Reply #10: I absolutely despise these things.

[Katherine Brengle]

For one, I don't really want to ring my own groceries - I'd rather be bagging them as the cashier rings them - it's faster.

But primarily, it just pisses me off that we keep trying to replace people with machines. WHY? To save a buck? But the costs of constantly decreasing available jobs to the community as a whole is just not worth it.

Communities should, by the laws of physics, be self-sustaining until they reach critical mass, yes? More people means more need means more jobs means everyone wins. But when you start replacing those workers with computers, the numbers of jobs decreases as the need and population grows. Why does anyone think this is a good idea???