We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Difference between revisions

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 Sometimes the trope is justified by slaves or servants symbolizing social prestige, but in societies that are supposed to the technological near-equivalent of [[The Federation]] or whatever outfit the heroes belong to, it comes as a bit surprising that interstellar polities so frequently appear dependent on menial and dangerous labor conditions with [[No OSHA Compliance]]—and if they represent social prestige, why aren't they on display, as servants? Items of [[Conspicuous Consumption]] aren't conspicious if they are hidden away in a mine.
-For what it's worth, there are ''some'' benefits to slavery which could explain its use in a futuristic setting. There are some jobs (namely service work) which are just too complex for any currently envisioned mechanical technology to do without some human assistance. What makes this trope appear blatant is that futuristic slavery rarely involves these environments, but rather things like mining and industrial work. In these environments, slaves are very inconvenient to provide for, and they have much more dangerous machinery at their disposal. A disgruntled slave who's a C4 expert (or even one with just a pickax) is substantially more dangerous than one who works primarily with a hoe (not that you should write the latter guys off if you've got them in a pinch either—isn't that right, oppressors of the peasant caste in the ancient Far East?)
+For what it's worth, there are ''some'' benefits to slavery which could explain its use in a futuristic setting. There are some jobs (namely service work) which are just too complex for any currently envisioned mechanical technology to do without some human assistance. What makes this trope appear blatant is that futuristic slavery rarely involves these environments, but rather things like mining and industrial work. In these environments, slaves are very inconvenient to provide for, and they have much more dangerous machinery at their disposal. A disgruntled slave who's a C4 expert (or even one with just a pickax) is substantially more dangerous than one who works primarily with a hoe (not that you should write the latter guys off if you've got them in a pinch either—isn't that right, oppressors of the peasant caste in the ancient Far East?). Even if kept "safely" in the mine, a mine slave is easily capable of destroying large sections of the mine and costing the overseers large amounts of time and money.
-Part of the reason for this is that the evil being portrayed usually isn't the slavery itself, but the punishment which the workers must endure. Many "prison mine" examples are more about the punishment than the mining. In modern-day society, we have machines that are quite capable of automatically pressing license plates, but the DMV is still getting prisoners to do it. In addition, in the real world, slave labour or labour that borders on slavery is used in lieu of automation because it's often actually cheaper provided the workers are from a country with a much lower cost of living than the country their masters or employers are from.
+Part of the reason for this is that the evil being portrayed usually isn't the slavery itself, but the punishment which the workers must endure. Many "prison mine" examples are more about the punishment than the mining. In modern-day society, we have machines that are quite capable of automatically pressing license plates, but the DMV is still getting prisoners to do it. In addition, in the real world, slave labour or labour that borders on slavery is used in lieu of automation because it's often actually cheaper provided the workers are from a country with a much lower cost of living than the country their masters or employers are from. Use of manual labor as punishment of finite length is more viable than a life-sentence or slavery, since that dramatically reduces the chance of suicidal sabotage.
 This trope can potentially be justified for the same reason many industrial processes that could be automated are not. The time, cost, and effort for completely automated systems can quite often be far in excess of what skilled labor can have. Automated systems often have a fairly limited lifespan, and the cost of building, maintaining, and replacing this systems is occasionally ludicrously high in comparison to unskilled and even skilled labor. In addition, the amount of effort to build certain types of quality control is either not possible or absurdly difficult. In addition, power and maintenance costs of some systems are absurdly expensive, further providing benefit for manual labor rather than automated machinery.