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It's so disappointing to see people going on tirades against these things for no good reason other than seemingly to fit in with the trendy new "anti-techbro" l

It's so disappointing to see people going on tirades against these things for no good reason other than seemingly to fit in with the trendy new "anti-techbro" luddite mindset. Automatic delivery robots and e-scooters are awesome. The future is awesome and we're living it and these people just want to be downers about it.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Scooters are awesome. Scooter companies intentionally not installing parking for their new scooters and encouraging people to abandon them in walkways is not awesome. Robots are awesome. A bunch of robots creating a hazard for people whether on foot or wheelchair is not awesome. It is tempting as a company to subsidize your "great idea" by making other people pay the cost. Capitalism is great, but abusing people and the system to make an easy dollar is distinctly not great.
- greensardine 5y ago
  [flagged]
yumraj 5y ago
> future is awesome and we're living it This sentence which I keep seeing again and again always confuses me, because it makes no sense whatsoever. Is this something new that people have started using to defend and assign value to things when they run out of logical arguments in their favor? I see it being used to support crypto a lot.
- psyc 5y ago
  I mean, I’ve felt that way since the Commodore 64 and the feeling has mostly only increased. When I was a kid, I assumed video phones would look like desk phones with a TV on top. I couldn’t have imagined they’d be wallet sized, and include an encyclopedia.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- fullshark 5y ago
  It's about signaling that they believe they are the vanguard and you are going to get left behind naysayer.
onion2k 5y ago
It's so disappointing to see people going on tirades against these things for no good reason other than seemingly to fit in with the trendy new "anti-techbro" luddite mindset. I understand that you are keen on the idea, but that doesn't mean every possible criticism is wrong. Dismissing potentially valid posts because you have an unfounded belief about the motivations behind them is not the best way to defend an idea.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Why should scooter companies and robots be allowed to be rude to humans? We live in civil society and electronic things made by companies have no more right to the sidewalk than anyone else. Is it an 'anti-techbro luddite mindset' or are unattended electronic devices being bad citizens? I would treat any other jerk on the street the same way.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  Maybe we need bigger sidewalks. This is historically how progress always happens, companies come up with something people want to take advantage of in the public space, then after the dust settles we accommodate it in an efficient way, like how NYC was a jungle of overhead wires for some time. The solution wasn't to ban electricity and telephones, it was to accommodate the need by investing in underground infrastructure.
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    Right, we need to share the space and not just take it over with electronics. Respect is a two-way street. I did not call for banning anything, I called for scooters and robots to be good citizens.
NoboruWataya 5y ago
The food delivery robots don't look that awesome, in fact they look really shitty compared to their human counterparts. E-scooters are good at what they do at least, but they can also be a major pain in the ass, as we can see here where they are discarded carelessly because parking them is evidently not the techbros' problem. It's awesome that technological progress is made, but that doesn't mean everything with a circuit board is awesome or we can't complain about technology when it causes stupid problems like these.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  > discarded carelessly because parking them is evidently not the techbros' problem You can't expect the scooter companies to spend 5-10 years partnering with the city and funding parking stations on every block before launching. This is historically how these things have to happen - thing comes out, has growing pains as it interacts with the public space, public space accommodates it. Cars came before traffic lights, bicycles came before bicycle lanes, electric power came before NYC's underground infrastructure, and I think it would be appropriate for cities to accommodate these kind of rental scooters and robot deliveries. People using these things will cause pressure for the city to accommodate faster than the infeasible top-down approach of having everything in place beforehand.
  - NoboruWataya 5y ago
    E-scooters aren't really as big a jump as those other things; they are just another way to travel on roads, not that conceptually different to bikes or cars. Traffic lights were pretty much an alien concept before cars became widespread, whereas sane parking is something we already have and expect of all other forms of transport. Many big cities have bike rental schemes where you have stations dotted around the city so I'm not sure why we couldn't expect the scooter companies to do something similar. At the very least force them to internalise these costs by fining them heavily whenever their scooters cause a nuisance, so that their incentives are aligned. I don't agree that the only way to have technological progress is to let tech companies do whatever they like while society picks up the bill.
lm28469 5y ago
Ignorance is bliss I guess. Private companies using public infrastructure to earn money (and usually not pay tax in said country) rubs me the wrong way to be honest. Not talking about the fact that users don't give two shits about where they park: in front of my building door, in the middle of the sidewalk used by old people / pregnant women, in the middle of the bicycle path Then we can talk about the newspeak term we use for this new trend, "sharing economy", which is as much about "sharing" as renting my flat to my landlord is "sharing" (ie. it's not, it's renting) We can also talk about the digitalisation of every single aspect of our lives. Want to move ? use your phone, want food ? use your phone, want to be distracted ? use your phone, want to date ? use your phone, you ran out of toilet paper ? use your phone, uncle Bezos got you covered Food delivery robots ? I don't even see the point to be honest. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem, just how lazier can we get ? If the future is half assed dumb pizza delivery toy cars being stuck behind badly parked glorified kids transportation devices idk what's awesome about it. It kind of sound like a comedy version of black mirror. I guess if you just stop your reasoning early enough all these new fancy/cheap/disrupting services are indeed awesome. You can trade money for convenience and forget about everything else. Just don't think about who profit from it, how it is rapidly and deeply reshaping our societies, &c. It's all about merchandising every single aspect of your life, but consume away, we're in Paradise !
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  >Private companies using public infrastructure to earn money That's what the infrastructure is there for. To be used. The food you ate today was probably transported on the interstate. The rest of what you said comes off to me like the ancient Greeks complaining books make you not have to memorize everything. Technology marches on and things become more convenient.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    > That's what the infrastructure is there for. To be used. By anyone who decides to ? With no regulations ? Nice, I'll open a BBQ stand in the middle of the crossroad next to my building then. Stopping for half a second to wonder where we're all collectively going might be a tiny bit more useful that what you insinuate, but I guess that makes me a turbo boomer. You seem to think that every new technology is by default "progress" and we should accept progress, because why not, hence every new technology should be accepted. I assume you're smart enough to see how that argument doesn't hold water. Technology doesn't just automagically happen, people make it happen, people with opinions, opinions which might not be aligned with other people's opinions and should be discussed. > things become more convenient. For who ? Not for the old woman with a cane who has to walk on the road to avoid the scooter on the sidewalk. Not for the "juicer" working all night to charge your e scooter for a few $. Not for the mom and pops shop who have to buy/rent/license amazon (or whoever) bots to deliver their food to customers through some third party app which takes a cut.
roughly 5y ago
They're awesome when people don't half-ass them. They're awesome when they don't cause piles of problems that any half-competent social scientist could've highlighted immediately but no engineer ever seems willing to consider. They're awesome when they show actual engineering prowess, and not just slapping the cheapest shit on the cheapest other shit, outsourcing maintenance and operation to the cheapest available labor, and then leaving the broken carcass behind to pollute the public roads because it's cheaper that way. They're awesome when they're not thinly veiled ways of concentrating capital put into a world in which people can't afford insulin because that would cause some concentrated capital to be dispersed. They're awesome when we're creating an awesome world, not when we're sprinting towards dystopia. It's a cool toy, don't get me wrong, but I'm an adult now and I'm aware I need to put my toys away myself because my mom won't do it for me anymore.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
baud147258 5y ago
e-scooters driven at full speed by (drunk) teenagers aren't that awesome when you have to share the same narrow sidewalks. Don't have anything against them when they're on the roads/bike lanes if available, though

vorpalhex 5y ago

Scooters are awesome. Scooter companies intentionally not installing parking for their new scooters and encouraging people to abandon them in walkways is not awesome. Robots are awesome. A bunch of robots creating a hazard for people whether on foot or wheelchair is not awesome. It is tempting as a company to subsidize your "great idea" by making other people pay the cost. Capitalism is great, but abusing people and the system to make an easy dollar is distinctly not great.

greensardine 5y ago
[flagged]

yumraj 5y ago

> future is awesome and we're living it This sentence which I keep seeing again and again always confuses me, because it makes no sense whatsoever. Is this something new that people have started using to defend and assign value to things when they run out of logical arguments in their favor? I see it being used to support crypto a lot.

psyc 5y ago
I mean, I’ve felt that way since the Commodore 64 and the feeling has mostly only increased. When I was a kid, I assumed video phones would look like desk phones with a TV on top. I couldn’t have imagined they’d be wallet sized, and include an encyclopedia.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
fullshark 5y ago
It's about signaling that they believe they are the vanguard and you are going to get left behind naysayer.

onion2k 5y ago

It's so disappointing to see people going on tirades against these things for no good reason other than seemingly to fit in with the trendy new "anti-techbro" luddite mindset. I understand that you are keen on the idea, but that doesn't mean every possible criticism is wrong. Dismissing potentially valid posts because you have an unfounded belief about the motivations behind them is not the best way to defend an idea.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Why should scooter companies and robots be allowed to be rude to humans? We live in civil society and electronic things made by companies have no more right to the sidewalk than anyone else. Is it an 'anti-techbro luddite mindset' or are unattended electronic devices being bad citizens? I would treat any other jerk on the street the same way.

jimmaswell 5y ago
Maybe we need bigger sidewalks. This is historically how progress always happens, companies come up with something people want to take advantage of in the public space, then after the dust settles we accommodate it in an efficient way, like how NYC was a jungle of overhead wires for some time. The solution wasn't to ban electricity and telephones, it was to accommodate the need by investing in underground infrastructure.
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  Right, we need to share the space and not just take it over with electronics. Respect is a two-way street. I did not call for banning anything, I called for scooters and robots to be good citizens.

NoboruWataya 5y ago

The food delivery robots don't look that awesome, in fact they look really shitty compared to their human counterparts. E-scooters are good at what they do at least, but they can also be a major pain in the ass, as we can see here where they are discarded carelessly because parking them is evidently not the techbros' problem. It's awesome that technological progress is made, but that doesn't mean everything with a circuit board is awesome or we can't complain about technology when it causes stupid problems like these.

jimmaswell 5y ago
> discarded carelessly because parking them is evidently not the techbros' problem You can't expect the scooter companies to spend 5-10 years partnering with the city and funding parking stations on every block before launching. This is historically how these things have to happen - thing comes out, has growing pains as it interacts with the public space, public space accommodates it. Cars came before traffic lights, bicycles came before bicycle lanes, electric power came before NYC's underground infrastructure, and I think it would be appropriate for cities to accommodate these kind of rental scooters and robot deliveries. People using these things will cause pressure for the city to accommodate faster than the infeasible top-down approach of having everything in place beforehand.
- NoboruWataya 5y ago
  E-scooters aren't really as big a jump as those other things; they are just another way to travel on roads, not that conceptually different to bikes or cars. Traffic lights were pretty much an alien concept before cars became widespread, whereas sane parking is something we already have and expect of all other forms of transport. Many big cities have bike rental schemes where you have stations dotted around the city so I'm not sure why we couldn't expect the scooter companies to do something similar. At the very least force them to internalise these costs by fining them heavily whenever their scooters cause a nuisance, so that their incentives are aligned. I don't agree that the only way to have technological progress is to let tech companies do whatever they like while society picks up the bill.

lm28469 5y ago

Ignorance is bliss I guess. Private companies using public infrastructure to earn money (and usually not pay tax in said country) rubs me the wrong way to be honest. Not talking about the fact that users don't give two shits about where they park: in front of my building door, in the middle of the sidewalk used by old people / pregnant women, in the middle of the bicycle path Then we can talk about the newspeak term we use for this new trend, "sharing economy", which is as much about "sharing" as renting my flat to my landlord is "sharing" (ie. it's not, it's renting) We can also talk about the digitalisation of every single aspect of our lives. Want to move ? use your phone, want food ? use your phone, want to be distracted ? use your phone, want to date ? use your phone, you ran out of toilet paper ? use your phone, uncle Bezos got you covered Food delivery robots ? I don't even see the point to be honest. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem, just how lazier can we get ? If the future is half assed dumb pizza delivery toy cars being stuck behind badly parked glorified kids transportation devices idk what's awesome about it. It kind of sound like a comedy version of black mirror. I guess if you just stop your reasoning early enough all these new fancy/cheap/disrupting services are indeed awesome. You can trade money for convenience and forget about everything else. Just don't think about who profit from it, how it is rapidly and deeply reshaping our societies, &c. It's all about merchandising every single aspect of your life, but consume away, we're in Paradise !

jimmaswell 5y ago
>Private companies using public infrastructure to earn money That's what the infrastructure is there for. To be used. The food you ate today was probably transported on the interstate. The rest of what you said comes off to me like the ancient Greeks complaining books make you not have to memorize everything. Technology marches on and things become more convenient.
- lm28469 5y ago
  > That's what the infrastructure is there for. To be used. By anyone who decides to ? With no regulations ? Nice, I'll open a BBQ stand in the middle of the crossroad next to my building then. Stopping for half a second to wonder where we're all collectively going might be a tiny bit more useful that what you insinuate, but I guess that makes me a turbo boomer. You seem to think that every new technology is by default "progress" and we should accept progress, because why not, hence every new technology should be accepted. I assume you're smart enough to see how that argument doesn't hold water. Technology doesn't just automagically happen, people make it happen, people with opinions, opinions which might not be aligned with other people's opinions and should be discussed. > things become more convenient. For who ? Not for the old woman with a cane who has to walk on the road to avoid the scooter on the sidewalk. Not for the "juicer" working all night to charge your e scooter for a few $. Not for the mom and pops shop who have to buy/rent/license amazon (or whoever) bots to deliver their food to customers through some third party app which takes a cut.

roughly 5y ago

They're awesome when people don't half-ass them. They're awesome when they don't cause piles of problems that any half-competent social scientist could've highlighted immediately but no engineer ever seems willing to consider. They're awesome when they show actual engineering prowess, and not just slapping the cheapest shit on the cheapest other shit, outsourcing maintenance and operation to the cheapest available labor, and then leaving the broken carcass behind to pollute the public roads because it's cheaper that way. They're awesome when they're not thinly veiled ways of concentrating capital put into a world in which people can't afford insulin because that would cause some concentrated capital to be dispersed. They're awesome when we're creating an awesome world, not when we're sprinting towards dystopia. It's a cool toy, don't get me wrong, but I'm an adult now and I'm aware I need to put my toys away myself because my mom won't do it for me anymore.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

baud147258 5y ago

e-scooters driven at full speed by (drunk) teenagers aren't that awesome when you have to share the same narrow sidewalks. Don't have anything against them when they're on the roads/bike lanes if available, though