Technology Will Save Us All: Rich Asshole Edition
if you wanted the translation it says "first download the app, then pee!"
Since at least the late 1800s, people have been predicting what the "future" would look like. They meant us. They predicted flying machines and replicators and magical communication devices. Keynes predicted the inevitability of leisure, as he thought mechanization would shortly take over much of the work that humans had needed to put in to keep themselves alive. They dreamed of a modern world where humans would be able to lose the fetters of mere survival and truly indulge their higher planes of intellect.
We live in that amazing future. So far it seems to mostly be dick jokes and rich fucks gunning for that sweet sweet venture capital, so they can make some bullshit product nobody wants and walk away richer, to do it all over again. This is how we came up with Internet-connected salt shakers and toilets and also let's not forget the time that hackers weaponized our refrigerators!
It's a speaker! A light! A centerpiece! A salt shaker! A FUCKING SALT SHAKER!
Still, we give deference to the tech giants on the assumption that they know something we don't about the nature of this brave new world. Jeff Bezos is allowed to buy apparently the whole world. Zuckerberg's thinking of running for office.
Point is, for every Silicon solution that makes sense, there is an equal and opposite solution. To wit: Cabs suck and aren't available in a lot of places, so someone designed a program that matched up available drivers with people wanting a ride. That was A Good Idea. But what happened to that good idea, you ask? Well, the company that started it became full-on evil, and other companies thought hey, we can do that too!
That is, I assume, how we got our affairs to the state that an Internet outlet can publish these two paragraphs:
Note! We are avoiding public transportation here because it is TOO GROSS. This isn't an uncommon feeling for Americans to have, because if we were not poor we would have cars, or at least be using Lyft, ergo the only people on the bus are poor. So the tech gods have brought us a solution to the quandary of not wanting to pay for a luxurious solo ride in the back seat of a midrange sedan or SUV, and also not wanting to share rides with strangers who might want to drive three blocks out of your way, but also not wanting to mix with the plebes who take the bus like some kinda fucking losers! Are you ready to hear it? WE KNOW YOU ARE!
At long last, we have reached the pinnacle of human excellence in problem-solving. Lyft, in its glorious wisdom, has invented...the bus. Just a more expensive one than the actual bus. It is a private bus, in which you can feel more comfortable around the strangers because at least you know they all have smartphones.
Congratulations, San Francisco. Never fucking change.
Also do us a favor and get on that whole cancer thing kthx.
[ Lifehacker ]
Keep your writers in bus fare and pay the lady:
Me too. I didn't get my first car until I was 22. I rode a bicycle EVERYWHERE in all weathers, including minus 20 degrees in Des Moines with 4 feet of snow piled up on the sides of the streets. You have to be young to do that, and it certainly kept me healthy. But when I got my first car (1974 second-hand Gremlin) my father said "This is the start of unending expenses for you" and damn, if he wasn't right. I hated it when that happened. Just like Mark Twain said: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
Here in the US I will drive the 3 blocks to the supermarket without thinking twice. But whenever I go to Europe I walk miles every day without thinking twice. I can't figure out why that is. Is there something in the water here?
"We solved all our problems with bigger problems" O.K Go