Why didn't the Empire use Automation?

[@canisarcani]

because its a commentary about how, for the empire, human lives are literally cheaper for them than mass produced machines. alternatively: palpatine literally thrives upon the suffering of others. the force is weird like that, maybe he is literally feeding upon the suffering of sentients, and since droids (typically) have very little to no force presence he cant feed upon them.. soo..

[@HolyknightVader999]

Sith tradition. Their empires were built on the backs of slaves.

[@thekaxmax]

Both are true. Hurting people is his policy.

[@Maytrx]

Sadism... It's a very real thing.

[@thekaxmax]

@Maytrx yup. Look at any policy regarding non-rich people from any Conservative govt in the world. The pain is the point.

[@enoughothis]

The problem the Galactic Empire had, at least initially, was a manpower excess. Right after the Clone Wars the galaxy was facing a nasty recession as defense spending would be slashed and destroyed planets and industries rebuilt, economic output would drop. Palpatine also needed to get the populace to buy into the idea of the Empire and the best way to do that is to give them all jobs. To make the Empire the economy. This is why the Empire uses people in roles that would be done better or more cheaply by droids. Finally, busy workers are less likely to plan revolts. People who are just trying to get through the daily grind almost never take to the streets with rocks and incendiary devices. Peace and stability, that's exactly what Palpatine promised.

[@doomslove4295]

So far, the best counter argument to the video.

[@gayanudugampola8973]

Pretty smart move by Palpatine.

[@GGBlaster]

Absolutely. In fact, many people who are just trying to get through the daily grind don’t want to take to the streets. As long as there’s a relative feeling of stability in one’s own life, a person is usually content.

[@BennyFromFalloutNewVegas]

Droids wouldn't be motivated to work harder by being rewarded to have flavor added to their food paste.

[@FreelancerFreak]

Did i have you tied to a cross🤔

[@tzimiscelord8483]

​@@FreelancerFreak I just deleted his whole casino out of spite

[@robertnelson9599]

Same here

[@stellataylor7436]

I’d say those who do well get a happy simulation to live in while recharging. Assuming I don’t do a memory wipe on them, they’d have emotions and sentience.

[@blackpowderkun]

Oil baths?

[@geoffreymowbray6789]

unemployment provides military recruits .... hence the old saying 'a poor harvest and a harsh winter is the recruiting sargent's best friend'

[@thingamabob3902]

up to the point you can´t feed your troops anymore and/or you have to rob the peasants of their own food to make matters even worse. Modern societies or SW-societies may have drastically improved means of food production and automation as described in the vid therefore either the availability of "luxury" items or the means to buy them become more important, but in the end its the same. Lack of stuff = massive discontent and unrest. But the recruiting sergeant is happy .... for a possibly very limited time ^^

[@MadisonAtteberry]

@@thingamabob3902 No that recruiter Sergeant is still happy, becuase he get to take money to the bank no matter what.

[@xrstevenson]

​@MadisonAtteberry that money ends up having a different worth depending on how bad the economy is

[@buddyj5VCO]

Alan acting like we haven't been watching him for years. Him saying he's shocked by how cheep the Droids were is funny me.

[@Liopleurodon]

Its actually kind of simple: I had the discussion with a friend about automasation in our world, hes even working as IT engineer and I simply said to him "In a capitalistic society the majority of work will be done by the worker who reproduces himself with the least ammount of incentive and investment." - aftter a few seconds he understood and agreed

[@MrRonald327]

The galaxy didn’t like droids much after the Clone Wars.

[@thekaxmax]

Which was planned and run by Palpatine on both sides. 100% his fault.

[@DaRKWizaRdGaming0]

Took a break from Star Wars and stars content. Glad to see you’re still making awesome videos.

[@rojaws1183]

Sidious wanted a galaxy where individuals were treated as expendable slaves. It was a system made to make the dark side stronger. In a galaxy where everyone with power act like a sith the true sithlord will rule and thrive. Also Sidious just enjoy torturing people with slavery.

[@robertsutton1295]

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” -1984

[@VainerCactus0]

@@robertsutton1295 Orwell was exactly right, the sick people just enjoy hurting. They've been in power for a very long time.

[@1_random_commenter]

Andor was such robust connective tissue for the Star Wars universe, it's incredible. Equally incredible is how Allen is better at describing these narrative throughlines than Disney is at creating them.

[@martinbowman1993]

I think that the Arthashasrta got it right when the Philosopher Kautilya said that governance isn't just about building an army and destorying your enemies, but it is about the social prosperity that an empire enshrines through marcoeconomic policies that facilitate the people to make themselves prosperous. The imperial industrial complex doesn't ruin an empire, It is the failure to build a habitat for the common Sophonts who don't want to just survive, but to thrive.

[@brianmoyachiuz905]

I hate how slavers exist when droids can do the better and without succumbing to injuries, revolting, needing food and water, and needing to rest I mean, sure, at first they're expensive, but they'll be saving money in the long run and can be easily reprogrammed to follow orders

[@HolyknightVader999]

What happens when the droids rebel?

[@brianmoyachiuz905]

​@@HolyknightVader999memory wipe, and maybe recycled

[@HolyknightVader999]

@brianmoyachiuz905 That's if you can catch the damn thing after it rebels.

[@moosemax6346]

@@HolyknightVader999 ¨restraining bolts to keep them in line and frequent memory wipes, otherwise they will develop an identity like R2D2, CP3O, Chopper or K2SO

[@HolyknightVader999]

@moosemax6346 More than a few droids got loose.

[@maltheopia]

Once again out here simping for Andor, but can you blame either of us? I just frickin' love this based-ass show. It takes one of the biggest potential plot holes not just with Star Wars but science fiction in general (i.e. why isn't the Enterprise entirely crewed by AIs) and makes it make perfect sense in the context of the Star Wars universe. The lack of automation is just another nail in the coffin for the galaxy being more about sustainable stagnation and inertia than advancement and wonder. So once again, Kreia was right, but what else is new?

[@UnswimmingFishYT]

Palpatine: The galaxy's greatest schemer and potentially most ineffective ruler.

[@ethanbird5399]

Another big to think about is that if the rebels took over say an at-at factory and freed all the slave workers they themselves couldn’t make weapons without slave labor. Plus busy working people don’t have time to start rebellions

[@dogofwar6769]

'It's the economy stupid' is something that a lot of people need to learn about today, but something so few of the people that need to know it are willing to accept.

[@dragonturtle2703]

I'm pretty sure the reason he didn't use more droids was because he wanted to make sure the work force and military was controlled by men of words and mind control force powers, not coders and automated factories.

[@EGRJ]

The big problem with slave labour is that you need guards, room, and board for them, which can be *more* expensive than traditional labourers. Plus the bad publicity if it gets out, in the Empire's case. With Atlantic slavery, a large motive was the fact that Africans were supposedly more resistant to tropical diseases, like malaria. One tradeoff? African slaves had low resistance to respiratory illnesses, especially in winter.

[@keith6706]

Another major reason for the African slave trade was the problem they realized when they tried to enslave local indigenous people: enslaved locals are, well, locals. They know the terrain, the environment, and the people, better than the enslavers did. African slaves were outsiders and didn't have those resources if they escaped.

[@EGRJ]

@@keith6706 The enslavers were usually other Africans, who sold the slaves on to Europeans. The Dahomey got rich and powerful off of doing precisely that. Which matches your point about home-field advantage.

[@keith6706]

@EGRJ They did it because they were getting paid for it. You pay someone to commit a crime, you're just as culpable. Please, stop the apologetics.

[@EGRJ]

​@@keith6706 No, I'd say the person who decides to actually commit the crime is most at fault. If you buy drugs from a dealer, it's not their fault they decided to sell drugs. If the cops caught you with those drugs, you would not get charged with drug dealing, and nobody would consider you a dealer. Africans took each other as slaves long before the Europeans showed up, just like many other cultures (including Europeans). And some North African slavers also raided Europe and enslaved Europeans directly; look up the Barbary Raiders. Over *three hundred years* of raids. If Euros are to mainly blame for providing a market, then they should also get credit for going out of their way to end the Atlantic and Barbary slave trades. I don't think it's wrong to identify who *actually* enslave others. You thought the Europeans were the enslavers, which is a common mistake. I used to make it myself. You only call it "apologia" because you care more about blaming Europeans than the actual enslavement. Seems pretty racist, against blacks and whites, and I say that as a non-American black guy.

[@moosemax6346]

From the clone wars there was massive stigma against droids in the entire galaxy. It was easier for them to exploit humans and force them to work rather than make new droids or robots to do the job, they would need to make a manufacturing line and repairs for the new robots they made, while they could easily to grab people from mid-rim and outer rim worlds for some made up offence like they did with cassian andor. His goal to control everything and make the Empire the only employer to work for gave his massive control over the people and if they are forced to work hard, they did not have time to rebel

[@janwitts2688]

Because degrading people is part of his enjoyment mechanism..

[@afunkymonke]

There's just something about the Ulaf + red arrow thta's just so funny to me

[@SomeTheorist9090]

Droids do need maintaince and the costs of the maintenance or at least people skilled enough to fix them may be much higher than picking up a random person on the street...

[@petersvancarek]

randomly picked man from street can't do work as well as rather simple assembly line

[@petefischer3820]

Happy Life Day!

[@RazSofer-xh3qs]

Played a lot of Victoria 3 to know having too much automation isn’t a good thing

[@isaackim7675]

“I’m just a tourist!” “Come on, Big nose! There’s about 140 of us waiting to be processed.” “Come on, you!” “Look at this Imp. No sense of humor.”

[@helohel5915]

Lots of prisoners... may as well put them to work A rather dumb idea tbh. Instead of prisoners doing labour because they are prisoners, they did prisoners doing labour for the labour's sake. At that point, automation is key...

[@reginaldshort8486]

Not only did Palpatine increase the wealth disparity between the Core and Outer Rim but also among the species. A rebellion where the majority of its members were ranged from destitute to low income was predictable

[@CloneScavengerVulpin8389]

Another possible reason the empire used slave labor was probably the same reason the zygerrians still practiced slavery. To quote anakin: "It makes them look wealthy and powerful."

[@willadeefriesland5107]

Love the video, but old 'Palps' watching over your shoulder is creepy... 😬

[@JMPT]

Very Nice 🏭

[@justincameron9661]

Thoughts on the decraniated from rouge one

[@theliato3809]

They wiped out the geonosians who combined both

[@GGBlaster]

At the end of the day, it all comes down to needs. If your people feel their needs aren’t being met, they will protest, they will riot, and they will rebel.

[@griffinchauvin2267]

Oui

[@bobsmith1313]

So would going 40k servator be a better compry

[@MarkDelong-w9x]

Why were shoretroopers always given e22 blasters and not just e11 blasters

[@dylaneagen880]

The same reason why they farm moisture on Tatooine instead of harvesting in the solar system or other areas around the galaxy.

[@johnpatz8395]

Actually I think the Empire shared considerable similarities with the droid army in that they viewed everyone but the leaders as disposable

[@nolan9949]

I like generation tech but I don’t feel like he really engages the audience by liking and replying to comments. I find that important with a KZbinr I watch regularly

[@MarkDelong-w9x]

Since the empire is always military first what do you think should be put first?

[@ai-aniverse]

SW engineer here who disagrees that automation will replace actual coding jobs. If anything, it augments but it will be a long time before LLM's are capable of doing the work. Too many moving pieces involved in an actual product and not a shiny one off. Dont listen to NVIDIA's hype to sell GPU's. Or do...

[@robertlinke2666]

so if he had invested the short term boom from the MIC back into the high margin skilled sectors like tech and manufacturing he could have had his cake and eat it too

[@Ciangottino]

Palpatine was a terrible sith lord, other sith lords knew the value of loyalty starting from the common citizen, and they knew how great are the mandalorians as allies, during the galactic war the sith empire had an incredible economy and none of the problems the Palps empire has.

[@foxtrot-gamesandwit4475]

Amazing how they continuously lost to betrayal and their terrible living conditions coming back to bite them… It’s almost like worshipping evil is bad for a society who’d have ever expected that?

[@luisemoralesfalcon4716]

Maybe Palpatine fed upon the suffering of the masses, like big E with Psykers.

[@asaenvolk]

Honestly I think part of the suffering used by the Empire was intentional, it fed the Darkside, and thus Palpatine's personal power.

[@michaelsriqui7898]

This reminds me of the explanation given for why the Roman empire never industrialized. What incentive do people have to build machines when slave labor is available?

[@literalsarcasm1830]

The Empire wasn't meant to be efficient. It was meant to be scary.

[@mathiasbartl903]

The Empire uses droids to mount the pieces build by prisoners in Narkina on the death star. Issue is likely production bottlenecks and lack of capital for the massive Imperial buildup.

[@devo1977s]

Robots building robots = scary, Robbots designing robots + robots building robots = extermination😂

[@lerneanlion]

If the Empire can bypassed its own rules by using KX-series security droids, what stopped the Imperial elites from wanting to invest in the automation for the long term or having droids to work in the factories? P.S: Why the Separatist warships have the command chairs but the Republic and the Imperial ones do not?

[@r.connor9280]

Automate everything, displace the lower class, open military programs and government education training, then take the new workers and conglomerate them under new unions or military benefits Now you own the labor markets and the military functionaries in one fell swoop

[@dylankroll]

The Empires economy reminds me of Russia’s economy right no; being full blown war time (sans their gas exports). It’s not sustainable in any model, and I feel like I’m watching the rise and fall right here on planet earth. Thanks Alan as always.

[@GAJake]

Because Palpatine wants the galaxy to suffer. That's literally why, sith get off on suffering I guess.

[@FullLengthInterstates]

The one good thing about sentient labor is it is basically free capacity. People are going to exist regardless of whether you employ them or not. Using employment to "grow" the economy is just a very inefficient form of Keynesian economics, and when you do not have the cheap and highly automated supply to back it up, you end up with hyperinflation. Luddites rage against automation because they do not trust the rising tide to lift all boats, yet deflation as a result of rising unemployment and efficient automated processes is exactly the monetary conditions that allow a central bank to print money for direct universal payments - a far more efficient and equitable form of stimulus.

[@TCASAnalytics]

Wear city is that outside your Pimp Pad Stabbin' Cabin window?

[@daveonwheeler7412]

That bad huh

[@sundragon7703]

Automated manufacturing is not as big an economic force multiplier as manufacturing with sentient beings. With respect to the Star Wars universe, a credit is recycled in the local economy 6 or 13 times. For example, a credits paid to a laborer goes to the food vendor. (Prison economics also function this way, but with less wages or subsidies for the prisoners.) Food vendor credits go to the food vendor clerk and so on. At each step of the process, tax revenue is generated. Meanwhile, a credits made by automated manufacturing recycle through the economy fewer times in addition to a smaller credit pool due to less workers. (Automation benefits the corporation more. A sentient being economy benefits society.)

[@smartass0124]

Vaders second act was wipe out the banking clan

[@scottwhitley3392]

This is true for America as well. American manufacturing is notoriously low tech compared to Asia and Europe. Italy alone has more robots in manufacturing than the whole of the U.S. never mind adding Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands ect to that.

[@dellfire8826]

What if he did this because he know the Vong were anti machine and they would have the ability to take that on effectively so he tried to mass produce a organic army to counter them.

[@smartass0124]

No looks at overall general economic affects and actions of poor people. . Always blame those have.

[@BladeTheWatcher]

The goal of a good economy is to provide as high wealth as possible for as wide range of the society as possible. This leads to better welfare, less suffering, and eventually - the end of scarcity. Is this the goal of a Sith who has *absolute power*? Not at all. On the contrary - Palpatine wanted as wide suffering in his Empire as possible. Trillions of slaves either literally or practically. Poverty. Hunger. Disease. So - he made sure economy goes back to the *old ways*. Manual labor. As little energy production and consumption as possible. Fossil fuels. Mining planets instead of asteroids. It is easy to reach a level of development going backwards that the Galaxy can no more sustain its existing population, leading to hunger, wars, and general suffering. If this is familiar to you in our world, that is not a coincidence. The same can happen to us.

[@jonathanpruett7831]

Have a good day Allen back at again missing likes but I got ya today 😅

[@ryanedgerton9664]

Sorry, but you're forgetting something critical. Palps used organic labor because suffering feeds the Dark Side, and thus increases his power while diminishing the Light of the Force. Yes, good ol' Sidious was a head of state and all, but he was first and foremost a Sith -- once there were no major political or military obstacles in his way he had one goal: plumb the Dark Side for every secret and power he could and eventually make himself immortal. An immortal "all-powerful" godlike Sith need not fear the consequences of their economic choices because they can either use violence or patience to solve the problem, or even something more obscure like Sith alchemy and other obscure mysticisms. You've gotta remember that Palpatine's Empire was still built on the foundations of the Republic. It's entirely possible that the Empire was just a placeholder for a truer dominion he planned to eventually build from the ground up, hence why we see his callousness to the problems and shortcomings of the Empire as well as blatantly self-inflicted wounds like Operation Cinder.

[@hadeshades2365]

9:43 greetings to your girlfriend/wife and baby in the window reflection. Hope you re all doing well.

[@candicabaniss2560]

I always assumed that there was something about human judgement in the process that 'droids could not do. Read about how Marines defeated an AI.

[@smartass0124]

Why make the machines sentient is it just a side affect of advance processing power even to animal level

[@joeyfish5]

Look at glock. Even in the military market they knew they wouldnt make alot of money so they knew if they sold their guns at cost to police and military which wouldnt of gotten them much at even inflated prices tbey would be able to use the branding and recognition of being your local cops gun to dominate on the civilian market. And they certainly did for a long time if not to this day. Their lack of meaningful updates and innovations still hasnt hampered them to be one of the first guns anyone would know and thats an advantage if that person ever went into a store.

[@smartass0124]

I thought sense he was playing both side who ever would win he would so if separatist would have won. The empire would be stronger. But turns out most of separatist want be left alone. But the Republican were manipulated to being what their not so why not manipulate the separatist

[@bigredwolf6]

The learn to code thing was not good intentioned. It was derogatory.

[@pyeitme508]

lol

[@ShawnWinters-bw5xm]

I’ve gone back through your videos you look at the logic you have. Explain to me how dooku didn’t have sith eyes because he didn’t turn himself over to the dark side. His liberal liberal use of sith lightning would argue that he must have.

[@Tripskiii]

that comment at 11:40 yikes, big yikes.

[@cookingonthego9422]

Dictatorships need their population emplyed. Most policies in dictatorship are geard to this. So, no to automation. It is important for people not to be well of so that they worie about everithing except goverment. So hard underpayed and long hour work is a must for dictatorship people to not have time energy or resources to do anithing stupid.

[@MadisonAtteberry]

Um.....yes but no. 'No' to automation so to keep people employed and their minds off other problems that could lead to rebellion. 'Yes' to automation as the Galactic Empire was a military driven society. By automating many jobs, that freed up income could be redirected into other areas, minus for cost of maintaining the robots of course, and for automating give tax breaks to the businesses that do. Part of that freed up income could be placed into the military, encouraging more people (in this case 'humans') to enlist, and give more incentive by a better chance at being promoted. Using the aftermath of the clone wars, and the fact the Hutt's were operating and enslaving people, as a double motive, of course make it look like its more of a problem then it already is, and all blamed on the clone wars and how big the galaxy truly is, would (to some degree) justify a large military, while some freed up resources will go to R&D to improve automation, education (again to 'some' degree) and medical, giving people more reasons to join.

[@Ionee-q4f]

you dont gotta build humans for cheap labor, just convict them of petty or non existent crimes and give them ridiculous sentences. Also isn't the empire pretty human-centric? and aren't droids not liked very much?

[@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem]

Droids aren't liked because Palpatine created a war which specifically made droids hated.

[@Ionee-q4f]

@@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem ya its why I don't get this video, maybe didn't get far enough in and it was clickbait tho

[@arroganceygo]

Having a production team for your production team does not sound productive. At some point you would have to have biological work, just farther down the line.

[@zogar8526]

"It's the economy stupid." Correction. It's the perception of the economy. As we just found out. Lies are enough. Sad, but true.

[@SCAR16L]

So gas didn't go from ~$2 to almost $4? Bacon isn't $8.99 a pound for the store brand? Flour and eggs didn't double, or more? Milk didn't increase in price by more than 40%? You want to talk about lies, and then you come at us with this utter shit. People going back to work after the govt forced their employer to close does not equal jobs being created. People working two jobs plus delivering for Door Dash, and still not having any kind of benefits, doesn't mean the economy is healthy and unemployment is low. You're as bad as King George the Bush 2 re-classifying fast food jobs as "manufacturing" so he could say that the US gained X thousand manufacturing jobs during M month of 2006.

[@zogar8526]

@SCAR16L exactly the crap lies I am talking about. Low prices under trump were only there when everything was shut down because of the pandemic. Pre pandemic prices were high, and the economy was decreasing at an alarming rate. Inflation is a world wide thing, it hit the entire world because of covid. Which did cause prices to go up. America was initially hit harder purely because of trumps massive mismanagement of the pandemic. However, under Biden and Harris, America has seen the strongest recovery in the entire world. No, we aren't perfect yet. Yes, things are hard. But things have improved. And we've improved faster and more then any where else in the entire world. You lot decided it would be a good idea to vote back in the guy who inherited the strongest economy America has ever had, and in 3 years managed to completely stop all it's growth and over see it decreasing. Instead of reflecting the administration that inherited the weakest and most broken economy in American history other then the great depression, and who managed to turn it around, and bring us from the brink of total collapse. Leading the best recovery in the world. You better hope Trump doesn't actually do any of what he has promised. If he does any of it, we will see a crash even harder than with covid. Even if he doesn't do any of his insane ideas, he will stop our recovery and start us into a recession again. Seriously, try actually looking into things. Not just listening to dear leader. As for jobs, more lies on your part. All jobs lost to covid were recovered by 2022, and since we've still had over 8 million more added. More than any other president. But even leaving that aside, yes, overseeing the recovery and regaining those jobs does count. Trump lost them with his ineptitude, Biden got them back. Pretty simple.

[@zogar8526]

@SCAR16L you are truly detached from reality, it is sad to see. But you prove my exact point by spewing nothing but lies with no basis in truth. Seriously, grow up, learn how reality works, and enjoy the ne t crash Trump causes. He already caused one, he will cause another. Pathetic.

[@Idkidkidk716]

Anyone who watches this channel knows how incompetent the empire is.

[@petersvancarek]

Robots are unnecessary. Empire became backward unable to build cheap production lines we here on earth can build. Imagine we wanted to to build lithium batteries by hand. Or microprocessors or motherboards. One replaced work and advance leads to new more specialized workplaces to be created. Advanced civilizations turn to service economies. Not to slave labor which is rather high cost and high risk enterprise. You need to keep workers alive and well, and still the quality of work is lower than if standardized assembly line does it.

[@ascensionindustries9631]

You need a new mic. That thing just looks wierd.

[@smartass0124]

Unions hold back objective social civilization progress. To hold out dated jobs

[@vladioanalexandru4222]

Your microphone sucks

[@weeklyfascination]

First

[@thesussyface5047]

Raio

[@722Leistung]

Trump 2024-Forever