6 ms·

I don't know about you, but Uber has significantly improved ride-sharing for me, along with countless other aspects of life such as government services, interpe

I don't know about you, but Uber has significantly improved ride-sharing for me, along with countless other aspects of life such as government services, interpersonal communication, and education. It's a miracle I can live in another country than I was born, top income bracket due to a free internet education, effortlessly facetiming my parents whenever I want in amazing quality, learning and talking about all sorts of niche interests without any effort. I think this is just all so obvious these days that you don't remember how much it used to suck, and that's a real testament to its greatness.

friend_and_foe 3y ago
I remember, and I agree with you. These tools have improved our lives. But they've damaged our lives on other ways. I remember waking up every morning and without a second thought, I got up, out in the world, did things I felt like doing, saw people I liked on a whim, every day was jam packed with eventfulness and dimension and interaction. I took that for granted. Now, kids don't play outside, nobody knows how to drive because their mind is somewhere else 24/7 and we check our phones before we do anything else. But the flip side is, I can know anything I want that is known by someone else with less physical effort than it would take me to make a sandwich. I can talk to almost any human being in the world while doing any mundane task anywhere in my environment. It's amazing. But we did lose something, I believe something very important. It wasn't free, it cost us something. Was it worth it? I don't know. I think yes, but I'm not really sure.
- barking_biscuit 3y ago
  It feels like we're at the pareto frontier. Technological advancement used to feel like it truly was progress, but we're now at a point where advancement is simply advancement, and we're well aware that as the technology advances, there's an equal an opposite regression in society somewhere.
JohnFen 3y ago
> I don't know about you, but Uber has significantly improved ride-sharing for me Uber did the exact opposite of that for me. I still curse their existence on a regular basis for the impact they've had.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

I remember, and I agree with you. These tools have improved our lives. But they've damaged our lives on other ways. I remember waking up every morning and without a second thought, I got up, out in the world, did things I felt like doing, saw people I liked on a whim, every day was jam packed with eventfulness and dimension and interaction. I took that for granted. Now, kids don't play outside, nobody knows how to drive because their mind is somewhere else 24/7 and we check our phones before we do anything else. But the flip side is, I can know anything I want that is known by someone else with less physical effort than it would take me to make a sandwich. I can talk to almost any human being in the world while doing any mundane task anywhere in my environment. It's amazing. But we did lose something, I believe something very important. It wasn't free, it cost us something. Was it worth it? I don't know. I think yes, but I'm not really sure.

barking_biscuit 3y ago
It feels like we're at the pareto frontier. Technological advancement used to feel like it truly was progress, but we're now at a point where advancement is simply advancement, and we're well aware that as the technology advances, there's an equal an opposite regression in society somewhere.

JohnFen 3y ago

> I don't know about you, but Uber has significantly improved ride-sharing for me Uber did the exact opposite of that for me. I still curse their existence on a regular basis for the impact they've had.