9 ms·

The Shut-In Economy (2015)

52 points by ASipos 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cousin_it 10y ago
A couple months ago I asked this question on Reddit: > Does anyone have ideas how to write a utopia that would fulfill people's need to be needed by each other, rather than just their material needs? And got an amazing response from user "fubo": > Cross OKCupid with TaskRabbit: the AI tells you what favors to do for people to get you to love each other. I wish the internet would grow into something like that, instead of making people more isolated under the guise of "social", "sharing" etc.
- jordanb 10y ago
  That transactional view of love is exactly the sort of technomyopia I would expect from the HN crowd.
  - FLUX-YOU 10y ago
    What's weird is you could probably find people to buy into that model on both sides, making it completely valid.
    - 1337biz 10y ago
      Isn't that called a sugar daddy/mommy relationship?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    So why are you here? To laugh at people looking for solutions to problems using well-defined means, as opposed to continuing in the usual ambiguous, gut-feeling-driven thinking? I for one like this kind of "technomyopia", because it works off a framework that lets humans eventually figure things out.
    - edmccard 10y ago
      >So why are you here? To laugh at people looking for solutions to problems using well-defined means... No, to laugh at people who think that because they have a hammer, that every problem is a nail, and maybe also the people who believe that the analogy is really really true, so long as you're using the magic hammer of technology.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        If you know of any other effective way of solving problems other than applying broadly understood science and technology, please share. You may save the world and win a few prizes with that.
        pjc50 10y ago
        Social problems tend to require a different, fuzzier toolkit that involves emotional labour. Especially when you're working with areas that are not broadly understood. You're starting from the assumption that only those types of solution are valid, whereas most social change is neither scientific nor technological but word-driven and operating in the emotional domain. Starting from the assumption that every worthwhile problem must have a scientific or technical solution is exactly the hammer looking for nail that comments here are complaining about.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        I'm not arguing that emotions are to be ignored, or that the area is understood. It's not. But still, science is literally, if broadly, defined as the method of figuring things out that actually works. Maybe the OP was just meaning to criticize the app idea, but the way they wrote, it looks like a general criticism of technology as a problem solver - criticism I believe is naïve and unwarranted. > most social change is neither scientific nor technological but word-driven and operating in the emotional domain I disagree with that, but that's a longer discussion about technological determinism.
        edmccard 10y ago
  - malux85 10y ago
    It would have to be atomic, isolated and consistent.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    As opposed to biomyopia, where love just magically arises from ether and happiness and babies are created, without regard for anything else.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  Social acceptance has never been easy. You either have to submit to the tyranny of group identification, or go forever lonely. People are looking for a magic solution, something that will allow them to find love and acceptance without actually being forced to give any back. It doesn't matter whether you're joining an 18th century gentleman's club or looking for a healthy relationship. Love and acceptance comes from understanding and meeting the other's emotional needs. If you think about what it takes to actually do that for another person, you'll find out why people watch rom-coms. Meeting someone else's needs feels like living under a dictator.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >You either have to submit to the tyranny of group identification, or go forever lonely. I think the solution to that is to have more group identities and subcultures, and better ways to discover them.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      Won't make the act of submitting to group identity any easier. You can already go online and find any number of identities, from chainsaw enthusiast to Sonic the Hedgehog furry. If you want one, you can find one. Most people who are lonely don't.
- pjc50 10y ago
  That's turning interpersonal relationships into romance quests. That's an especially terrible idea. > I wish the internet would grow into something like that That could be great, but how would it be paid for?
  - r1chard5mith 10y ago
    Advertising.
- Aaargh20318 10y ago
  > Does anyone have ideas how to write a utopia that would fulfill people's need to be needed by each other What if you don't have a need like that ? The only reason I wouldn't sign up for a one-way trip to Mars is because they would probably want to send other people too.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  For me, a key piece of friendship is that you don't have to track favors. There is always going to be c an imbalance, but being aware of it can only harm.
FussyZeus 10y ago
I never considered myself either a social butterfly or an outdoors person in any capacity beyond an occasional bike ride, but compared to a lot of SF dwellers, apparently I am. I cannot imagine paying such exorbitant sums to live in a tiny ass apartment and have all my worldly needs delivered to my door so I can sit and do whatever until the next time I had to leave my house. This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it. Grass looks greener on the other side, I guess. I definitely wouldn't be fine spending shit ton of money for small apartments, but that's unrelated to being "shut in", which is something I find more and more appealing. I guess between spending most of my days in an open-office workplace and an active relationship, I'm just getting tired of other people. I find myself dreaming more and more often about a week away from human interruptions. Just me, pen, a notebook, stack of books and a laptop with good Internet connection. I have a lot of thoughts to sort through that I can't because there are other people around me, and I can't focus.
- Aaargh20318 10y ago
  > This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it. It sounds like paradise to me. Interacting with people is horrible, humans are unpredictable and interacting with them is like playing with a live hand grenade that can go off at any moment. It's just so super stressful to be around humans. It's also super exhausting, after a day at the office I can do little more than sit in front of the TV like a zombie while I'm perfectly fine after a work-from-home day.
robynsmith 10y ago
I started reading this and experienced deja vu. After a few minutes, I realized I read and thought heavily about this before. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
While the article certainly does highlight some disturbing trends, it reads like a hit piece against Silicon Valley. It focuses on a very narrow slice of the population that uses these apps. It appears she didn't visit a co-working facility or even a coffeeshop as research. That would go against her narrative of the anti-social, nerdy shut-in. She also neglects to talk about the costs of commuting, namely that the longer the drive one has, the more likely they are to have higher levels of obesity, cholesterol, pain, fatigue and anxiety. For those with mid to low incomes, commutes can eat up 9% of one's income. They are also adding to gridlock and pollution. The article only looks at a small cross-section of what appears to be anti She declines to write about the benefits of being a remote worker. The digital nomad movement is the diametric opposite of a shut-in. Parents of newborn children who work remote now get to be around their children instead of shuttling them off to daycare. These services sound awesome. I don't like doing dishes, washing my clothes, or cleaning my apartment. I don't see any virtue in doing mindless labor that I personally find annoying at best. If I want to do something repetitive that doesn't require higher cognitive abilities, I exercise. It has the benefit of clearing my head/bringing mindfulness. Isn't that the point of technology? I, personally, have cut down drastically on driving. I am no longer adding to gridlock or spewing pollution into the air. I'm much healthier since I cook for myself more often and I exercise more. I love the flexibility it gives my life. I don't have to take a vacation day for mundane errands like going to the doctor, going to court, picking up a friend or relative from the airport, etc. I've more hobbies and explored more interests in one year of remote work than I did the previous 10 years. The greatest benefit is that it makes me MORE social. I get to see the people who are important to me in life the most and not spend most of my social time with people who I' am lukewarm about. I just didn't have any energy or motivation to do anything but veg out in front of the TV when I drove home through LA traffic from work. The one downside I was that I found myself consuming more cable news/infotainment. This raised my level of righteous indignation and more and more of my conversations started to become intense debates with my positions formed by emotional responses. However, I fixed this by not watching as much Bloomberg and avoided media intended to cause outrage. As a number of these services will be automated in the future, her conclusion that we are headed towards a stratified society with on-demand workers being reduced to servants in the Guilted Era is just flat out wrong. I am fearful of the future stratification of society, but that's due to people being displaced from work and not the issues
SnacksOnAPlane 10y ago
Does anyone else actually enjoy going to the grocery store or walking to a local place to pick up food? What, exactly, are people doing that gives them so little free time that this is necessary? And why aren't people talking to each other? I seriously don't understand the mentality that working all the time is good for you. I find that I figure out solutions to problems I'm having not by banging my head against them all the time, but from relaxing, walking, running, biking, shopping, reading books, and all the other "non-productive" things that normal people do. Is Silicon Valley really like this? It sounds more like a dystopia than a utopia.
- flat6turbo 10y ago
  > Does anyone else actually enjoy going to the grocery store or walking to a local place to pick up food? i enjoy this also. the problem with food delivery is a lot of the time they forget something, or are out of something, or don't give you enough of something, so you end up going to the store. and delivered prepared food is always disappointing compared to cooking or going out. it also generates an absurd amount of waste. the only thing i really get delivered are products i can't buy locally, or without sitting in traffic for an hour.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Personally I love buying groceries. Sure it's a pain when you're tired and your fridge is empty but every visit to Wegmans is like a trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - at least until I see the bill. I just as much enjoy shopping at Aldi. There is a perverse glee in stuffing a shopping cart with enough food for two weeks and - like every time before - watching the bill fail to surpass $100. It's quite a kick in the pants to stay focused on budgeting. Shopping for food that I put in my body also reminds me that I am alive.
  - ionised 10y ago
    > Shopping for food that I put in my body also reminds me that I am alive. Surely having to drag yourself out of a warm, comfy bed should remind you of that every day?
- 10y ago
projektir 10y ago
This is a subject worth talking about, but the article is a bit all over the place. I'm not going to be easily convinced that chores are a blessed thing. I do think chores will eventually die out because their value is fairly low: they're mostly repetitive tasks that don't require much skill. Ask women from the time before the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine how they feel about the awesomeness of chores. If you want to know why something happens, look at incentives. Real ones, not the ones that you think should be true. Too often people have an ideal person in their head, and they assume all must act and think that way, so anyone who disagrees cannot really voice their opinion. Then a new solution comes out and a bunch of people rush to it. Or a new president. That demand was always there, it just was not allowed to be heard. If you don't want to hear it, it will catch you off guard. People work a lot. People are protective of their time. People don't want to socialize. People are forced to earn income through part time jobs. People don't like those other people over there. In my experience, rarely does anyone really care to know why, they just announce a judgment to make themselves feel better and move on. I don't think this Shut-In Economy development drives inequality. Rather, it's a consequence of it, and one of the examples of why inequality is bad, no matter how "objectively" well the less well off are doing. For the shut-in class, and for the serving class... and for those below. In a more fair society, elimination of chores would be driven by either shared work or automation, and it will benefit all, so we wouldn't be complaining about it and calling the beneficiaries entitled. But it would take a fundamental rejection of this style of economic affairs to get there.
noonespecial 10y ago
The article was mostly about the class lines being draw between the providers and receivers of these services. I agree that this is very important (especially politically) right at this very moment but I think it misses the long view. Eventually this stuff will be done by automation. If this trend continues unabated, a large part of the population is likely to go full Wall-E, especially as the tech moves the services down-market. That seems like a far more interesting conundrum than a few rich and privileged folks trying to bring back Victorian era house-help with their mobile phones.
ExpendableGuy 10y ago
Worth noting -- two of the startups mentioned in this article, Homejoy and Washio, are closed. Also, services that delivery groceries, cooked meals, or laundry/drycleaning are not new -- they were just given a facelift for a different consumer base. An article like this failing to mention that is a pretty big oversight imho -- it even trends into "back in my day..." territory. If anything, this new economy is correcting for the car-dependent "convenience economy" that was implemented over the past 30 years or so. The milkman was replaced by milk in every corner store. Diners and luncheonettes were replaced by take out and carry away. Catalogs were replaced by "big box" stores. It reminds me of the comparison of "head stuck in a newspaper" to "head stuck to a smartphone." Some people try and argue the latter is more egregious, but why?
beaconstudios 10y ago
so in summary, a place noted for a high concentration of tech-oriented introverts is full of people who like to be by themselves?

52 points by ASipos 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

A couple months ago I asked this question on Reddit: > Does anyone have ideas how to write a utopia that would fulfill people's need to be needed by each other, rather than just their material needs? And got an amazing response from user "fubo": > Cross OKCupid with TaskRabbit: the AI tells you what favors to do for people to get you to love each other. I wish the internet would grow into something like that, instead of making people more isolated under the guise of "social", "sharing" etc.

jordanb 10y ago
That transactional view of love is exactly the sort of technomyopia I would expect from the HN crowd.
- FLUX-YOU 10y ago
  What's weird is you could probably find people to buy into that model on both sides, making it completely valid.
  - 1337biz 10y ago
    Isn't that called a sugar daddy/mommy relationship?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  So why are you here? To laugh at people looking for solutions to problems using well-defined means, as opposed to continuing in the usual ambiguous, gut-feeling-driven thinking? I for one like this kind of "technomyopia", because it works off a framework that lets humans eventually figure things out.
  - edmccard 10y ago
    >So why are you here? To laugh at people looking for solutions to problems using well-defined means... No, to laugh at people who think that because they have a hammer, that every problem is a nail, and maybe also the people who believe that the analogy is really really true, so long as you're using the magic hammer of technology.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      If you know of any other effective way of solving problems other than applying broadly understood science and technology, please share. You may save the world and win a few prizes with that.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        Social problems tend to require a different, fuzzier toolkit that involves emotional labour. Especially when you're working with areas that are not broadly understood. You're starting from the assumption that only those types of solution are valid, whereas most social change is neither scientific nor technological but word-driven and operating in the emotional domain. Starting from the assumption that every worthwhile problem must have a scientific or technical solution is exactly the hammer looking for nail that comments here are complaining about.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        I'm not arguing that emotions are to be ignored, or that the area is understood. It's not. But still, science is literally, if broadly, defined as the method of figuring things out that actually works. Maybe the OP was just meaning to criticize the app idea, but the way they wrote, it looks like a general criticism of technology as a problem solver - criticism I believe is naïve and unwarranted. > most social change is neither scientific nor technological but word-driven and operating in the emotional domain I disagree with that, but that's a longer discussion about technological determinism.
      - edmccard 10y ago
- malux85 10y ago
  It would have to be atomic, isolated and consistent.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  As opposed to biomyopia, where love just magically arises from ether and happiness and babies are created, without regard for anything else.
vinceguidry 10y ago
Social acceptance has never been easy. You either have to submit to the tyranny of group identification, or go forever lonely. People are looking for a magic solution, something that will allow them to find love and acceptance without actually being forced to give any back. It doesn't matter whether you're joining an 18th century gentleman's club or looking for a healthy relationship. Love and acceptance comes from understanding and meeting the other's emotional needs. If you think about what it takes to actually do that for another person, you'll find out why people watch rom-coms. Meeting someone else's needs feels like living under a dictator.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >You either have to submit to the tyranny of group identification, or go forever lonely. I think the solution to that is to have more group identities and subcultures, and better ways to discover them.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    Won't make the act of submitting to group identity any easier. You can already go online and find any number of identities, from chainsaw enthusiast to Sonic the Hedgehog furry. If you want one, you can find one. Most people who are lonely don't.
pjc50 10y ago
That's turning interpersonal relationships into romance quests. That's an especially terrible idea. > I wish the internet would grow into something like that That could be great, but how would it be paid for?
- r1chard5mith 10y ago
  Advertising.
Aaargh20318 10y ago
> Does anyone have ideas how to write a utopia that would fulfill people's need to be needed by each other What if you don't have a need like that ? The only reason I wouldn't sign up for a one-way trip to Mars is because they would probably want to send other people too.
kazagistar 10y ago
For me, a key piece of friendship is that you don't have to track favors. There is always going to be c an imbalance, but being aware of it can only harm.

FussyZeus 10y ago

I never considered myself either a social butterfly or an outdoors person in any capacity beyond an occasional bike ride, but compared to a lot of SF dwellers, apparently I am. I cannot imagine paying such exorbitant sums to live in a tiny ass apartment and have all my worldly needs delivered to my door so I can sit and do whatever until the next time I had to leave my house. This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it. Grass looks greener on the other side, I guess. I definitely wouldn't be fine spending shit ton of money for small apartments, but that's unrelated to being "shut in", which is something I find more and more appealing. I guess between spending most of my days in an open-office workplace and an active relationship, I'm just getting tired of other people. I find myself dreaming more and more often about a week away from human interruptions. Just me, pen, a notebook, stack of books and a laptop with good Internet connection. I have a lot of thoughts to sort through that I can't because there are other people around me, and I can't focus.
Aaargh20318 10y ago
> This existence sounds awful and I don't know how people not only manage to do it, but aspire to it. It sounds like paradise to me. Interacting with people is horrible, humans are unpredictable and interacting with them is like playing with a live hand grenade that can go off at any moment. It's just so super stressful to be around humans. It's also super exhausting, after a day at the office I can do little more than sit in front of the TV like a zombie while I'm perfectly fine after a work-from-home day.

robynsmith 10y ago

I started reading this and experienced deja vu. After a few minutes, I realized I read and thought heavily about this before. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

While the article certainly does highlight some disturbing trends, it reads like a hit piece against Silicon Valley. It focuses on a very narrow slice of the population that uses these apps. It appears she didn't visit a co-working facility or even a coffeeshop as research. That would go against her narrative of the anti-social, nerdy shut-in. She also neglects to talk about the costs of commuting, namely that the longer the drive one has, the more likely they are to have higher levels of obesity, cholesterol, pain, fatigue and anxiety. For those with mid to low incomes, commutes can eat up 9% of one's income. They are also adding to gridlock and pollution. The article only looks at a small cross-section of what appears to be anti She declines to write about the benefits of being a remote worker. The digital nomad movement is the diametric opposite of a shut-in. Parents of newborn children who work remote now get to be around their children instead of shuttling them off to daycare. These services sound awesome. I don't like doing dishes, washing my clothes, or cleaning my apartment. I don't see any virtue in doing mindless labor that I personally find annoying at best. If I want to do something repetitive that doesn't require higher cognitive abilities, I exercise. It has the benefit of clearing my head/bringing mindfulness. Isn't that the point of technology? I, personally, have cut down drastically on driving. I am no longer adding to gridlock or spewing pollution into the air. I'm much healthier since I cook for myself more often and I exercise more. I love the flexibility it gives my life. I don't have to take a vacation day for mundane errands like going to the doctor, going to court, picking up a friend or relative from the airport, etc. I've more hobbies and explored more interests in one year of remote work than I did the previous 10 years. The greatest benefit is that it makes me MORE social. I get to see the people who are important to me in life the most and not spend most of my social time with people who I' am lukewarm about. I just didn't have any energy or motivation to do anything but veg out in front of the TV when I drove home through LA traffic from work. The one downside I was that I found myself consuming more cable news/infotainment. This raised my level of righteous indignation and more and more of my conversations started to become intense debates with my positions formed by emotional responses. However, I fixed this by not watching as much Bloomberg and avoided media intended to cause outrage. As a number of these services will be automated in the future, her conclusion that we are headed towards a stratified society with on-demand workers being reduced to servants in the Guilted Era is just flat out wrong. I am fearful of the future stratification of society, but that's due to people being displaced from work and not the issues

SnacksOnAPlane 10y ago

Does anyone else actually enjoy going to the grocery store or walking to a local place to pick up food? What, exactly, are people doing that gives them so little free time that this is necessary? And why aren't people talking to each other? I seriously don't understand the mentality that working all the time is good for you. I find that I figure out solutions to problems I'm having not by banging my head against them all the time, but from relaxing, walking, running, biking, shopping, reading books, and all the other "non-productive" things that normal people do. Is Silicon Valley really like this? It sounds more like a dystopia than a utopia.

flat6turbo 10y ago
> Does anyone else actually enjoy going to the grocery store or walking to a local place to pick up food? i enjoy this also. the problem with food delivery is a lot of the time they forget something, or are out of something, or don't give you enough of something, so you end up going to the store. and delivered prepared food is always disappointing compared to cooking or going out. it also generates an absurd amount of waste. the only thing i really get delivered are products i can't buy locally, or without sitting in traffic for an hour.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Personally I love buying groceries. Sure it's a pain when you're tired and your fridge is empty but every visit to Wegmans is like a trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - at least until I see the bill. I just as much enjoy shopping at Aldi. There is a perverse glee in stuffing a shopping cart with enough food for two weeks and - like every time before - watching the bill fail to surpass $100. It's quite a kick in the pants to stay focused on budgeting. Shopping for food that I put in my body also reminds me that I am alive.
- ionised 10y ago
  > Shopping for food that I put in my body also reminds me that I am alive. Surely having to drag yourself out of a warm, comfy bed should remind you of that every day?
10y ago

projektir 10y ago

This is a subject worth talking about, but the article is a bit all over the place. I'm not going to be easily convinced that chores are a blessed thing. I do think chores will eventually die out because their value is fairly low: they're mostly repetitive tasks that don't require much skill. Ask women from the time before the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine how they feel about the awesomeness of chores. If you want to know why something happens, look at incentives. Real ones, not the ones that you think should be true. Too often people have an ideal person in their head, and they assume all must act and think that way, so anyone who disagrees cannot really voice their opinion. Then a new solution comes out and a bunch of people rush to it. Or a new president. That demand was always there, it just was not allowed to be heard. If you don't want to hear it, it will catch you off guard. People work a lot. People are protective of their time. People don't want to socialize. People are forced to earn income through part time jobs. People don't like those other people over there. In my experience, rarely does anyone really care to know why, they just announce a judgment to make themselves feel better and move on. I don't think this Shut-In Economy development drives inequality. Rather, it's a consequence of it, and one of the examples of why inequality is bad, no matter how "objectively" well the less well off are doing. For the shut-in class, and for the serving class... and for those below. In a more fair society, elimination of chores would be driven by either shared work or automation, and it will benefit all, so we wouldn't be complaining about it and calling the beneficiaries entitled. But it would take a fundamental rejection of this style of economic affairs to get there.

noonespecial 10y ago

The article was mostly about the class lines being draw between the providers and receivers of these services. I agree that this is very important (especially politically) right at this very moment but I think it misses the long view. Eventually this stuff will be done by automation. If this trend continues unabated, a large part of the population is likely to go full Wall-E, especially as the tech moves the services down-market. That seems like a far more interesting conundrum than a few rich and privileged folks trying to bring back Victorian era house-help with their mobile phones.

ExpendableGuy 10y ago

Worth noting -- two of the startups mentioned in this article, Homejoy and Washio, are closed. Also, services that delivery groceries, cooked meals, or laundry/drycleaning are not new -- they were just given a facelift for a different consumer base. An article like this failing to mention that is a pretty big oversight imho -- it even trends into "back in my day..." territory. If anything, this new economy is correcting for the car-dependent "convenience economy" that was implemented over the past 30 years or so. The milkman was replaced by milk in every corner store. Diners and luncheonettes were replaced by take out and carry away. Catalogs were replaced by "big box" stores. It reminds me of the comparison of "head stuck in a newspaper" to "head stuck to a smartphone." Some people try and argue the latter is more egregious, but why?

beaconstudios 10y ago

so in summary, a place noted for a high concentration of tech-oriented introverts is full of people who like to be by themselves?