Five for chumbucket.

Surely we're near automating the vast mass of the working class out of jobs and, with the destruction of the social safety net, their deaths are soon to follow.

They just need to use their bootstraps to avoid death.

Just once, I'd like to see some dystopian science fiction in which all forms of robotics and industrial automation have been *banned*. This society is still outwardly "industrialized", but every job that would otherwise be done by a machine, is instead done by great masses of human laborers.

The protagonist is a Rollman - an unskilled worker whose task it is to run along the roadways all day long, shifting giant wooden rollers which are used to transport goods and materials across vast distances. This stone-aged method of transportation is necessary because both trains and combustion engines have been forbidden, on the grounds that their use would jeopardize the Rollmen's careers. Eventually he dies of some horrible, degenerative injury caused by the constant strain of physically rolling giant shipping containers all across the country - but the Rollman dies happily, knowing that his children's careers are secure.

It would make Atlas Shrugged seem subtle.

Sounds like exactly the kind of tripe you'd write.

I for one think it would be hilarious and urge EvilHomer to write just such a story. The ending needs a bit of work tho. How about: Rollman eventually loses his job when it's realized that an even simpler means of transport is necessary to absorb all the kids Rollman had when he wasn't rolling around in circles. Rollman insists hit children not be layabouts, THEY MUST ROLL. Rollman gathers no moss. Nor does he consider the lilies of the field. He just rolls on to his grave. Can you dig him? Or just bury him.

I'm always open to constructive criticism! For Gmork and Oscar's sake, I'll find a compromise that they can both enjoy. How about this: the Rollman realizes that even wooden logs are hellish technological innovations which cost human jobs. So he eats and eats and eats, and when he is fat enough, he uses his own body as a biological roller. He bursts under the great weight of the shipping container, but his children are able to drag his corpse back and forth along the road, and - like John Henry - the Rollman's final delivery arrives on time.

King Solomon himself could not have cleaved the baby more neatly. Ghost stars for that!

Now, they simply _had_ to go to human rollers when the price of trees grew to high. His old flabby body wasn't up to the task, but he could still be useful as Greece (sp!). Title: "Rollman and the Juggernauts in search of the golden mean".

I'd purchase more baby wipes, probably.

They're likely to employ a bare minimum staff of stockers and security for when tings can't be handled by a machine - yet.

But if the stories of packs of dogs roaming Wal-Mart's up north are any indication, get ready for human and animal vagrants openly eating food in the store and trying to live there.

That won't be a problem once they deploy the E.D. 209s.

209s, 210s whatever it takes.

And by employees, I mean engineers. Or maybe just Bezos.

They do? I thought they just raped and pillaged.

Immigrants taking jobs is soooo 2000s.