Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The Madness of the Modern Human

"I eat using Uber-Eats.I push a button, the food is made, the driver delivers it to me. But when it's fully autonomous, how does the food actually get to my door? There's a tech stack that can get the car through the physical world to my doorstep, but then what? Does some robot get out of my car and deliver my food? That's hard. I don't know if that's two decades out, but the point is the physical world is getting wired up fast."
As you might guess, that is a quote from Uber's Mad CEO, Something-or-Other Kalanick. A unicorn billionaire who first wants to push taxi cab drivers to poverty, replacing them with "gig" contractors, who will then (in not too many years) be replaced by driverless cars.

Seriously, what is wrong with us? With the oceans crashing against our coastal cities, the planet warming, the poles melting, the forests being razed, the Sixth Extinction well in progress, can we still be so madly obsessed with using technology in the most absurd, energy-consuming, convenience-crazed ways?

A driverless car brings the food to my building "but then what?"

BUT THEN WHAT? How about getting your big fat ever spreading butt out of your Lazy-Boy and answering the damn door yourself, maybe even walking outside to a neighborhood restaurant and partaking in a meal around others?

Silly, sad humans.