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Comment by vzaliva | Hacker News Reader

Most of this applies to sufficiently modern gas vehicle. Even my motorcycle has now drive-by-wire throttle, computer-controlled fuel injection, and computer controlled brakes in addition to throttle control and other stuff. We will need to get used to the fact that many modern devices we use in everyday life are very sophisticaed and beyond "fix it yourself". Even your home fridge is likely to have a computer and bluetooth.

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Everything new is cancerous in this exact same way. Every piece of software, every piece of hardware, every appliance. EVs just happened to scale up production at the same moment that everything was becoming so thoroughly diseased.

Our evil overlords want to make every tool, every convenience, every means of existence require a wifi connection, a smartphone, a web browser, a username and password, and -- most importantly -- a hefty, relentlessly increasing monthly fee.

If they ever get neural implants into us, you'll pay $10 a month to shit.

My 30+ year appliance repair guy quit last year because he said everything is planned obsolete and you can't get a good appliance at any price. Pay extra for Speed Queen or whatever if you want, but when it inevitably breaks you're looking for donor parts on eBay as if it were an old Android phone.

Even speed queen is pushing / has switched to electronic controls. The big mechanical selector knobs are still there, but they're interacting with a PCB underneath.

You are saying two very different things here. The stuff that we make today is built on millennia of knowledge - obviously it won't be trivial to understand or fix. That's not a problem - unless you want to force everyone back to the stone age.

Your second point is valid, a lot of stuff is shipped with stuff that isn't useful for end consumer or even anti consumer outright. The solution to this is to push for right to repair laws, patent reform, open source, etc and not decry modern technology altogether.

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