>f one thinks that some corporation--any corporation--owes "faith" or loyalty to their customers
If you don't think it is well past time to start forcing ethical behaviour on corporations... I don't know what to say to you.
I notice a certain country is fast tracking them to have human rights, like civic voting, but nothing at all about joining in responsible stewardship for our world.
>Lead pipe but instead of a dozen people in the pipe factory it's a few hundred
You haven't been in a factory lately, or toured one from 100 years ago?
Its exactly opposite to how you say. Mechanization slimmed the employee count, then automation did it again, then again with everything going digital.
This is seen in all sorts of industries.
The plant I work in has loads of empty offices, former machine shops bereft of millwrights/used for storage), and only half the lockers in the change room are claimed, and that's after they carved out a locker room for female employees. And that's only a 50 year old place.
One night I was working alone, and the site labour supervisor was the only person I saw all night, as he stopped in a few times to check on how I was doing. I asked him how many people he had on site, and he said about 30, including he and I. Since then, when I work nights, I check up on people too. Its a big place. The population swells during the day, but most of it is contractors(like me) and office personnel. But the plant runs 24/7, as much as possible.
I've worked nights in another part of the plant, in finishing/warehouse/loading, and there's about seven people there overnight (and the same during the day), and only one (me) doing actual physical labour(and not hard stuff at all). Because product is mechanically wrapped, packaging is machine counted and printed these days, not hand lettered, moved around via conveyor and forklift, and loaded for shipping with machinery. Even closing the rail car doors is done with a machine.
Even 50-100 years ago, the world ran much more on muscle power and human eyes, and many more employees were needed.
>Could they prove that I copied that single line from them? Would anyone care?
A year from now, you could decide to write something, and the obvious appears in your mind, and you type it out. It just happens to be identical to a line that you've read from a licensed document.
Did you copy it? Were you inventing, or remembering? Did you copy/paste from your own mind? Should you attribute the one who lugged the block of marble last year? What about last week? Everything you'll ever think is informed by everything you've thunk before.
This is a good reason for the law to not care about small things.
Most people's internal alarm for self preservation starts yelling long before endurance is truly tested. Nobody sprints for 24 hours, but I am certain that even the average couch potato can keep walking for 24 hours. They'd be hurting after, of course. From learning to jog, I can attest that it mostly about willpower, and I suppose, desperation at times.
In death marches, such as in WWII, even many starving prisoners, walking from dawn to dusk, with beatings, lasted for days on the trail.
The Americans and Filipinos on the Bataan Deathmarch are one example:
>The total distance marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to various camps was 65 miles long.
For the British there was The Burma Rail:
>Camp Nong Pladuk was initially used as a transit camp from where the prisoners were transported or had to walk to work camps along the Burma Railway.
And of course, the Jews and other victims of the Nazis were often force marched.
My great great grandmother returned to her Volga German village in Russia after the rise of the Soviets, was arrested, sent to Siberia, where she worked in a camp for 7 years until her death from malnutrition and other neglects. And she was a grandmother at the time.
> Most people's internal alarm for self preservation starts yelling long before endurance is truly tested. Nobody sprints for 24 hours, but I am certain that even the average couch potato can keep walking for 24 hours. They'd be hurting after, of course. From learning to jog, I can attest that it mostly about willpower, and I suppose, desperation at times.
I'm not disputing this, but the response was that humans can't generally outrun a horse. Which is true. The average human will not be able to outrun the average horse.
> How long does it take to train for marathon?
Most marathon training plans range from 12 to 20 weeks. Beginning marathoners should aim to build their weekly mileage up to 50 miles over the four months leading up to race day.
So even untrained couch potatoes could learn in 4 month to run a marathon. (And indeed many do and test themselves that way.)
If you don't think it is well past time to start forcing ethical behaviour on corporations... I don't know what to say to you.
I notice a certain country is fast tracking them to have human rights, like civic voting, but nothing at all about joining in responsible stewardship for our world.