Society is literally willing to let truck drivers die to maintain shipping times. See the responses during the height of COVID-19, or even just the demands placed on every day operators cross-referenced with their average health and mortality rates. Our treatment of truck drivers is already subhuman, I don’t think we’re likely to extend a lot of understanding to the robots.
That's a bit of hyperbole. Lots of jobs take their toll on your health. That's nothing special about truck drivers, and it doesn't mean we "let them die".
And you're ignoring the fact that not requiring a driver is significantly cheaper. And when it's speed versus cost, cost generally wins. So yes, society is absolutely going to be fine with trucks pausing in bad weather, because it means cheaper shipping.
(And stuff that is urgent and requires next-day delivery is sent across the country by plane anyways, not by truck.)
On truckers dying on the job: you'd probably agree that there's arrangements that could save more truckers' lives but are not applied because of cost and lack of social pressure. For instance driver fatigue is said to be the primary cause of death among trucker, and that's obviously an issue we could throw money at to at least alleviate (but it wouldn't always be cheaper, that's the point)
And to your point, yes, that same logic would aplly to a ton of high risk occupations. There's building construction techniques that cost more but have less risk, but we won't apply them where there's no pressure to do so.
Are we letting them die then ? I don't see the hyperbole in saying yes, as a society we're not willing to put the money to reduce these deaths. I see it as a part of life, and don't think we'll change much even as autonomous vehicle come (if they kill 1 in 10000 people but cost way less than now, we'll swallow the pill collectively)
Driver fatigue is taken way more seriously than it used to be and measures and laws have been put in place to minimize it by forcing maximum driving and minimum resting periods.
So, ignoring the fact that society doesn't just get together every year and decide to let people die, I'd say it's absolute cynical hyperbole to say society is "letting truckers die".
"Taken way more seriously" is a step on the spectrum. Where did we put the cursor ? At the point where the cost vs the number of deaths kinda makes sense.
I think it's a poisonous to ignore that tradeoff and wash our hands of the whole issue. It's like eating meat ignoring where it came from. That doesn't mean we all take extreme positions and become vegetarians, but it's not something we can completely ignore saying it's hyperbole or cynical to recognize as a fact.
For the same reason, we'll likely be absolutely fine with them driving a bit slower as well once there's no driver to pay by the hour - that'll save money not just on the automation but on fuel cost as well.
That might be more a result of capitalist motivations i.e: funnel money to the share holders / owners and C-suite and away from workers. Which is much more direct than someone buying legos or a stove.
We can either legislate that or they need an effective union.
"That might be more a result of capitalist motivations"
People wanting to get more stuff faster is a universal motivation not limited (in theory or in practice) to capitalism. To the extent that anyone is exploited, that's just selfishness, again a universal motivation.
This is a bizarre framing to support the argument people don't like faster delivery of goods.
But in the spirit of good faith I will give some:
- Movement of fish/meat to markets before it spoils
- Delivery of military messages around the battlefield. Also supply trains for military expeditions
- Projects like the Grand Canal in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)). Pretty much anywhere in history where people opted for using water transport of goods over land transport was done for speed/cost reasons.
I mean the copper ingot guy was sort of complaining that he hadn’t gotten enough (good) copper ingots and that his couriers had had to make multiple trips and had come back empty handed each time. This isn’t exactly “more stuff faster,” but it is pretty close.
The free-gratis supply of bread; as a daily life-preserving staple; to a portion of the population doesn't appear to match the spirit of "more stuff faster".
Surely basic food supply is "the bare minimum of stuff" and the rate is fixed to 'each day' (and the delivery to grain stores is 'each harvest in the supplying region'? Yes, it's more as populations grow and centralise, but that appears to be occurring the context of the question, no?
