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I guess I just don't understand the insane degree to which business will go to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" — communities be damned. I suppose if I am be
by JKCalhoun 2y ago
I guess I just don't understand the insane degree to which business will go to deliver "toothpaste and batteries" — communities be damned.
I suppose if I am being charitable to Big Corp I should instead blame the people of these various communities for placing orders for toothpaste by way of Amazon.
Like a lot for things these days, a lot of the crap is in fact just what you see on the surface. You start digging at it and there are just layers and layers of it. And I know I am being a little dramatic here, but as a society I feel like we are increasingly losing (and I use that word loosely and broadly) and we're going to ultimately be the losers.
I didn't mean to rant or put so fine a point on the thing, but it kind of is these little things that just boggle my mind — why they exist at all. And so often "we" seem to be without agency to forestall them. And does it seem like the public is in general gaining more or less agency with regard to billion-dollar corporations in the current climate we find ourselves in? (That was I think rhetorical.)
And then of course even though small, these things just keep piling on....
- guitarlimeo 2y agoHave been having the same thoughts lately, and always find myself asking that am I turning into a sour conservative who doesn't like progress. But no, there's lots of progress I like, just increasing traffic (here traffic in airspace increases from zero to non-zero) is never something I like. Plus those drones are really loud, I wouldn't want to bother my neighbors by ordering with those.
- palata 2y agoThe thing is, somehow we all got convinced that "progress" means "profitable stuff". BigTech was not working on AR headsets because they wanted to improve our quality of life, but precisely because they want to make profit. They were aiming at "the next smartphone". SpaceX is not trying to improve our quality of life; they want to make profit by commercialising space. "Saving the species by going to mars" is completely absurd. There is a lot of progress to be done to save the species, but SpaceX is rather a negative in that sense. There is a lot of progress that can be done to improve our life (mostly to minimise the problems coming from climate change and the current mass extinction we're already observing). It's just that this progress doesn't make money. I love progress. I hate profit hidden in fake progress claims.
- antisthenes 2y ago> Have been having the same thoughts lately, and always find myself asking that am I turning into a sour conservative who doesn't like progress. Unless progress involves some positive change for all parties involved, is it really progress? Change oftentimes isn't progress.
- lm28469 2y ago> always find myself asking that am I turning into a sour conservative who doesn't like progress You have every reason in the world to be critical of the version9s) of "progress" we're being served by a few billionaires who control medias and dip in politics more and more. Something being new doesn't automatically means "progress", and in case of workers or social progress it often means the opposite.
- wincy 2y agoThis is such a strange take. We’re literally on the cusp of living in a Jetson’s style future where robots deliver stuff to our doors and that’s upsetting? To me this is literally the coolest thing ever. I’d much rather this than some delivery driver peeing in a Gatorade bottle to meet quotas. Automation drives prices down and makes all of our lives better.
- nemomarx 2y agoMaybe try and get the noise level down to ambient traffic first, then?
- noja 2y agoI don’t recall this “Jetson’s style future” being not able to open the window because it sounds like chainsaws outside.
- mschuster91 2y ago> Automation drives prices down and makes all of our lives better. The problem is, automation drives prices down so hard that Amazon and maaaaaybe one other large player will be the only game left in town. We'll end up being back in the era of corporate towns that were abolished barely a century ago.
- darkhorse222 2y agoConsume less, grow your people and community. It's a quiet, purposeful kind of rebellion. Just do anything that doesn't involve a corporation. It feels amazing and it has an immediate obvious impact.
- guitarlimeo 2y agoYes! Build meaningful connections which last even if you were broke. Money won't buy everything.
- maartenscholl 2y agoBusinesses just rise to meet demands. Texas is the ideal place for the highly individualistic, neighbors an environmental issues be damned attitude. It's not like the cities there are designed so you can take a leisurely walk from your house to get some victuals.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoAmazon does this to deliver toothpaste and batteries because people want toothpaste and batteries as soon as possible after they have placed an order. So if a new technology appears that enables faster deliveries then businesses will at least experiment with it. It's as simple as that, no greedy capitalist conspiracy needed.
- alt227 2y ago> no greedy capitalist conspiracy needed No, because capitalism itself IS the greedy conspiracy.
- wat10000 2y agoIt’s not a conspiracy, more like a force of nature. There’s a way to make a buck? Somebody will do it. It hurts other people? Doesn’t matter, still going to do it. It’s overall a net harm to society, but the costs aren’t borne by the business making the profit? Still going to do it.
- wat10000 2y agoDelivering toothpaste and batteries is just a means to an end. Businesses will go to any length to make money. “Community”? Does that make money? If not, don’t care. Bulldoze a nursery with the babies still inside? They’ll do it if it makes $1 more than the alternative. AI safety people talk about a hypothetical “paperclip maximizer”: a powerful AI programmed to make as many paperclips as possible. Left unchecked, it converts the universe into paperclips. But we already have them! They’re just called giant corporations, and instead of maximizing paperclips, they maximize money.