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[–] 209 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Because what could possibly go wrong

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  • [–] 71 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    "Your computer has detected your credit card and is automatically purchasing items it thinks you need" was a very old Dilbert comic strip.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Pretty funny. I wonder which of his readers sent him that idea.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    People can make the best things while being absolutely horrid and morally bankrupt. Demeaning a bad person's abilities lowers our guard against predatory meritocrats and gives them cover.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    The comics weren't really that good. They just hit it right with a their target audience and that was because his readers would send Adams their stories. That's no secret. I honestly stopped reading them before he got political because it was getting repetitive and boring. I remember being done with him before he called fossils bullshit. There's only so many "Boss is Dumb" strips you can make before you're scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

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  • [–] 52 points 1 week ago* (3 children)

    Does this even appeal to anyone? "We can automate the only part of consumer capitalism that's any fun?" Seriously?

    Billionaires have so much money they literally can't spend it all. A bot could blow $100K on their behalf and they could laugh it off as a funny story.

    They've worked very hard to divorce their fate from the fate of the general public, that has worked, and it shows in ways they don't even perceive anymore. They don't have any reason to look for good deals. This is strictly an imaginary scenario for little people, from their point of view.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    I mean... Shopping for parts and materials is usually my least favorite part of any project, conceptually not having to deal with that sounds great if I didn't have negative trust in the mechanism. If you find it fun, maybe we should team up!

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago (1 child)

    I guess I would counter that the sort of project you have in mind isn't likely to be part of what I'd call "consumer capitalism." You're building something as opposed to buying that thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    It's more like I have to buy things so I can build/fix other things, and tbh kinda the main input I still require from "the system". Belts, bearings, seals, gaskets, relays, control boards, pumps, props, etc. Recent outboard motor refurb is a great example: a new one would be $5-8k, I spent ~$300 doing rings and bearings, new impeller, new seals everywhere, new zincs, new prop, fresh paint, new spark plugs. Still had to do a lot of shopping! Arguably more than the high roller who just buys a new motor, that's a low double digit number of parts vs one big thing

    Anyways it wasn't meant as an argument or some kind of rhetorical gotcha, more a long shot at making a new friend and not having to shop anymore lol. People have a lot of different ideas of fun, mine's closer to tearing something apart and seeing how it works than trying not to get ripped off while meeting material needs

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  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Not much when one has hundreds of billions.

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