People forget that ‘efficient’ in a capitalist sense means that all resources are used. So when you privatize security, prisons, public transport, etc. guess what happens: those companies try to extract as much value as possible and do as little as possible. Because that is what capitalist efficiency is.
This has been tried and tried again, and it never catches on. Computer interfaces that are completely detached from physical 3D space are just much more flexible and easy to use.
They also seem to think that continually spending money to do mundane things in a virtual world is not a problem for regular people who actually have to watch their spending.
If computer interaction benefited from being more ‘like reality’, then Microsoft Bob or any of the countless other attempts to create a reality- and/or 3D-based computer interface, would have caught on long ago.
Sums it up nicely 👍
I think I heard a story like this on This American Life. Story was from the perspective of the driver. He thought he was picking up his Grindr date and realized after a short while he was wrong. Kept up the act, even made up a whole backstory about why he was an Uber driver.
So, like bicycles? Afaik we don’t exactly understand why they stay upright.
Yeah, not everything is super utilitarian. The other day we were in Antwerp’s old harbor, which has these big open hangars. The roofs and pillars are pretty ornamental, and these are basically 19th century industrial buildings. Built today they would be all straight lines and flat panels.
I think it’s cool if people imagine a future that’s not just about technological progress but also culturally very different and even disturbing. I think Dune does a fairly good job at that.
You can’t sue scissors. They have deep knowledge of the law.
Amazed that I had to scroll down this far to read this. Capitalism does not magically create a fair society through the creation of value (which seems to be what its proponents keep saying: investors generating economic activity and wealth). But similarly you could have a socialist economic system, with no real democracy. Which, as we’ve seen, devolves into a corrupt oligarchy. We’ve seemingly lost this perspective in the decades since WWII, but a solid representative parliamentary democracy and separation of powers are the best way to create and maintain a fair society. It requires some other conditions too, like good education, free press, etc. but the core is a system where power is distributed and temporary, depending on democratic processes (elections). This democratic legitimacy is what we should be defending at all costs, imho. It’s not sexy, though.
An irrational fear of suddenly using all of it up. Before they got their phones, we drilled it into them to be conservative in their data usage. It’s not that they complain that they have too little data, or how annoying it is that they have to leave it switched off to conserve it, they somehow are convinced that it is pointless to leave it on. We have mentioned numerous times that we’d be fine with upgrading their data plan, but they don’t want to. It’s like us in the nineties dialing into our ISP to download e-mail. Weird. Cheap. But weird.
I send SM’s to my kids when they’re on the go, as they religiously disable gsm data and only use wifi, which means they regularly don’t get my WhatsApp messages.
Before they got their own smartphone I was scared that their data plans would cost me an arm and a leg, but it turns out they’re extremely stingy with their data 🤷♂️
Can’t have manslaughter without laughter.
A requirement to answer a message within the hour 24/7 seems very strict for a paid job, never mind a volunteer moderator doing this stuff for free.
Imagine being so douchey that, despite relying on free content and free moderation, you still whine about not being profitable being the users’ fault and then you demand from moderators that they are basically available 24/7 to take your call. This is not just a dumpster fire, this is throwing canisters of gasoline into a dumpster fire.
Early 2000s Internet is like 90s Internet but with more bandwith and CSS.
I once racked up a ~€500 phone bill by dialing into US-based BBS’es. My parents were furious.
It would be normal for ISP’s to give you some free webspace to build your own site, that’s how perfectly ordinary it was assumed to be for regular people to be having their own self-hosted sites.
There’s a place in the world for Reddit too. It’s grown so hostile the past few years, like I’ve actually had anxiety from it, and I’m a perfectly rational person.
In my experience, this depends on the subreddit. The very big/popular ones tend to be the most toxic, whereas the more niche/nerdy ones are friendlier.
In these past few days, it did surprise me how many people just expect their free content and free moderation and don’t even want to be slightly inconvenienced or show support.
Efficient at using up all resources and extracting as much value from them as possible.