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Comment by rapnie | Hacker News Reader

Same. And indeed a losing battle. Society is being dehumanized, and humans embrace this trend. Maybe it is because it is a means to face away of all the big challenges humanity faces. Being social in complex society requires skill and effort, causes stress. Facing life challenges, and the doom and gloom. The easy way is to flee that, to extract oneself, and technology is bliss here.

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Why would I want to wait in line for 5 minutes, when I could be on my way?

Life goes by fast. I’d rather spend those small minutes lost with my loved ones or back to doing things I enjoy more. Over my lifetime that’s a lot of time.

I only shop in person at Whole Foods because it’s two blocks away. Every Tuesday they have some nice discounts and it’s fun to walk the aisles. Otherwise I just deliver groceries from Costco every 2 weeks or my Amazon prime subscriptions.

Why continue purposefully at a disadvantage? Makes no sense.

You wait in line because there weren't enough checkout points in the first place. Poor customer service by your supermarket. It is funny, in the supermarket near me people are coralled into a kind of scan barracks where underage teen guardians frisk their shoppings regularly. There is only one checkout with personnel still operating it. What regularly happens now is that there's a big crowd waiting for a free scan point, like cattle, while that one patient cashier is waiting idle. And will process the groceries much faster than any self-scanner can. Brave new world.

At least at my Whole Foods there are two cashiers and 6 self checkouts. Tuesdays are usually busy.

Both have lines and the self is always faster. I’m that guy and I timed it myself when I was curious. Like I said. I don’t get it.

They run a business. I just need some stuff and I’m outta there. I don’t really care beyond that exchange.

I think that there's more than just a productivity angle, and that those 3 lines of friendly and casual social exchange with the checkout clerk on every visit are meaningful and valuable, even though on themself only in a small way. These small social exchange form part of the lubricant of a well-functioning society.

Myeah I think you're just going to badly managed stores. Here I just scan my groceries while putting them in my bag. Then I go to self checkout, put back the scanner and pay. It takes about one minute from entering the self checkout to leaving it and there is never any line.

They had such system but it led to too much grocery theft, that they put the scan barracks in place instead.

The bigger point I wanted to make is how pervasively small social interactions with other people are automated away all across the board. At the McDonalds you go through the menu on the monitor at the entrance, or used your mobile. No social exchange at the counter anymore. In the cinema you do the same. AI is going to break the bonds online by indirect agent intermediaries. People become isolated in small in-groups. Until in your local community you sail lonely with your family through a sea full of strangers. You probably can't talk about community anymore then. What is the societal impact of the loss of all these micro interactions? How can we have a tolerant society if we are so separate and individualist?

What genuine connections are you making waiting in line to get movie tickets and popcorn?

Why not just walk to the theater to your seats and actually get excited for the movie? That ticket seller is doing their job and Gtfo.

I think people are so doom and gloom about this stuff.

Isn’t it better to just like go sit at the seats with your family or friends and enjoy the trailers and talk about the movie before it starts? Idk. That’s actual connection building.

I saw Avengers in Japan and my friends and I were talking to Japanese people about the movie at our seats.. using google translate. Actual connection building.

I don’t think anyone goes to the movies to enjoy waiting in line to ask some college student who doesn’t give a shit for 4 tickets to Dune.

The background noise that those social interactions constitute is valuable and important of itself. Bonded relationships are important, but it's a separate matter entirely. Otherwise relationships lived out over the internet would be equal and interchangeable with those lived out in person. It wouldn't matter if you talked to someone face-to-face or over email. The human experience shouldn't be picked apart piece meal with overrationalization and naive maximalism.

Why not go straight to the movie and actually connect with people there?

I don’t get it. You like having middlemen? lol

The point is that it's not about connection in the slightest. There's more to community than friendship.

> You like having middlemen?

Consider this, there still has to be someone to maintain that machine. What's the point then, exactly, except to pretend like the people around us don't exist? And just because they're not the closest people to us? I'm afraid I don't see the upside, actually.

In the context of the parent post, don't miss the forest for the trees. 5 minutes away from your loved ones here or there is nothing if, for one example, your loved ones can't find jobs locally (working the till in retail is a common first job for kids, after all...) or otherwise disconnect, going out of our way to avoid interacting with anyone, because of the stress everyday life now requires, doom and gloom, etc. Plus, there's the option of bringing your loved ones with you, if that's your concern.

Even setting that aside, if you're so into min-maxing your free time that you can list waiting in line at the grocery store as one of your biggest regrets in life, then you gotta recognize how privileged a life you lead.

Of course I live a "privileged" life. I grew up without running water, a flushable toilet, and a tube light that worked 1/4 of the day at night.

I optimize my life because I get one life.

The actual privileged people are those who were born in first world and still manage to lose somehow.

> Society is being dehumanized, and humans embrace this trend.

Well... that's because capitalism incentivizes us to do it wrong. Instead of the dreams of the early sci-fi writers getting real - aka, robots and automation do the majority of the work, leaving humans time to socialize - we have it even worse nowadays, with even with the work force of women added to the labor pool, there still are constant political pushes to expand working hours or to even make it legal to hire children again.

If the profits from productivity gains over the last decades would have been distributed to the workers, either in terms of purchasing power or in free time, we wouldn't be in this entire mess.

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