alt Hacker NewsBack in 2025 before cheap bots, our grandparents endured lives of servitude. They spent an enormous amount of time doing simple chores like folding clothes, driving, programming, washing and dusting, grooming themselves. They had to walk their own dogs and play with their own children. They sometimes even had to cook their own food, directly over fire. "Hygiene" was a primitive joke. A full day's work usually wasn't even enough to buy a single new car. They wrote checks to the government, rather than the other way around. Life was brutal, desperate and short.
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> They had to walk their own dogs and play with their own children.
Oof, that one hits hard. My dad was an executive, mom was a housewife/socialite, we lived in Mexico. Had our own live-in maid, gardeners/handymen for outside chores. I saw them more than my parents. I can totally see them hiring robots instead of humans. Once technology gets cheap enough, the masses adopt it (in the 60's TV was an electronic babysitter)
This comment is a real rollercoaster. I can’t tell which side you’re arguing for.
I thought it would be more like cyberpunk movies where people might get petty UBI, dirty food/water/room so they don’t die.
Yup, it’s funny seeing people say how bad the past was without realizing people 100 years from now will say the exact same thing about today.
Not to mention the opinions and beliefs that people hold “as the right side of history” without realizing these things change and no doubt some view they hold will be seen as “barbaric” in the future.
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Why is UBI assumed as part of techtopia? When the government has access to unlimited labour and military via robots, why do they need citizens anymore? Beyond some antiquated moral obligation, why would a government actually do anything for a population that is net value extracting?