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Voting for the lesser of two evils
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FourWinds
FourWinds
10943 posts

Re: How about this
Sep 06, 2002, 13:21
>its just that you seem to be overstating the extent to which mechanisation destroys<

Perhaps I am. I agree that in a small printing company the 'printer' (is there a technical-in-trade term?) is a highly skilled job and for all the reasons you point out. I would say that today, in large printing comapnies, those descisions are not made by the person who presses the button to actually do the printing. Choosing paper, size and form etc are usually publishing house descisions these days and they find a printer that can meet their requirements. And colour matching is done by computer now. I bet there are printers out there who have never seen a pantone chart. It is my opinion that the skill is being eroded from every walk of life, slowly but surely, and the only reason this is happening is for profit.

In the 50's we had all this talk of people doing nothing by the year 2000. Machines doing everything, even maintaining themselves or each other, and people would be living a life of leisure. A few house hold things, washing machines and such, have been the only developments to even contribute a remotest morcel to this ideal. Has any factory automation done so? I think not. It has just maintained the status quo by keeping the workers working and the bosses bossing, while producing more product and increasing profit.
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