Basic Trope: In the future, people are used for manual labor instead of robots.
- Straight: In the 31st century, manual labor is still used.
- Exaggerated: In the 31st century, manual labor is used for every conceivable purpose regardless of how impractical it is, such as furniture.
- Downplayed:
- Humans still do some jobs, like grocery stores.
- Manual labor is used only for visible tasks as a vile and decadent status symbol. Go-Go Enslavement or worse is far more common. While a barmaid may be enslaved the brewing and transportation is fully automated. Being served only by machines is looked down upon.
- Justified:
- Occurs in the near-future, and robotics is not much more advanced than it is today.
- Happens in a world after the end, and robot technology has been destroyed.
- Happens after a Robot War and robots are illegal.
- There will always be a demand for artisanal products.
- As mentioned in Downplayed, having living servants is considered a status symbol.
- Human labor is self-maintaining, unlike hard-to-repair robots.
- The setting is a remote frontier planet where parts for robots are not easily available.
- Inverted: In a work in the past, there is anachronistically advanced technology used instead of slaves.
- Subverted: A guy who works in a factory appears that is in charge of maintaining the machines.
- Double Subverted: Except the tasks were all ones already automated in the 19th century before such as lubrication at steady rates and filling reservoirs.
- Parodied: In the 31st century, The Empire uses slaves... to push buttons.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: There are only two times when somebody is engaged in manual labor, either in an emergency when the machines fail or as a hobby.
- Enforced: The creator wanted to criticize current society, but Recycled In Space.
- Lampshaded: "You’d think they’d have invented robots for these jobs by now."
- Invoked: The country’s leader promotes the use of manual labor, despite the existence of advanced future technology, to combat unemployment.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "I can't believe we still need people in factories."
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Although the interior is not shown, some characters who work in factories appear.
- Played for Laughs: Slaves are shown assembling machines good only for whipping slaves into assembling other machines of the same type.
- Deconstructed: The problems of manual labor in industrialization are shown in detail afflicting The Empire. Not only is subtle sabotage rampant but either there are so many overseers they may as well do it themselves or they are left alone where goods they produce and the means to do so also give them what they need to cause major mayhem in a slave revolt. And to add insult to injury The Federation outmatches them in both quantity and quality and not committing nearly as many of their resources against them, implying that even if the Empire "won" short-term it would just get them stomped even harder.
Back to We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future
