Technology anxiety

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Okay, I know that technology has been evolving for, like, centuries. But now it feels like a change forced upon us, rather than improvement. In the 19th and 20th centuries, new improvements to technology interested everyone and a lot of good came out of it. For example, when coloured TVs first came out, people were happy to give up their black and white TVs and switch to colour, because, well, who wouldn't?

But nowadays technology is becoming too advanced for our own good, and it doesn't really feel like it's an improvement to our lives. It feels more like an obligation, and greed comes into it too. Look at Disney Plus. Sounds fantastic to be able to stream so many shows you like on your TV, but all it is is ads and subscriptions, the ads basically driving you insane enough to have to subscribe, and you still get ads, and the costs of subscriptions just multiply each year. And then one scene from a classic movie or show that everyone loves offends somebody and the whole thing gets taken down. When you have a DVD, you buy it once, there may be some ads at the beginning (which are ads that may be of interest to you, and usually you can skip them anyway and go straight to the menu), and if it suddenly becomes offensive they can't take your DVD away, you own it forever.

I just think technology now has become complicated, maybe too big for its boots even. I live in fear that I won't be able to use my DVDs any more if they stop selling DVD players because of everyone streaming online now, and then I'll have to be forced to subscribe to Disney Plus or Netflix to be able to watch anything, which I don't want to have to do.

I'm already depressed and anxious at the thought of car companies being forced to make electric cars so that we all have no choice but to get in electric cars by a certain year. I do not want to ever ride in or drive an electric car, I hate them. They're dangerous death traps and aren't designed for the weather. How the hell is that going to work out anyway, having to install charging ports everywhere? It's heading for disaster.

It really really pisses me off when business are card only or insist you install an app to do a task that would be quicker if you speak to a real person. Because it's completely nonconsensual. No one asked to be forced to use apps for everything. And with the card only issue, it's more surveillanced than cash. We're constantly under the watchful eye of big brother when everything we do is digital and saved to the cloud.
We should be able to earn and spend cash that is only for us to do with as we wish. We should be able to call people on the phone or walk up to a desk when we want help with something.

And yepp seconded on media, anything digital being heavily surveillanced by nature (design, really) means that things get censored way more often. If big brother decides a piece of media is forbidden then tough s**t you'll never see it in its original form again. Piracy is always morally correct for this reason.

You'll own nothing and be grateful is the motto of our corporate overlords. Everything is being redesigned into a service to rent, the end goal is to reduce most of us to new age serfdom. This is the logical conclusion of the cult of the invisible hand.

I think my fascination with the 1800s might be a way of escaping from this modern world I live in. Sure, I love my phone, but even so, I still don't like how society has become. Closing the banks and post offices and so many stores that once lined the high streets where eager shoppers would gather, it's just becoming non-existent now. And every bit of land gets dug up and a million houses built on it, even though apparently there's still a "shortage of houses" in the UK.

I want to live in a world where there are more farms and more nature, not concrete jungles everywhere. I want to live in a safe community where you know all your neighbours and a reliable line of convenient shops and stalls in your town. I want to live in a society where horses pull carriages along cobbled streets. Sure, times were hard, but they're hard today as well, just in a more technological way. We have idiots running countries like the UK and the US, and all people care about is greed rather than just running businesses to earn a living. If a business owner has £700 million, that's still not enough, so he raises all his prices (making poorer people struggle even more) just so he can have another £700 million. To do what with? Just get to a point where he doesn't know what else to spend it on so he just goes insane, maybe with power. It's frightening. I mean I know man has always dug for gold, but nowadays the easier it is to make money the more greedy man becomes, leaving working class people poor.

And the Labour government taxing every saved penny you have, it's just wrong, and stupid too. I mean, whenever you spend any money no matter what, doesn't it make its way back to the government in the long run anyway? So why the tax on everything?

Government is in a weird position.

They decide how much money to print, but then they need to tax it at a high enough rate to keep the money supply from expanding too quickly, because that leads to runaway inflation and the currency losing value.

Either they take it through taxation, or you lose it through inflation.

At least that's how MMT explains it.

1800s is too post industrial for me I want to go back to 30,000 bc. Inflation is made up silly bollocks. The spoils of hunting and gathering are real you can hold them in your hands. *grumblegrumble*

No, it's the inevitable result of too many shinies.
If shinies are rare, shinies are worth lots, if shinies are everywhere, shinies are worth less.

Feel free to substitute leaves, bananas or whatever else you wish to use to represent value. Works less well if the item representing value has an upkeep cost because the upkeep cost growing is a separate issue that would contribute to the same result.

Well I'm just wondering how everybody having an electric car is going to work out, where all the charging ports are going to go. Not everybody has a driveway and a garage, in fact so many homes don't. Is the genius who thought this is a fantastic idea aware of the disaster this is going to cause? Is it really going to "save the planet"? The only way to save the planet is if man stops being greedy or if mankind vanished.

I hate Nikola Tesla.

I never thought I'd live in a world where a car would sound like a milkfloat

Electric cars are no better really because of the manufacturing process! The raw materials in car batteries (as well as phones and tablets etc) are mined in the congo. It's a major threat to the rainforests and the flora and fauna, human included, who inhabit them. The end result gives off less fumes sure, but electric cars don't grow on trees.

As for the electric car sound, I quite enjoy that. It reminds me of an alien spaceship. I still get a bit excited when I get into a car that looks and sounds like a UFO. But that's an aside, my original point still stands.

Yeah I like the sound as well

Then why are car manufacturers stopping making fuelled vehicles by 2035?

Electric cars are supposed to reduce carbon emissions specifically, even if they create as much overall pollution as proper cars. They can't solve all of the problems that cars represent, but the idea is to address one specific problem caused by cars.

It won't make a jot of difference to the environment. Might as well just keep fuel vehicles rather than force everyone to have to eventually buy these death traps. I suppose the used batteries will just end up in a huge pile somewhere polluting the planet, while electric faults from charging vehicles will send dangerous amounts of plume into the atmosphere. Lol, safer for the environment indeed.

Fuel vehicles don't generally burst into flames when just parked, unless a human comes along and sets fire to them. Electric vehicles charging overnight can and do burst into flames, and with everyone soon having one, it's going to happen so very often.

I guess the genius who thought this up is American and thinks every home has a garage. Well, guess what, it doesn't. Many streets here in the UK have barely enough space for parking as it is, with cars having to park on the side of the road along the whole street. Where are all these charging ports going to go? And what if you're in the middle of a long drive and your super fancy electric car runs out of power? And to think there'll have to be like a million charging ports everywhere in public spaces for people on long road journeys to be able to charge their stupid vehicles for hours on end.

Disaster. I think I'll move to one of those countries where technology hasn't advanced that far yet.

A tricycle would work great for getting to an Asian market three miles away.

Well I just get annoyed with mankind for thinking up so many bright ideas and not consider anything else beyond money and pretending to care about the environment by making impractical changes. I thought mankind was more intelligent than that, obviously not.