History Main / WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture

* Slavery is a major theme in CharlesStross ''{{Accelerando}}''. The very first chapter is about the precedent that prevents artificial intelligences and uploads from being treated as property. One protagonist is a male submissive; his daughter sells herself into slavery [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome to herself]] to get away from her mother, taking advantage of a loophole in Islamic law. [[spoiler: the alien and later human-made sentient corporations use minds as a currency]]. But manual labour itself is more or less entirely obsolete, what with TheSingularity.

**** The living beings are more efficient because of the giant spiders that live in tunnels that the mines will sometimes break into. These spiders aren't carnivorous, but feed on electricity; most organic beings don't have enough electricity in their bodies to be of interest. Droids and other machinery on the other hand are quite tasty.

* In ''GalacticCivilizations 2'' the Drengin and Korath have slave pits instead of factories. They claim that slavery is an inherent part of their culture, and their society would collapse without it. Then again, they also see [[AlwaysChaoticEvil brutal torture of said slaves as entertainment]].

* In ''Nova'' by Creator/SamuelRDelany, everyone in the future has cyborg implants that allow them to interface with machinery, letting people control any machine, from vacuum cleaners to spaceships, and pseuodo-physically perform labor through them- not quite manual labor, but not using robots. While it would be possible to automate everything, it was found that people have a psychological need to connect their actions to work rather than letting robots do everything for them.

* In VorkosiganSaga Jacksonians, being a Mafia ruled planet often engage in slavery, though their most valueable slaves are less for mundane purposes and more for exotic things like replaceing the brains of clones with those of rich men who wish for a rather vampiric immortality. On Barrayar slavery is illegal, but it's status as an unevenly developed civilization means that in many parts they will depend on manuel labor, sometimes in nasty conditions.

* Taking advantage of their food being very heavily standardized, [=McDonald's=] once experimented with a robotic kitchen, going so far as to build a Hong Kong outlet that used one. They scrapped the idea, but not the outlet, when the construction and maintenance turned out to be far more costly than employees. Their one fully automated outlet is still there, as a minor tourist attraction, but building more isn't worthwhile with today's technology.
** Likewise, "vending machine" restaurants are seldom seen today even as curiosities, because of the complexity of food preparation. Thus it's cheaper to train maneuverable high school kids than to maintain the equipment.
*** Ditto goes for having a small, well-trained staff that makes complex food. These people will usually be harder to replace, or wield more clout during employer-employee conflicts. It's just more convenient with fairly untrained, unorganized kids, most of whom do not expect to work there more than a few years, if that.

** Those that did think the steam engine was great tended to not be taken seriously. One guy was pretty sure that Hero's Engine could be used to predict the weather. Given that the boiling point of water varies depending on air pressure, and that quite a bit of the weather is dependent on moving high/low pressure fronts, he was probably actually on to something.
*** Ancient Greece also had several factors working against it that are considered a requirement for industrialization. First, their technology base was actually very low, to the point that they had little access to high grade iron for a good steel industry, and bronze, while a good substitute in many things, is also more expensive than iron and steel. Second, they had no real centralized polity to ram the reforms down their throats. Third, they would not have been able to afford it even if they did have a fully centralized authority. They actually saw the potential, but wrote it off as a case of AwesomeButImpractical. Even the Romans, who could have possibly done it to a limited degree, would not have been able to fully pull it off for the first and third reasons respectively. The nations of Europe in the late 18th century which kicked the industrial revolution off actually had more concentrated wealth ''individually'' than the entire Roman Empire at its' height.
** Consider also the medieval Chinese, who invented so many amazing feats of chemistry, engineering and metallurgy yet somehow were eclipsed by the western European nations and remained a bit of an industrial backwater for hundreds of years. Though much of this was cultural, as Confucianism taught rigorous adherence to the status quo.
*** The Chinese were never able to separate philosophy from religion and they were never able to invent the scientific ''method''. They did have all the ingredients for the scientific and technological revolution, but they never made the final breakthrough. Once that was introduced from outside, however, China has rapidly risen to the spearhead of technology.
* Autoloaders for tanks and artillery free up some room, and save weight (for artillery anyway) but are notoriously unreliable. With one you only need 3 people (driver, commander, gunner), not 4 (the loader) and any weight saved can be used for extra armour. During the ColdWar the [[RedsWithRockets Russians]] had auto-loaders in their tanks. The [[YanksWithTanks US Army]] never used them, even on the [[TankGoodness M-1]]. Why? The auto loader added weight and complexity and a 19 year old with a strong right arm was ''faster than any auto loader''. As for the unreliability, the Russian auto-loaders were famous for their habit of catching the gunner's sleeve and trying to load his arm, and sometimes [[AnArmAndALeg succeeding.]][[note]]This was mainly due to the ''very'' cramped internal space in most Soviet tanks[[/note]] They do see use in NATO artillery, and large-calibre autoloaders can easily outload humans (6/2 rounds/min rapid/sustained for the manual loaded AS-90, but 10-13 rounds either way for the auto-loaded [=PzH=] 2000). Not to mention that the 19 year old is a lot more versatile than any autoloader, he can help you change a tread, watch your back while you make repairs, or fill in for a comrade if they get incapacitated. Try to get an autoloader to do any of those things!
** This is explained by differences in doctrine. Soviet tanks were ''small'' because a) smaller tank is harder to hit, and b) smaller tank is easier to armor — it can have a thicker armor for a given mass, or a smaller mass for a given armor thickness. The combination of a small tank and thick armor made for a ''very'' cramped interior (Soviet Army had a maximum height requirement of about 170 cm for the tankmen recruits), and there was simply no place for the fourth crewmember, hence the autoloader. French tanks use them mainly for the same reason, as their tank doctrine also prefers the smaller profiles and tighter internal layouts.

* Sailing. No matter the size of the boat, anything from hauling the sails to changing the tack is done manually. That because yachts are usually cramped boats with little space for extra machinery, and because technology has a tendency to fail when least expected. Besides that, crewmembers are easily moveable ballast where extra weight is needed.
** Back when steam had only started to make inroads, ''huge'' crews that sailing ships had were their second main disadvantage after their reliance on the weather. Steamboat might've needed a place for coal and thus carry less cargo, but it could be manned by twenty sailors instead of more than hundred like a sailboat of same size. So the mechanical winches were installed, sail plans simplified, emergency engines mounted, and last cargo-carrying sail ships actually had remarkably small crews, not much larger than steamships, with sailors almost never going aloft. But ''then'' is was discovered that sailing makes an excellent practice even for steamship sailors. And so the ''tall ships'' were born — a mobile classes of various marine schools, which are ''intentionally'' built in the old-fashioned way to teach the cadets what the sea really ''is''.
** There are several unconventional and very high performance designs that use sail-by-wire or computer controlled sail trimming... the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELL5lTE9Tek Walker Wingsail]] design is nearly [[OlderThanTheyThink 20 years old]] and the [[http://www.sailrocket.com/node/286 Vestas Sailrocket]] is a later design capable of 65 knots under sail power. There's still no substitute for something that can be repaired and driven by hand though, given that you don't want your motors to seize up or your electronics when you're several days or weeks sail away from land...

* In a recent ''GaiaOnline'' event, each of the four towns was assigned two fantasy races to assist them in the upcoming "Rejected Olympics". The futuristic town of Aekea got [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Blizzard Style Orcs]], in addition to the previously introduced Aliens. The new aliens were created by leftover AppliedPhlebotinum that the ''real'' aliens left behind, while the orcs were HandWaved away by saying they were a newly discovered species that have been hired as manual laborers. One character even wonders if the orcs are actually being payed for their work. ...Of course, there's just one problem. ''AEKEA IS A CITY FULL OF ROBOTS''. It's the only city that's even ''allowed'' to have robots, as they were banned everywhere else after some [[NoodleIncident war that no one talks about.]] But the fact that you are enslaving ''orcs'' to effectively do something that could be accomplished by a ''tow truck'' or a ''pulley'' is a bit confusing...

Recently, though, overall Chinese economic growth meant that fewer and fewer people are willing to tolerate harsh working conditions and meager pay, so the labour unrest became a problem for the company. Add to that the calls for product boycotting from the labour action groups and displeasure from the brands itselves, [[SlaveToPR who are conscious about their image]], — and cue the news that Foxconn is investing astronomical sums into the automated assembly. Robots may be more expensive in the long run, but they don't make a fuss and don't [[TheDogBitesBack beat the managers half to death]].

** There are several unconventional and very high performance designs that use sail-by-wire or computer controlled sail trimming... the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELL5lTE9Tek Walker Wingsail]] design is nearly [[OlderThanTheyThink 20 years old]] and the [[http://www.sailrocket.com/node/286 Vestas Sailrocket]] is a more recent design capable of 65 knots under sail power. There's still no substitute for something that can be repaired and driven by hand though, given that you don't want your motors to seize up or your electronics when you're several days or weeks sail away from land...

*** And this also makes the furnace slaves even more understandable. It wasn't just a matter of resources; Skynet needed to convince the humans it was pointless to fight back so it had time to rebuild and finish the job before they could fight back.

* ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' is big on this. The workers we see are mostly in charge of monitoring and operating the huge machines that run the city, in a work environment that seems to be needlessly oppressive and [[NoOSHACompliance dangerous]]. Most of what they do would probably be computerized nowadays, but [[JustifiedTrope said computers weren't around in 1926]].
** Also we only see the laborer's running the "control center" of the city, we don't see the thousands probably digging coal into boilers or stacking rocks, or what-not.

** It helps if you assume the escaped slave saying all this is really, really dumb and the (relatively) capable cyborg chasing him *is* one of the masters. Not that anything in the film makes much sense...

* ''HalfLife 2'' has the "unwillingly made into cyborgs" version with Stalkers, people who have their limbs and most of their organs removed and replaced with mechanical equivalents, and appear to be brainwashed/programmed to near-nonsentience. The "transhuman" arm of the [[EvilArmy Combine Overwatch]] also appears to be a lesser version of this; the changes made are less radical and they retain more intelligence, however the process is voluntary.

*** Most of all, their religion condoned slavery. The Industrial Revolution has occurred only in cultures, whose religion has either prohibited slavery or strongly discouraged it. So, yes, Christianity, contrary to the "dark ages" conception of Renaissance philosophers, contributed to the "no slaves" mentality of the Industrial Revolution.
*** YMMV on that last point: Christianity's absolutist moral doctrines may have helped the abolitionist movement, but then Christianity was also heavily used to ''justify'' slavery, and slave nations/ states tended to be more religious. Then we have the fact that the industrial revolution started long ''before'' the abolition of slavery. Also, there were some small parts of Greek and later Roman society that condemned slavery.
*** Slavery in the Americas became commonplace only during the Age of Enlightment, and the concept of scientific racism. That movement was pretty much anti-Church and anti-Christian. In the Old Continent, slavery had been abolished already during the Dark Ages and the last vestiges disappeared in the 13th century. On the other hand, Calvinist denominations have always been more lenient towards slavery (because of their doctrine of predestination and the elect) than Catholic, Lutheran or Orthodox denominations.

-->--''Series/{{Farscape}}''

* Lampshaded and justified in ''DaleksInvasionEarth2150AD'', in which the Daleks use human miners because the magnetic forces in the mine's shaft would hinder their own functions or those of their machinery.

*** So do they use Henry-Ford-style mass production or what, because you can get quite a good production going with no automation whatsoever.

* The batarians in ''MassEffect'' still practice slavery, despite a being starfaring civilisation for centuries. They argue that slavery is a "cultural right" of their people; the [[TheFederation Council]] doesn't buy it.

*** Manpower's business model is generally considered to be sound, just horribly cruel. Their [[SexSlave 'pleasure models']] are highly profitable and very popular with [[AristocratsAreEvil a certain subset of the upper-classes]], not to mention coming with a built-in black-mail hook. Even their industrial lines make more sense than a lot of example of this trope; they're mostly highly-skilled technicians, not manual labourers[[hottip:*:On several occasions characters point out just how ''dangerous'' a slave genetically engineered for both strength and intellect can be if you lose control.]] (although there ''are'' some examples of manual labour as well, pointed out in-universe as inefficient). [[spoiler: The part that starts to tip people off that there's more to them than meets the eye is how they insist on getting mixed up in things that ''aren't their business'', when they should logically just write it off as an unavoidable expense.]]

This trope can potentially be justified for the same reason many industrial processes that could be automated are not. The time, cost, maintenance, and effort for completely automated systems can quite often be far in excess of what skilled labour can have. Automated systems often have a fairly limited lifespan, and the cost of building, maintaining, and replacement is occasionally ludicrously high, thus 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 poor country populated by species with a higher fertility rate and physical fortitude but much lower average IQ and life support costs than the country their masters or employers are from.

** Ultimately, all of this is reflective a curious (and abhorrent) form of dealing with scarcity. Due to the constant war, constant strain on resources, overpopulation, and loss of technology, the Imperium has quickly found that the one resource it ''does'' have for free are human bodies that keep breeding more and more like a bunch of tyranids. Thus, while it may be more efficient in the instant case (i.e. an individual starship) to build an autoloader for your skyscraper shells, on the galactic scale, the materials needed to build such a loader are far, far more desperately needed to maintain the already-existing archaeotech, and/or build lasguns and [[AwesomeButPractical M2 Browning heavy machine guns]] (yes, the 100 year old design is [[SchizoTech still in use, more or less unchanged, 41,000 years in the future]]).

** It doesn't help that said [[MachineCult Adeptus Mechanicus]] acts like an autonomous MegaCorp that monopolizes any advanced technology, from HumongousMecha to simple automated systems, in the Imperium. Any independent scientist or research organization that gets too popular will be forcibly bought, assimilated or killed by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who think that advanced archaeotech obtained from Precursors are better than independent innovation. They entirely have the capability to build an army of automated servitors to do the fighting for them, only that they think they're the only ones who have any idea about something ancient called "Science", and don't want to share it too much with other factions, who in turn don't fully trust the Mechanicus. This forces said other factions to instead rely on manual {{Mook}}s which are far cheaper than hiring servitors and a Techpriest who will maintain the automated systems.

*** It should be noted that on the scale of TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}, a 'shell' could vary in size between a large mansion and a small skyscraper.