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

  • The summer blues...OPEnglish
    111·
    8 hours ago

    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?

    • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
      4·
      5 hours ago

      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:

      https://xkcd.com/1319/

      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:

      https://xkcd.com/1205/

      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.

    • ShadowRam@fedia.io
      8·
      8 hours ago

      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?

      • The summer blues...OPEnglish
        15·
        6 hours ago

        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.

    • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      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.