or Walmart.

Glad to see some people sticking up for each other in these times especially.

>>Negati+Q7
Amazon warehouse workers get $17/hr starting wage (and a full 2x ($34/hr!!) overtime), with no experience/education needed and almost no barrier to getting the job (except physical capability to lift a box), as well as the best health insurance I've ever heard of entry-level manual laborers getting, as well as education budgets to be used on any higher level education they want.

Obviously warehouse work isn't glamorous and they are under a lot of pressure and there's nothing wrong with increased scrutiny on how they are treated, but it's also getting exhausting when people act like Amazon FC workers are treated like slaves.

>>txcwpa+Gc
Their workers are treated like robots, not slaves.

And the "good wages for low qualifications" argument is equally exhausting. Money shouldn't be some universal justification for overlooking poor workplace conditions and unethical treatment of human beings.

>>deeble+Nj
An old Slavic word robota (slavery is a good translation) was the inspiration for early science fiction writer Chapek to coin the word robot in the book Rossum's Universal Robots.

The plot centers around artificial flesh and bone life (the robots) which "lack nothing but a soul" used as a forced labor class with outcomes you might imagine.

Given the origin, really "robots, not slaves!" doesn't hold up as a particularly strong argument.

>>colech+Gm
> An old Slavic word robota (slavery is a good translation)...

This is unequivocally false. I speak both Czech ans Slovak, with the word robota being Czech in origin. Robota either means work in general, or manual labour specifically. It does not, nor has it ever, meant slavery. The word for that would be otroctvo in Slovak or otroctví in Czech.

>>0x4477+wp
Would the meaning have shifted in the last hundred years?

>>colech+ky
Not in the way you indicate, especially since there is already a dedicated word for slavery. To the best of my knowledge, robota still refers to work (as in one's job) or labour in general. I most frequently encounter the word robota when I or someone else announces that they are leaving to go to work by saying 'Idem do roboty.'

There isn't really any ambiguity to it and I have never seen the word used as some sort of analogy or synonym for slavery (certainly not in common parlance, though I'm sure it has been used that way somewhere, sometime). If someone wishes to talk about slavery, they will use the appropriate word.