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We've had an ok experience with instacart. I've tried to think of it sort of like ... when you stop at a little store in a small town before going camping, and
by davidw 6y ago
We've had an ok experience with instacart. I've tried to think of it sort of like ... when you stop at a little store in a small town before going camping, and there's not a great selection and it's kind of expensive. But you are happy to get some of the things you need, and it's ok if it's not perfect, because we're in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions.
That said, I'm really looking forward to doing my own shopping too. Sometimes stuff comes to mind that I didn't think of to put on my list, or I have an idea for a meal, looking at other things.
- irrational 6y agoOff-topic, but do you really view that "we're in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions"? I can think of a huge number of actual disasters of epic proportions (full-scale nuclear war, 100 kilometer asteroid impact, yellowstone super caldera explodes, an actual pandemic that has 99% effective death rate arises, etc.) The current situation seems pretty low-key compared to a real disaster.
- op00to 6y agoThe hundred thousand people dead and millions out of work in the US alone would like to have a word with you about your denial that the COVID-19 pandemic is not of epic proportions.
- irrational 6y agoI'd be happy to speak with them. It is a sad state of affairs, but in my book, a disaster of epic proportions is a large percent of the world population dying. It is a disaster of such proportions that entire nations collapse. It is a economic depression that lasts for generations. What we are going through right now is like a hangnail compared to your entire foot being ripped off. It is scary for the people most affected, but hardly a disaster of epic proportions.
- colejohnson66 6y agoI’m curious what you would call this situation then?
- irrational 6y agoA disaster. It's not epic, yet. Now if the virus starts mutating and we start getting a million death a day, then I'd definitely start calling it epic.
- perl4ever 6y agoI think you're ignoring the meaning and history of the word "epic". For one thing, it comes from a time when cities and armies were thousands instead of millions, and for another, it just never was based on some specific numeric scale. One description is: "...involving a time...in which occurred the extraordinary doings of the extraordinary men and women who, in dealings with the gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the moral universe for their descendants...to understand themselves as a people or nation"
- op00to 6y agoYou must be insane, not just because of your willingness to speak with the dead.
- colejohnson66 6y ago2,996 people are confirmed to have died in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and look at how the country reacted. Compare that to today where more than that die (just from coronavirus) every day. There’s now over five million dead people who are believed to have died from it. Not to get too off topic, but it’s very concerning that a very substantial portion of the (US) population is convinced it’s some kind of “hoax” being used for political gain.
- jimhi 6y agoI am not disagreeing this is an epic disaster but let's keep the facts straight. There are over five million people believed to be infected with Covid-19 counted. The confirmed death count is ~355k.
- colejohnson66 6y agoAh yes. Correct. My quick google search for a statistic shows 5 million something in the preview text with no detail and I took it for deaths. My bad. Still, that’s 100x 9/11, and people are saying it’s no big deal. That was my point.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago5 million is a huge and terrifying number. But the post you are responding to is clearly putting this in the context of WW2-like or worse numbers, where 85 million people died. That constituted 3% of the global population at the time, equivalent to 231 million people dead today.
- BurningFrog 6y agoNone of your "actual disasters" have actually happened. For most living Americans, I think you can make a fair argument that this is the biggest disaster in their lifetime. Though I'm open to give other candidates a fair hearing. Keep in mind that this one is far from over yet!
- davidw 6y ago> For most living Americans, I think you can make a fair argument that this is the biggest disaster in their lifetime. I'm in my 40ies, and while other things are more easily boiled down to a single image or two that get seared in your brain, like the Challenger exploding or the airplane hitting the second tower, there's simply nothing like it to have happened here in terms of the toll in human lives and myriad other secondary problems. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 was pretty massive in terms of the death toll, but it was more localized in an area far from anywhere I've lived, and if we're looking at the total number of deaths, COVID-19 is well ahead of it.
- irrational 6y agoI suppose part of it is my view is colored by my own experience. My governor totally shut down our state very early and still hasn’t really started opening it back up. Because of that we have had very very few cases. I don’t know of anyone that got sick, much less died. I very much live in a middle class neighborhood (receptionists, elementary school teachers, paramedics, mail men, etc.) but none of my neighbors or friends have been very affected by this pandemic. For most of us it has been like an extended vacation. I’m still working from home, but it is much different than going into an office. Frankly I’ll probably look back at this time as one of the high points of my life. Now if I lived somewhere like LA or NYC, my view of this time would be very different.
- davidw 6y agoIt's interesting how much all of this depends on some people's ability - or lack thereof - to look at and contemplate life beyond their bubble. I mean... I'll admit that when it was just something in China, I didn't pay a ton of attention. But when it hit Italy - a modern, wealthy country with great health care, and honest reporting... it was obvious that it was real, and serious. The image of the army trucks carrying away bodies from the hospital will stick with me for a long time. If you haven't been hit hard, you're lucky, and it's likely because things got shut down early.
- gdulli 6y agoA guy told me once he was so hungry he could eat a horse. Did he think I was stupid? I called him out on it, of course. Nobody tries to pull one over on me and gets away with it. I love being right!
- dorkwood 6y agoI'm not sure it makes a great deal of sense to plot everything on that sort of scale. That would mean we'd have to call earthquakes or hurricanes 'very small' disasters, and that doesn't seem right.
- bradknowles 6y agoOne of the big problems with InstaCart is that they own the relationship with the customer — all the store knows is that InstaCart shopper #76957831 bought certain items. That’s it. And InstaCart keeps your history, so if you want to buy those same items somewhere else that is cheaper, then InstaCart makes that easy. These are not problems for the customer, but they are problems for any store. Any store worth doing business with should want to fully own that relationship. InstaCart is also not tied into the back end inventory system. They know, from previous shopping trips they’ve done, what is commonly stocked where, and what might be low on stock. But they don’t know for sure until the shopper gets there and starts going down the aisle. So, a bad experience for the store, unless you really can’t do anything better. And not a great experience for the customer. HEB has recently started doing curbside service in our area. IMO, it’s much better than InstaCart. If they could hook that up with a delivery service, I think they’d have a goose that lays platinum eggs.
- davidw 6y agoI'd ditch Instacart if there were something better pretty quickly, but it's been a nice, low stress way to get food and essentials.