Conveniences, automation, safety plans, etc. Everyone loves winging it and having piles of chores, but then they complain about life being hard, but then they don’t change anything
They’re fucking stupid as hell. Also there’s people that just hate change even if it’s in their favor. The rest are pretending to be stupid because they are benifited by the status quo
As a kid in a Catholic family I remember my dad saying God intended man to live “by the sweat of his brow”. No idea if it’s a bible quote or what, I can just hear him saying it. But I think there’s a mentality that life wasn’t meant to be fun or easy, and therefore thinking it should be is a wrong thought. Somehow this doesn’t make inheriting wealth and living in abject luxury evil or wrong, as long as you still have a work ethic. Or something, I dunno.
I’ve heard this before, and when I stopped believing in god I vowed that if god had an issue with me having an easy life he can come fist fight me.
I’d love the easiest possible life
Then achieve it. Adulthood has limitless opportunity. Are you over 18? Then achieve it. If not, then suffer in happy prison until it’s over.
Achieve it? That sounds like work. That’s the opposite of easy.
Temporary work that you have the opportunity to do as an adult. It’s not easy, but life at the end of the tunnel will be.
I think you grossly overestimate my competence. Some people can do what you say, some people just work til they die and have a hard, shitty life.
If you don’t want to work until you die then don’t. I’ve lived in a situation where the only way out is death, and I only got out because my horrible ass mother saw I had the potential to make her rich. Otherwise I’d be locked away in a group home for a disorder I never had until I killed myself.
I like cooking, I like gardening. Husband likes washing the cars. Sure I like convenience - live about a mile from work so can easily get there without a car, have a Roomba, hire for biweekly cleaning so we can have weekends. But some sorts of activities you think of as inconveniences may be stuff other people enjoy doing.
Is your planning theoretical at this point? Your responses sound like you haven’t actually implemented these plans.
I love to simplify my life, and add automation, but lately all of it is just more and more ads, more and more AI nonsense that doesn’t work, and the rest are half baked ideas that also don’t work half the time, so honestly, if things automation, I’ll keep my old fashioned life where I do more things which work fine and I don’t have stupid ads , clueless AI, or half-baked features that don’t really solve anything.
Evil people. Assuming you mean, like, politically or morally or something.
Reminds me of the Feng Shui guy on TikTok… “Just fix it!”
Huh?
A ton of automation and ‘convenience’ being sold is terribly thought out or makes life more complex than not having it.
Smart bulbs are way more work to set up than they are worth for me, a light switch works fine. Cruise control is nice, but lane assist drives me nuts with all the false positives. Generally the overwhelming number of chores comes from just having too many things in the first place.
Fewer, simpler operating things are more enjoyable for me than a lot of complex automated things that don’t do what I want them to do.
I have smart switches, mostly because I’m a tinkerer and build and repair things for fun. I work in IT, so I don’t trust any of this. But the switches work like normal for people not used to it. While I also have a button that turns all the lights off in the whole house at once.
My main automations are basically timers. They turn lights on and off at sunrise/down. And one that turns on my backdoor lights when my garage door opens.
As for cars, I totally agree. Adaptive cruise control is the extent of the smart I want in a car. I’ve had too many false positives where the car will automatically apply the brakes when it didn’t need to. And not once where I was in danger of crashing. Once on a bend in the road where a car was parked on the side and another where an RV had pulled to the side on a turn out to let people pass and the car freaked out because it didn’t realize the road turned.
I’ve also had it nudge the wheel too often when I’m purposely hugging one side of the lane because there is construction or a car on the side of the road.
ton of automation and ‘convenience’ being sold is terribly thought out or makes life more complex than not having it.
People burning alive in Teslas because we don’t want those unsightly door handles comes to mind.
I also hate push buttons for things like starting the engine or shifting the gear mode. Please let me physically move something instead of pushing a button more than once so I don’t have to take my eyes away from my surroundings in a parking lot.
I had to get a rental car for work earlier this month. It took 10 minutes of YouTube to figure out how to turn the goddamn parking break off. So convenient.
InTuItIvE dEsIgN
A ton of automation and ‘convenience’ being sold is terribly thought out or makes life more complex than not having it.
Yeah, not EVERYTHING is an internet controlled dishwasher that locks up when updating so no one can hack it.
Smart bulbs are way more work to set up than they are worth for me, a light switch works fine.
Not everything is Philips Hue™®© overcomplicated overpriced nonsense with hubs and accounts and crap. Off brands are much easier. I love being able to just switch the light off from my phone without having to get up, and turn it on without needing to reach for a switch in the dark. Or better, have them turn on automatically at times I’d be needing them. Or have motion controlled lights that only turn on if motion is detected between sunset and sunrise times.
Cruise control is nice, but lane assist drives me nuts with all the false positives.
My electric scooter has that, and I don’t use it, seems too risky especially in an area where people without cars are hated more than literal terrorists.
Generally the overwhelming number of chores comes from just having too many things in the first place.
Not entirely wrong, but everyone manages to overcomplicate the simplest chores possible.
Fewer, simpler operating things are more enjoyable for me than a lot of complex automated things that don’t do what I want them to do.
The best automation solutions are the non-electric ones. It can be as simple as having an easy routine like only scooping cat litter whenever you use the toilet.
If you like automation and don’t want to rely on the cloud (aka the big data corpos) then you could try our lord and saviour Home Assistant.
🙌 Praise Home Assistant 🙌
Your bottom line makes no sense. If you are scooping your cat litter it isn’t automation at all.
I think they’re saying you’ve mentally automated it by combining it with another activity. Offered as an example of the simplest type of “optimization mindset” that could be construed as automation.
I could be wrong, I don’t have a cat.
You’re correct.
I think automation in general has been in an awkward stage for a while, maybe analogous to adolescence or puberty. At some point our immediate world will become truly automated, able to sense what we need or want and provide it with very minimal setup and instruction, like a cocoon of personal convenience. Right now it’s more like a 19th century vision of a house of the future with pulleys and wires everywhere - we haven’t gotten rid of the pulleys and wires, we’ve just moved them into apps.
At some point our immediate world will become truly automated, able to sense what we need or want and provide it with very minimal setup and instruction
This will never happen for me because every single instance of ‘user friendly’ I can think of is the opposite of what I want. Yeah, I don’t notice the things that work, but I notice a lot of counter intuitive automation that does the opposite of what I want it to do.
Not to mention that some days I want an app or process to function one way, but on other days I might want it to function the opposite way, depending on my needs. There is no mechanism for the app to guess which way I want it to function, if such a change is even possible without reconfiguring all the settings.
I have that my android phone ditched the ability to swipe up in three spots and replaced it with a single swipe up you have to hold to do what I could do with a quick swipe before. There is no reason they needed to remove a perfectly functional and simple option to add one. They kept the option to have three buttons at the bottom to take up acreen space, why not have three options?
I opened the thread thinking, “this has to be a bait post where the op just soapboxes about how much better at life they are than everyone else, and argues with literally everyone offering perspective” and I’m glad to see I was not wrong! Boy if your replies aren’t some of the least self aware, most elitist stuff I’ve seen here so far.
I dunno man, why doesn’t everyone with actual problems just ahh, buy an Android phone, learn how to program or do whatever the hell else you think everyone should be doing to just simply live the obviously better life that you have?
Oh wait, not everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else, and so not only may these options be unavailable to a lot of people, they may also be completely useless in solving someone’s difficult life.
You sound like a Tech Bro in their early twenties who landed a sweet job out of college (that they didn’t pay for) and wonders why people choose to be homeless. And before you try to correct me, that’s what you sound like, so unless that’s the persona you wanna give off, maybe try to listen to what people are saying instead of trying to find out how they’re wrong.
Do you really think people with “difficult lives” are so stressed out because they forgot to take the garbage out multiple times? Seriously? Christ 😂
Good its not just me.
Thank god my smart phone can spell sanctimonious for me, its made my life so much easier.
Oooh, what a beautiful word! It’d fallen out of my vocab. Thanks for that.
I opened the thread thinking, “this has to be a bait post where the op just soapboxes about how much better at life they are than everyone else, and argues with literally everyone offering perspective” and I’m glad to see I was not wrong! Boy if your replies aren’t some of the least self aware, most elitist stuff I’ve seen here so far.
bruh what. I’m just traumatized, not elitist.
I dunno man, why doesn’t everyone with actual problems just ahh, buy an Android phone, learn how to program or do whatever the hell else you think everyone should be doing to just simply live the obviously better life that you have?
That’s ONE solution out of countless. I’m saying anyone can make a solution that works for themselves whether it’s tech based or not.
Oh wait, not everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else, and so not only may these options be unavailable to a lot of people, they may also be completely useless in solving someone’s difficult life.
Everyone has the opportunity to improve their lives. If you’re working and making money then you can make your life exactly the way you want it to be. It takes time and effort, yeah, but it’s not impossible.
You sound like a Tech Bro in their early twenties who landed a sweet job out of college (that they didn’t pay for) and wonders why people choose to be homeless. And before you try to correct me, that’s what you sound like, so unless that’s the persona you wanna give off, maybe try to listen to what people are saying instead of trying to find out how they’re wrong.
Nah I’m a 27 year old who was locked away for 20 years, and I’ve only got to live and experience life for 3 years. I landed a sweet job at ✨ Amazon ✨ I do love technology (well, technology that isn’t stupid) and I think “homeless” should mean primarily renting an apartment. Having zero shelter shouldn’t have a word, it shouldn’t be a thing.
Do you really think people with “difficult lives” are so stressed out because they forgot to take the garbage out multiple times? Seriously? Christ 😂
That was quite literally my family. Or, is. Is my family. Yet they refuse to just… Take out the trash earlier so they don’t need to remember right before they sleep like the countless months of consecutive weeks of forgetting. They complain about having no time for anything but refuse to order online instead of going to two Targets, two Costcos, Bj’s, Walmart, Stop & Shop, Walgreens, Aldi, Lidl, and five international stores in the same day for fifteen hours, back to back Saturday and Sunday, and having to wait until Monday night to sleep. You know, to buy the same things you could buy from Amazon or from those stores as a delivery order. There are other things they can do that they just don’t do, and blame me, the person wanting things to be easier, for ALL of the problems caused by them not wanting to change because God didn’t make lazy people. God STILL didn’t drop a tree on me or kill me with lightning like I demand every day. Stop trying to impress a concept.
Do you realize that every bit of your comment just validated everything the other person said?
Bro I’m fucking insane
You really are lmao…
Yeah, being spit on and manhandled by adults as a 7 year old kid every other day in “school” does that to you. You’re broke? But your shirt has a man on a horse! You’re rich and spoiled. How could you have ran out of soap months ago when you’re wearing a polo ralphy whatever shirt? Maybe get less Airopostale and buy soap, so easy!
Yeah, thing is, my mother would spend a couple of grands on stupid ugly brand clothes, while screaming at me to shut up about body wash and juice. It’s “why do you come to school smelling horrendous” AND “why do you think you deserve body wash when there are people who have nothing?”
Today I wear ZERO brands and I finally get to shower with soap, drink juice, and brush my teeth with toothpaste. Childhood is the worst part of life.
JuST oRdEr onLinE
You HAVE to realize that there are people who can’t even afford the groceries in the first place?! Not everyone is your mom wasting money on stuff they can’t afford! Some people don’t have it in the first place!
After this I’m convinced you’ve never seen a single actual difficult day in your life, sorry. To say that you’re “traumatized” by having too much food in the fridge and spending too much money on buying stuff is fucking hilarious, though.
I know that obviously. Those people aren’t doing that crazy shit. But they can make life easier with planned meals and an easy routine, why deliberately make your life harder?
And this just reminds me of how that fucking bitch took so much food from food banks and never used it ffs. Every Monday a church had an open pantry, that bitch forced everyone to go stand in line separately to get extra. I hated standing in lines so I’d spend every Monday at a library until 7pm and take the long way home for 2 hours. I never actually saw the pantry or what came from it, just the line.
I was abused and neglected as a kid. I had brand name clothes, but smelled bad and only ever ate top ramen and cup noodles. All of that wasted produce was that woman’s. DRINKS were never available. No juice, tea, etc. If I was thirsty I would pretend to shower or wash my hands and drink the bathroom water.
I was institutionalized for a disorder I never had. That woman lied to get me in the institution, and they made me stagnate and regress. I’ve only lived 3 years of my 27 year life. No one believed I was neglected because mommy is rich and I have clothes with old men’s names on them. They’d assume the 8 year old kid is at fault for having no lunch, no signed permission slips, bad BO, filthy hair, etc. Like I chose to be that way. How can I be suffering when my shirt says Abercrombie? Neglect from rich parents is horrendous.
I couldn’t buy my own body wash until I started doing paid surveys at 15 years old (lied my age on PayPal and the site) and dog sitting at 17 on wag & rover. Before that, I used to steal the trial sizes and stretch them as long as I could.
So I’m fighting CPTSD and trying to cut ties and move out. Praise Amazon.
This is a bit too vague for me, but I think some of what you mention sounds like inconvenience now for future convenience. For safety plan example, it’s mildly inconvenient for me to get my kit together (I live in an earthquake-heavy area and just outside the tsunami hazard zone), know locations and routes, etc. but you’d best believe that it’s better to pay that inconvenience now than flap if I do have to evacuate. I think timescales are important to think of (kinda like the RoI of your actions).
What are you talking about? Do you think convenience is free?
It costs the same amount as overcomplicated lives. And if you’re saving so much money by living on cup noodles and 4 hours of sleep a week, you wouldn’t have much time to use it.
Probably because in most cases, doing so requires a tradeoff of some sort. Hardware, design and planning, upkeep, data privacy and reliance on external factors/services etc.
So when it doesn’t fit together and people don’t even have any real source of help (not to mention enshittification) it should be no wonder that the existing way (or “live with it”) is the only real option.
Also there is also the angle of some “easier” options that sound nice on paper but end up creating their own problems (or are just too expensive to be viable).
Probably because in most cases, doing so requires a tradeoff of some sort. Hardware, design and planning, upkeep, data privacy and reliance on external factors/services etc.
Then don’t rely on external servers and shit. Don’t get cheap unreliable devices. Don’t use a smart speaker. If you want voice controls then buy a burner android and make an app that converts your voice to a string, and passes it to your smart assistant of choice. If you can text Alexa, you could do what I just described. Learn to code if you don’t know how to literally tell a robot what to do.
So when it doesn’t fit together and people don’t even have any real source of help (not to mention enshittification) it should be no wonder that the existing way (or “live with it”) is the only real option.
It’s the most appealing option to people scared of technology who like to victimize themselves over their Hard Life instead of actually making it easier.
Also there is also the angle of some “easier” options that sound nice on paper but end up creating their own problems (or are just too expensive to be viable).
So having no sleep, no time to relax, and the same lack of money is better?
Yeah! just pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
What the hell is wrong with you… just DO it…
jesus, do you even listen to yourself?
There’s a solution for everyone. Figure it out and implement it. There’s no need to spend all the time you’re not working or sleeping, doing chores. I’m just traumatized by having zero time as a child. Spending more time per day than Amazon ALLOWS you to work as an adult, grocery shopping as a child, and coming home to decade-old chores once again put off to unload groceries quick enough before I won’t be able to shower and get dressed in time for school, while being screamed at by the entire family that the problem is ME, how is my fault the whole house is a disaster, and not the mother who makes everyone spend 30 hours buying stuff she throws 99% of out.
For the majority of people, doing all that you described is a lot more work than just flipping a light switch. Let me explain with two xkcd comics, first:
You say write your own program as if that was something everyone can do on a whim. Even experienced programmers might find relatively simple tasks can hold possible complications. So it’s not as easy as just doing it. But most importantly:
I have to get up to turn off the lights possibly once a day, most of the times I turn them on/off I’m already walking past the switch, but let’s be generous and assume once a day I have to go out of my way to turn them off, and let’s be extra generous and say it takes me 30 seconds to do it, so spending more than 12h trying to automate that is a waste of time because it would take me more than 5 years to gain the time I saved back. However, my Christmas lights are all plugged to a smart plug, because otherwise I would need to turn them on individually once a day and turn them off individually before going to bed, and buying a random smart plug I can control with my phone took me way less than that time, so it’s worth it.
You seem to think automation is always worth it, but sometimes it’s not. It depends on how much it costs (be it in money or time) vs how much you gain, and also you need to contemplate how much you lose. For example my Christmas lights are on smart plugs like I mentioned, technically someone might be able to hack them, so I wouldn’t put my computer on one of them, even though it might be useful to measure power consumption, because someone might theoretically turn my computer off so the possible drawback outweigh the benefits of measure the consumption. Sure, I could design my own smart plug and use it, but that would take me a long time and I’d rather spend that time with my family.
Honestly, I live a slow life. Time is the main thing that I have. I dabble with programming, but not really for android and I don’t even use a “smart assistant”, I don’t even have mobile service due to cost and lack of need.
My idea of making life easier was ripping the carpet out of my room. It is much easier to sweep a wood floor and I can do it at any time.
Even the things that I would want to automate in my life I don’t think I could make a robot to accomplish it (honestly, I have a dusty 3D printer after upgrading to a beta dual extruder pushed complication a bit too far for me, as I already disliked the design/tolerances iteration process).
My main issues right now are related to living on the edge of nowhere, no way to meet people+nothing to do, no ability to move (without being homeless), low water pressure, polyester clothes/sheets that don’t get clean. None of those are really fixable with automation. EDIT: Also (lack of) healthcare. That could be automated (particularly just for better-than-nothing) but not by me, obviously.
I hate automation to the point of being a Ludite. We’re chasing our own tails. Every new luxury becomes a necessity we can’t do without and we become enslaved
Automating labor without ensuring it doesn’t impact people’s ability to obtain needs and wants is objectively worse than them continuing to work
I’m not talking about work as in jobs, I’m talking about housework. Everyone has at least five jobs, taking care of their home is four of them.
I’ll complain endlessly about the state of modern society, with social media and constant screen bombardment. But the other day:
The dishwasher was running.
The robovac was running.
The washing machine and dryer were running.
The magic litter box was cleaning itself.
I sat back and cracked a beer.
Yes, this is the way. Watch TV. Play a game. Play an instrument. Sleep. Write stories. Draw. Do online courses. Make a game. Create jewelry. Visit a park. Lay around and do nothing. LIVE. Why spend this time manually doing what a mindless robot can do?
Now go further. Use Amazon Subscribe & Save to buy non-Fresh groceries automatically every month. It can be set as frequent as every week to every 6 months. Set and forget. Sell your car. Spend more time for yourself instead of trying to impress God.
Eh. Fuck Amazon and fuck Jeff Bezos. Use your free time to go to a farmers market and buy staples from somebody who’s not a shithead.
Use my free time to go to a farmers market to buy produce from finance bros who bought from costco and are selling it at a markup acting like they’re “foreign” alongside “handmade” jewelry bought in bulk from Temu and AliExpress? I’d rather use the service that gave me a job and the opportunity to grow even more. I didn’t need a degree or diploma to work at Amazon. (I graduated high school, it’s just that the diploma has a gross embarrassing ugly birth name that I wish to cut out of my life) I didn’t need references or anything else that would have brought my horrible past into relevancy. And I’ll be able to take college courses all free, and I get $$$ this holiday season on TOP of overtime pay. All of this opportunity given to me, a rando who went to hiring.amazon.com and picked up an available shift. I have no merit. (well I do but I hide it lol) I’m a loser. A mistake. Scum. Yet I’m making $22/hour bringing in $1000 a week after taxes with 55 hours. Tell me more about this shithead who is much worse than actual scammers on the street manipulating your empathy to sell overpriced “organic” “fresh picked” produce bought from costco.
You’re calling out vendors at farmers markets as “finance bros” while simultaneously on a tangent defending Jeff fucking Bezos?! What color is the sky in your world…?
