14 ms·

> I have no idea what the solution is. I think this is a case where legislation is a clear win. It should be illegal for manufacturers to gate core functionali

> I have no idea what the solution is. I think this is a case where legislation is a clear win. It should be illegal for manufacturers to gate core functionality of stationary appliances behind an internet connection. Appliances already have a legal definition in the U.S. so it's not a far fetched idea.

verisimi 5y ago
I don't think this legislation will happen. As part of the technocratic agenda, it is integral that all energy usage, water usage, etc is managed. For this to work, there needs to be 'kill switches'. Like the one's Biden has required new cars to have by 2025. Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. The green agenda is the main sales pitch given for this, but also look out for needing to log on to go online because of ... terrorists, Russian internet attacks, child abuse, etc. We are coding ourselves into dystopia.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Do... they? I follow a lot of people who I think you'd consider supporters of technocracy, and I've never seen anyone argue that it's good or important to have central monitoring of people's oven usage.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    They want to monitor everything. Smart electricity meters provide this functionality. Smart = spy. Eg, 'spy phones'.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      But you skipped right past the main part of my question. Who are "they"? Do you have a particular person or group in mind who thinks smart ovens are good because it's important to spy on everyone's oven usage? I ask because I'm worried you've fallen into a common rhetorical trap, conflating everything you don't like into a singular conspiracy and presuming that there must be some group somewhere who's dedicated to promoting it.
      - verisimi 5y ago
        You can read all about 'their' plans in many places. I would start at the WEF's web site. The only thing I would suggest, is that you consider that when they are talking about stakeholders etc, you need to realise that they are not talking about the people - they are talking from the perspective of companies. (You are the steak, they are the steakholders, lol.) The same companies that pay lobbyists to write legislation etc, for the governments that purport to serve the people. These companies are owned by someone - who they are, we can't know. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the ownership details are hidden by offshore tax-exempt vehicles, etc.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      Smart electricity meters seems very different to smart ovens. The state has a valid reason to be interested in your enter because they run the grid and need to manage load. They have no valid interest in what your running with that electricity.
      - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
        Wasn't one of the first things they used this data for was to find people with grow-ops in their basements?
        sobkas 5y ago
        > Wasn't one of the first things they used this data for was to find people with grow-ops in their basements? And in some cases instead of pot they found crypto mining rigs.
  - calumetregion 5y ago
    Please read all of Neil Postman's work immediately. It's much bigger than the oven. Thank you.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    And did you know that Elon Musk's grandfather was a top technocrat in Canada? https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-was-head-of-canadas-technocracy-movement/ https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-wa...
- ConceptJunkie 5y ago
  Everyone is so gung ho about all the companies that are throwing kill switches to Russia, and I'm just waiting for those same companies to start doing the same thing to anyone they want, for any reason. It's already happening.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    Happened in Canada not even that long ago, and many people cheered about that too.
    - hn_version_0023 5y ago
      I’m curious about the specifics here. Could you provide a link or summarize? Thank you kindly :)
      - _dain_ 5y ago
        They froze the accounts of people at the protests without due process, and passed legislation to let them to it to anyone who supported them "directly or indirectly". i.e. carte blanche to send anyone into digital/financial exile with no recourse. they repealed it soon after (I think), but the door is open for them or any other government to do it again.
        sangnoir 5y ago
        Seizing funds suspected to be linked to criminal activity during investigations (before any charges) is nothing new. Those who are being targeted today had no complaints 20 years ago when similar clauses where written into anti-terror/anti-terror-funding laws
        nyanpasu64 5y ago
        The problem isn't seizing donations, it's freezing the entire bank accounts of people connected to donations.
- sdoering 5y ago
  Let me be the one to challenge your claim of the enforced "Kill Switch" [0]. [0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-drivers/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-... Especially stating that this is an eco-agenda is imho either misinformation or willfully partisan.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    Its a control agenda. The eco-agenda is the provided pretext that will mean we willingly accept what is offered, in the name of saving the planet.
    - MrYellowP 5y ago
      Save the planet for the children!
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      "a control agenda" is one (landmine) label meant to represent a set of complex interactions; this kind of drastic oversimplification is daily fodder for politics, but literally destructive to actual fact-based inquiry leading to effective policy. Similar arguments have been made regarding product safety and hygiene requirements by "government" !
      - mindslight 5y ago
        Except that such all-or-nothing logic is completely appropriate when talking about security of computational domains. Taking a device that is supposedly mine and configuring it to work against my interests repudiates the idea that I am the owner of it. Rather than representing my interests, it is now an agent of someone else's top-down policy. And if enough people modify "their" devices to remove such restrictions, then there's a good chance that even more systems of control get deployed to prevent them from doing so.
        gkop 5y ago
        I was under the impression people are buying Teslas voluntarily, not because it’s mandated by the government.
- causality0 5y ago
  Even the most reasonable people can't make the argument when the direction is so wildly independent of reality. For example, water usage limits on dishwashers that make people run the cycle twice and end up using more water and more electricity than the old ones.
  - recursive 5y ago
    I find dryers are particularly bad at this. Mine has 5 levels of dry-ness. Even on "ultra dry" the clothes usually come out damp. So I run "ultra dry" twice. Lol.
    - dvtrn 5y ago
      I had a roommate who used to do this (thus sending our utility bill up along with some other power wasting habits), and I once asked them the question I'm about to ask now: other than for moments when you plan on wearing something as soon as it comes out of the dryer, what prevents one from using the normal dry cycle, and then letting whatever garments that don't get completely 100% dried-air dry in the closet or up on hangers on a shower pole or something?
      - hollerith 5y ago
        Mold will grow on damp cotton clothes -- not enough to see with the naked eye, but some people are more sensitive.
        wtallis 5y ago
        Also important: some people live in areas with higher ambient humidity than other areas. If you live in an area where swamp coolers are a viable option in the summer, then of course you'll have trouble understanding why some people don't see hanging up damp clothes to be a reasonable option.
      - recursive 5y ago
        When you put these in a drawer, they don't dry. They get moldy.
- omginternets 5y ago
  You're not wrong, but that's still what needs to happen.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Where in the bill does it mention kill switches for cars? https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684...
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    That's probably intended to refer to 24220.c, but overlooks that the "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology" prescribed for new cars 2025 and later is described in terms that are functionally identical to the driver awareness monitoring safety systems that already exist in high-end new cars right now.
    - JaimeThompson 5y ago
      Thank you.
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  > Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. You've spelt "Totalitarians" wrong. This is totalitarianism. This isn't just micromanagement. This is about total control. There's signs of totalitarianism all over the place, including US-culture itself. How kids are being raised. What they're being taught in school. How people behave towards each other.
- rolandog 5y ago
  >Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. From Collins English dictionary: "A technocrat is a scientist, engineer, or other expert who is one of a group of similar people who have political power as well as technical knowledge." I think you're conflating 'technocrats' with 'greedy people'. I'm not saying people with technical knowledge and political power cannot be evil. What I'm saying is it doesn't require any special skill to be really greedy.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Technocrat has a common usage beyond what that particular dictionary has written. For politicians, it often means one who has a strong belief in the benefit of ruling by data (regardless of the accuracy of that data) and making use of technology to achieve their goals. The politician does not need to be an expert in the data nor the technology used to rule in a technocratic manner. They are often advised by those who do meet the dictionary definition, though it is worth pointing out that technocrats are humans and subject to the same biases and ethical and moral failings as everyone else.
    - faeriechangling 5y ago
      I tend to see technocracy as rule by the scientifically trained, by technologists, by career civil servants, by industry, and by institutions. Technocrats gain their credibility as legitimate leaders from the approval of institutions like academia and industry in contrast to leaders whose legitimacy is directly based off of popular approval. Technocrats are often leading from behind the scenes and driving actual government policy despite being unelected. I don't see technocrats as having the same biases, ethical and moral failings as everybody else, I think they're rather unique on all those points, and this is at the very core of what is good and bad about technocracy. When I think of a classic technocratic decision, I think of Margaret Thatcher closing down coal mines while crushing any union resistance, a technocrat-approved decision, and it significantly aided the economic success of Britain under Thatcher. Yet it exacerbated inequality and divisions within Britain that persist to this day. The severity of this fallout was blindingly obvious to the average northerner but it caught the average technocrat off-guard (decades of political ill-will tends not to be part of models), whom still lack effective solutions to resolve the issue, and the issue will drag down Britain for quite some time.
Guthur 5y ago
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  If your government is broken you should fix that first. Our government is our collective strength designed to protect us from the vampire overlords and blood sucking squids.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Some things are fundamentally broken, not just in need of a patch. "Simply fix the government" is useless advice.
    - Angostura 5y ago
      Presumably you'd liek to repeal all consumer protection and environmental protection laws. Sheesh.
    - kalleboo 5y ago
      Not any less useless than "customers simply need to make better/more principled choices"
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. An individual choosing between two products on the shelf is much simpler than an individual changing government. For instance if I think scrapping the department of energy would make things work better, how can I get that done? I can't. It's impossible. If HP doesn't make a laptop I like however, I can buy a Dell.
        LordDragonfang 5y ago
        Besides the obviously classist implications of voting with your wallet (i.e. people with bigger wallets get more votes, vimes' boot theory, etc) we also already have evidence that it just doesn't work in this specific type of product. Go ahead and try going to Best Buy and getting a non-smart TV. You can't, because once one manufacturer comes up with a dark pattern, they all copy it. "Consumer choice" is an illusion for almost everything these days.
torstenvl 5y ago
Or prosecute a few of these people for treason. Let's not mince words here. When you build a home and include a backdoor for foreign intelligence, you are committing treason.
roenxi 5y ago
The first comment in this thread is proposing that there is a corrupting force working with builders to install smart ovens. Centralising power in a regulator isn't targeted at the actual problem, and creates a single point of failure that might well end up with smart-ovens becoming mandatory in new builds, where possible.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "end up with smart-ovens becoming mandatory in new builds, where possible." Oh for sure. To fight climate change(and dependence on russian oil and gas), we all have to get a smart oven, to make sure we are all using our energy in the most efficient way. And not too often. Let's say a budget of 1 moderate use per day per adult user. And if the grid gets too unstable, your oven might smartly switches off and on during baking, to help stabilize the grid.
  - soheil 5y ago
    > your oven might smartly switches off and on during baking, to help stabilize the grid I think you're being needlessly pessimistic. Consider a few points: 1. By the time any "smart" oven is mandated by law technology has probably moved ahead so far of where we are today that all the asinine intricacies people are complaining about have been remedied. Just look at how far wifi has come, only 15 years ago you couldn't imagine an office that could connect to the internet reliably without anything but RJ45 cables. 2. Read the comments on the internet from the 90s or early 2000s about almost anything and see how pessimistic everyone was about the future of new technologies. This is probably even more true of nerds who live on the cutting edge and see things at a closer range but also at a slightly skewed angle. 3. So what? Seatbelt laws induced the same type of reaction initially, but over time people adjusted, and no one even notices the annoying chime every car makes if you start it without putting on your seatbelt first and not to mention giving away your freedom not to wear them because we decided for you it would be in society's best interest to lower the cost of auto insurance. And now not just because it would be illegal not to but also because the societal norms dictate that you wear your seatbelt every single time.
    - 5y ago
e-clinton 5y ago
Thing is that internet access is considered a utility, so it’s not unreasonable to expect it. Just like you need gas to operate a stove.
- wtallis 5y ago
  Water supply is also considered a utility, but that doesn't make it reasonable for a stove to require a water connection.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Yet I could see the chain of events leading to a store requiring a water connection by government mandate. Stove usage increases the likelyhood of fire. Fire is typically controlled with water in residential settings. No water -> no stove by law.
    - wtallis 5y ago
      Water's not a good choice for dealing with kitchen fires, and even if it was, you already have water at the kitchen sink. Nobody's going to do a water-based automatic fire suppression system for residential stoves. There are just too many things preventing that idea from being reasonable or even tractable.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        Yes, I know what a grease fire is! I'm not saying the the idea is good from a technical perspective, rather, I'm suggesting a line of thinking that would not be atypical of a government regulation.
- moonchild 5y ago
  Gas is essential to the operation of a (gas) stove. Internet is not essential to the operation of any oven, even a smart one.
  - 5y ago
neycoda 5y ago
Good luck trying to convince our anti-government regulation-hating culture to demand sensible laws restricting corporate abuse like this. It's considered "free market" and "job creating" and "freedom" to be maliciously exploited by corporatists.

verisimi 5y ago

I don't think this legislation will happen. As part of the technocratic agenda, it is integral that all energy usage, water usage, etc is managed. For this to work, there needs to be 'kill switches'. Like the one's Biden has required new cars to have by 2025. Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. The green agenda is the main sales pitch given for this, but also look out for needing to log on to go online because of ... terrorists, Russian internet attacks, child abuse, etc. We are coding ourselves into dystopia.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Do... they? I follow a lot of people who I think you'd consider supporters of technocracy, and I've never seen anyone argue that it's good or important to have central monitoring of people's oven usage.
- verisimi 5y ago
  They want to monitor everything. Smart electricity meters provide this functionality. Smart = spy. Eg, 'spy phones'.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    But you skipped right past the main part of my question. Who are "they"? Do you have a particular person or group in mind who thinks smart ovens are good because it's important to spy on everyone's oven usage? I ask because I'm worried you've fallen into a common rhetorical trap, conflating everything you don't like into a singular conspiracy and presuming that there must be some group somewhere who's dedicated to promoting it.
    - verisimi 5y ago
      You can read all about 'their' plans in many places. I would start at the WEF's web site. The only thing I would suggest, is that you consider that when they are talking about stakeholders etc, you need to realise that they are not talking about the people - they are talking from the perspective of companies. (You are the steak, they are the steakholders, lol.) The same companies that pay lobbyists to write legislation etc, for the governments that purport to serve the people. These companies are owned by someone - who they are, we can't know. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the ownership details are hidden by offshore tax-exempt vehicles, etc.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Smart electricity meters seems very different to smart ovens. The state has a valid reason to be interested in your enter because they run the grid and need to manage load. They have no valid interest in what your running with that electricity.
    - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
      Wasn't one of the first things they used this data for was to find people with grow-ops in their basements?
      - sobkas 5y ago
        > Wasn't one of the first things they used this data for was to find people with grow-ops in their basements? And in some cases instead of pot they found crypto mining rigs.
- calumetregion 5y ago
  Please read all of Neil Postman's work immediately. It's much bigger than the oven. Thank you.
- verisimi 5y ago
  And did you know that Elon Musk's grandfather was a top technocrat in Canada? https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-was-head-of-canadas-technocracy-movement/ https://www.technocracy.news/shock-elon-musks-grandfather-wa...
ConceptJunkie 5y ago
Everyone is so gung ho about all the companies that are throwing kill switches to Russia, and I'm just waiting for those same companies to start doing the same thing to anyone they want, for any reason. It's already happening.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  Happened in Canada not even that long ago, and many people cheered about that too.
  - hn_version_0023 5y ago
    I’m curious about the specifics here. Could you provide a link or summarize? Thank you kindly :)
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      They froze the accounts of people at the protests without due process, and passed legislation to let them to it to anyone who supported them "directly or indirectly". i.e. carte blanche to send anyone into digital/financial exile with no recourse. they repealed it soon after (I think), but the door is open for them or any other government to do it again.
      - sangnoir 5y ago
        Seizing funds suspected to be linked to criminal activity during investigations (before any charges) is nothing new. Those who are being targeted today had no complaints 20 years ago when similar clauses where written into anti-terror/anti-terror-funding laws
        nyanpasu64 5y ago
        The problem isn't seizing donations, it's freezing the entire bank accounts of people connected to donations.
sdoering 5y ago
Let me be the one to challenge your claim of the enforced "Kill Switch" [0]. [0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-drivers/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-... Especially stating that this is an eco-agenda is imho either misinformation or willfully partisan.
- verisimi 5y ago
  Its a control agenda. The eco-agenda is the provided pretext that will mean we willingly accept what is offered, in the name of saving the planet.
  - MrYellowP 5y ago
    Save the planet for the children!
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    "a control agenda" is one (landmine) label meant to represent a set of complex interactions; this kind of drastic oversimplification is daily fodder for politics, but literally destructive to actual fact-based inquiry leading to effective policy. Similar arguments have been made regarding product safety and hygiene requirements by "government" !
    - mindslight 5y ago
      Except that such all-or-nothing logic is completely appropriate when talking about security of computational domains. Taking a device that is supposedly mine and configuring it to work against my interests repudiates the idea that I am the owner of it. Rather than representing my interests, it is now an agent of someone else's top-down policy. And if enough people modify "their" devices to remove such restrictions, then there's a good chance that even more systems of control get deployed to prevent them from doing so.
      - gkop 5y ago
        I was under the impression people are buying Teslas voluntarily, not because it’s mandated by the government.
causality0 5y ago
Even the most reasonable people can't make the argument when the direction is so wildly independent of reality. For example, water usage limits on dishwashers that make people run the cycle twice and end up using more water and more electricity than the old ones.
- recursive 5y ago
  I find dryers are particularly bad at this. Mine has 5 levels of dry-ness. Even on "ultra dry" the clothes usually come out damp. So I run "ultra dry" twice. Lol.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    I had a roommate who used to do this (thus sending our utility bill up along with some other power wasting habits), and I once asked them the question I'm about to ask now: other than for moments when you plan on wearing something as soon as it comes out of the dryer, what prevents one from using the normal dry cycle, and then letting whatever garments that don't get completely 100% dried-air dry in the closet or up on hangers on a shower pole or something?
    - hollerith 5y ago
      Mold will grow on damp cotton clothes -- not enough to see with the naked eye, but some people are more sensitive.
      - wtallis 5y ago
        Also important: some people live in areas with higher ambient humidity than other areas. If you live in an area where swamp coolers are a viable option in the summer, then of course you'll have trouble understanding why some people don't see hanging up damp clothes to be a reasonable option.
    - recursive 5y ago
      When you put these in a drawer, they don't dry. They get moldy.
omginternets 5y ago
You're not wrong, but that's still what needs to happen.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
Where in the bill does it mention kill switches for cars? https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684...
- crooked-v 5y ago
  That's probably intended to refer to 24220.c, but overlooks that the "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology" prescribed for new cars 2025 and later is described in terms that are functionally identical to the driver awareness monitoring safety systems that already exist in high-end new cars right now.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    Thank you.
MrYellowP 5y ago
> Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. You've spelt "Totalitarians" wrong. This is totalitarianism. This isn't just micromanagement. This is about total control. There's signs of totalitarianism all over the place, including US-culture itself. How kids are being raised. What they're being taught in school. How people behave towards each other.
rolandog 5y ago
>Technocrats want to (micro) manage everyone's usage of everything. From Collins English dictionary: "A technocrat is a scientist, engineer, or other expert who is one of a group of similar people who have political power as well as technical knowledge." I think you're conflating 'technocrats' with 'greedy people'. I'm not saying people with technical knowledge and political power cannot be evil. What I'm saying is it doesn't require any special skill to be really greedy.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Technocrat has a common usage beyond what that particular dictionary has written. For politicians, it often means one who has a strong belief in the benefit of ruling by data (regardless of the accuracy of that data) and making use of technology to achieve their goals. The politician does not need to be an expert in the data nor the technology used to rule in a technocratic manner. They are often advised by those who do meet the dictionary definition, though it is worth pointing out that technocrats are humans and subject to the same biases and ethical and moral failings as everyone else.
  - faeriechangling 5y ago
    I tend to see technocracy as rule by the scientifically trained, by technologists, by career civil servants, by industry, and by institutions. Technocrats gain their credibility as legitimate leaders from the approval of institutions like academia and industry in contrast to leaders whose legitimacy is directly based off of popular approval. Technocrats are often leading from behind the scenes and driving actual government policy despite being unelected. I don't see technocrats as having the same biases, ethical and moral failings as everybody else, I think they're rather unique on all those points, and this is at the very core of what is good and bad about technocracy. When I think of a classic technocratic decision, I think of Margaret Thatcher closing down coal mines while crushing any union resistance, a technocrat-approved decision, and it significantly aided the economic success of Britain under Thatcher. Yet it exacerbated inequality and divisions within Britain that persist to this day. The severity of this fallout was blindingly obvious to the average northerner but it caught the average technocrat off-guard (decades of political ill-will tends not to be part of models), whom still lack effective solutions to resolve the issue, and the issue will drag down Britain for quite some time.

Guthur 5y ago

jay_kyburz 5y ago
If your government is broken you should fix that first. Our government is our collective strength designed to protect us from the vampire overlords and blood sucking squids.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Some things are fundamentally broken, not just in need of a patch. "Simply fix the government" is useless advice.
  - Angostura 5y ago
    Presumably you'd liek to repeal all consumer protection and environmental protection laws. Sheesh.
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    Not any less useless than "customers simply need to make better/more principled choices"
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. An individual choosing between two products on the shelf is much simpler than an individual changing government. For instance if I think scrapping the department of energy would make things work better, how can I get that done? I can't. It's impossible. If HP doesn't make a laptop I like however, I can buy a Dell.
      - LordDragonfang 5y ago
        Besides the obviously classist implications of voting with your wallet (i.e. people with bigger wallets get more votes, vimes' boot theory, etc) we also already have evidence that it just doesn't work in this specific type of product. Go ahead and try going to Best Buy and getting a non-smart TV. You can't, because once one manufacturer comes up with a dark pattern, they all copy it. "Consumer choice" is an illusion for almost everything these days.

torstenvl 5y ago

Or prosecute a few of these people for treason. Let's not mince words here. When you build a home and include a backdoor for foreign intelligence, you are committing treason.

roenxi 5y ago

The first comment in this thread is proposing that there is a corrupting force working with builders to install smart ovens. Centralising power in a regulator isn't targeted at the actual problem, and creates a single point of failure that might well end up with smart-ovens becoming mandatory in new builds, where possible.

hutzlibu 5y ago
"end up with smart-ovens becoming mandatory in new builds, where possible." Oh for sure. To fight climate change(and dependence on russian oil and gas), we all have to get a smart oven, to make sure we are all using our energy in the most efficient way. And not too often. Let's say a budget of 1 moderate use per day per adult user. And if the grid gets too unstable, your oven might smartly switches off and on during baking, to help stabilize the grid.
- soheil 5y ago
  > your oven might smartly switches off and on during baking, to help stabilize the grid I think you're being needlessly pessimistic. Consider a few points: 1. By the time any "smart" oven is mandated by law technology has probably moved ahead so far of where we are today that all the asinine intricacies people are complaining about have been remedied. Just look at how far wifi has come, only 15 years ago you couldn't imagine an office that could connect to the internet reliably without anything but RJ45 cables. 2. Read the comments on the internet from the 90s or early 2000s about almost anything and see how pessimistic everyone was about the future of new technologies. This is probably even more true of nerds who live on the cutting edge and see things at a closer range but also at a slightly skewed angle. 3. So what? Seatbelt laws induced the same type of reaction initially, but over time people adjusted, and no one even notices the annoying chime every car makes if you start it without putting on your seatbelt first and not to mention giving away your freedom not to wear them because we decided for you it would be in society's best interest to lower the cost of auto insurance. And now not just because it would be illegal not to but also because the societal norms dictate that you wear your seatbelt every single time.
  - 5y ago

e-clinton 5y ago

Thing is that internet access is considered a utility, so it’s not unreasonable to expect it. Just like you need gas to operate a stove.

wtallis 5y ago
Water supply is also considered a utility, but that doesn't make it reasonable for a stove to require a water connection.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Yet I could see the chain of events leading to a store requiring a water connection by government mandate. Stove usage increases the likelyhood of fire. Fire is typically controlled with water in residential settings. No water -> no stove by law.
  - wtallis 5y ago
    Water's not a good choice for dealing with kitchen fires, and even if it was, you already have water at the kitchen sink. Nobody's going to do a water-based automatic fire suppression system for residential stoves. There are just too many things preventing that idea from being reasonable or even tractable.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Yes, I know what a grease fire is! I'm not saying the the idea is good from a technical perspective, rather, I'm suggesting a line of thinking that would not be atypical of a government regulation.
moonchild 5y ago
Gas is essential to the operation of a (gas) stove. Internet is not essential to the operation of any oven, even a smart one.
- 5y ago

neycoda 5y ago

Good luck trying to convince our anti-government regulation-hating culture to demand sensible laws restricting corporate abuse like this. It's considered "free market" and "job creating" and "freedom" to be maliciously exploited by corporatists.