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Comment by JuniperMesos | Hacker News Reader

> Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...

People are choosing in large numbers to buy subscription services, order food online, stay at home, and avoid socializing with other people; and the market is supplying demand. This isn't something that some external power is forcing on an unwilling populace. Indeed, if you think that people are systematically making consumer choices that are easy and convenient in the short term but bad for the fabric of society in the long term (a common-enough complaint about human society), then the "they" who wants to force people to change their habits en masse is you.

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Agree, it's almost entirely about profit and convenience but I just think there's something false about modern 'convenience' in that it actually isn't 'convenient' when you think about all the other things you lost. The tiny bit of friction exerted to actually go into a store is now gone, but now you lose the opportunities to meet other people into the same things as you... get tips from retail workers on interesting movies/music/video games. It's convenient in that one singular moment, but now you're lonely and have no friends or connections... I think that's why people are more depressed and on more depression medicine. There's a lack of just casual interaction and socialization now that we're replacing with 'social media' doom scrolling and it's clearly not making people more fulfilled--just more convenient.

I would argue a lot of this could be changed by better zoning laws and better city planning. Big box stores should be relegated to the outskirts of city limits... let local and small businesses have downtown areas. Otherwise, everything is becoming one homogenous experience across the entire country.

I think this also speaks to the heart of the non-political spectrum between "conservative" and "progressive" societal evolution. It's progressive to enact these kinds of changes in the name of supposed convenience, efficiency, and modernity (whatever that means), and to do it quickly without sufficient thought as to all the unintended consequences. It's conservative to fear such changes and try to slow them down for the same reasons. Rapid societal changes are always risky, even if we suspect they may be net positives.

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