Robo Fast Food

The movement for increased wages for workers has evoked calls for increased robotics in manufacturing and service industries. A former McDonald's CEO said before a shareholder meeting, "It’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient, making $15 an hour bagging french fries.”

Classic heartlessness from the capitalist elite, although the present CEO told shareholders that labor will be moved out of the kitchen into the dining area to improve customers' enjoyment at the fast-food monolith.

Sales at Mickie Ds have been sliding as their customer base is priced out of the menus by incessant drive for rising profits instead of serving actual food.

But robots don't care what food tastes like and neither do most people visiting the Golden Arches.

They are all robots.

After all we are what we eat.

Wendell Berry Quote On Food

I once brought a head of broccoli to the counter of a supermarket outside of Poughkeepsie.

The young cashier regarded the stalk with an alien's disgust for earth.

"What is it?"

"Broccoli." It's one of the few words that is the same around the world.

"I've never seen it before." She was probably 17.

"Have you been working here long?" I thought maybe she was a trainee.

"A year." The teenager smirked like I couldn't tell she was not a rookie.

"Oh." I realized in that time no shopper had ever bought broccoli in that supermarket and put the stalk down thinking it might have been there for years.

America, you are what you don't eat.