For all the billionaire douchebags who suffer the tortures of the damned at having to pay workers the princely sum of $7.25 an hour, there is relief in sight. Hallelujah! Silicon Valley be praised!
Momentum Machines of Silicon Valley have created a burger-flipping robot that can make 360 burgers an hour.
Momentum Machines says your average fast food joint spends $135,000 a year on burger line cooks. Employees work in a chaotic kitchen environment that necessitates no-slip shoes in addition to the standard hairnets and aprons. By replacing human cooks, the machine reduces liability, management duties, and, at just 24 square feet, the overall food preparation footprint. Resources once dedicated to preparation can instead fund better service.
'Fund better service', my ass. What the 'savings'
will fund, as we all know perfectly well, is shareholder dividends and executive bonuses, much of it to be hidden away in the Cayman Islands along with Mitt Romney's tax records.
Seriously, who do these assholes think they're kidding? And what of the low-waged and often low-skilled workers who depend on these kinds of jobs?
Said Momentum co-founder Alexandros Vardakosta, “Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient, it’s meant to completely obviate them.”
ob·vi·ate
To anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary.
Synonyms: remove, get rid of, do away with, get round, rule out, eliminate
Fabulous...if you're a sociopath. But apparently, Momentum have grasped that sounding like a bunch of callous, tech-bro fuckwads is, erm...
uncool maaan, so they've gone all '
dude, we care...srsly'
on their website, claiming that they:
...want to help the people who may transition to a new job as a result of our technology the best way we know how: education. Our goal is to offer discounted technical training to any former line cook of a restaurant that uses our device.
Swell. So basically, you're not just callous tech-bro douchenozzles; you're a sort of combination of the Salvation Army, the Peace Corps and Mahatma Gandhi.
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm very far from a Luddite. But there's a world of difference between a technology that serves an important human need and tech that has only one purpose: to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Here's an idea, fellas: come up with some tech that we all need, not some unimaginative crap that makes the Koch brothers and traitorous tax-dodging corporations wet their pants.
Srsly...what the fuck, tech bros: burger flipping robots? That's it? After 100 years of science fiction, that's the best you can come up with? Let me know when you've got that affordable flying car that I've been promised since I was a kid. OK?