Things that used to be normal and are now a luxury
albertogalca.com
albertogalca.com
-- There exists an expectation of infrastructure and acceptance of a way of living that is more evident, totally tragically, in administrations.
-- Silence is very difficult to find in some territories - large inhabited territories -, and what is crucial is the widespread structural ignorance of the importance of silence.
-- Finding untainted food is not as easy as some are suggesting. Already that DDT was found on the Himalayas (and similarly on the soil of special control agriculture) should tell of a problem.
-- Direct relation with responsible parts in the economic supply is declining.
-- Finding natural fabric is a grave issue in some areas. I have been there: for Winter clothing, all plastic, or outlandish prices. Being told that true leather jackets are now luxury items (which is paradoxical as beef is still on the market), or being unable to find wool, is a clear sign that, exactly, "Things That Used to Be Normal Are Now a Luxury".
-- And very surely, once I did not have to spend ages of research to purchase good quality items. Shrinkflation is a real thing, and an obvious problem. (And a piece of the absurd: "buy n items of lower quality and lifespan to maybe get a decent one" in the "save the planet" times.)
Dismissing TFA is not the same as dismissing related arguments.
You have to put your own effort to understand the message. He pointed, he indicated: you look. He does not really have to put /all/ the possible effort.
"Intelligence is the ability of knowing the results of an experience you never made" (Prof. Patrick Winston). It is also and more generally the ability to read what is implicit and you have not been explicitly told...
No, they were not.
As a reminder, here is what he wrote about being online:
> The world has gone digital to the point where everything happens online. That brought plenty of good things, but it stripped away something simple: the right to disconnect.
> Half the time you can’t leave the house without your phone, because certain places need you to carry a small computer in your pocket to do anything at all. My least favorite: reading a restaurant menu off a screen.
and here is what you wrote:
> There exists an expectation of infrastructure and acceptance of a way of living that is more evident, totally tragically, in administrations
Note Alberto had zero mentions of administration and infrastructure in this case (unless you consider menus to be such, but that's a stretch). The focus is on "the right to disconnect" and on "leaving the house without your phone". He can write a comment saying that "you nailed it" if he wants, but I consider that taking credit for your work.
>You have to put your own effort to understand the message. He pointed, he indicated: you look.
He did not point, he vaguely gestured in a general direction, with very little effort. I come to hackernews to learn, to engage with substantive arguments, and to have more perspective on topics; coming up with my own arguments in defense of someone else's point completely defeats that purpose.
> He does not really have to put /all/ the possible effort.
He has to put at least /some/ effort. I don't think he put much.
> It is also and more generally the ability to read what is implicit and you have not been explicitly told...
There's implicit, and then there's writing so little that almost anything can fit between the lines.
> I come to hackernews to learn, to engage with substantive arguments, and to have more perspective on topics
Well, you met my posts! You reached the goal in the end, have you not?
For years I've been buying only 98%+ natural fiber clothing. I can still find t-shirts for about $10, but I do have to spend time examining the tag on clothes. I also noticed that Nordstrom's app can filter by fabric type, but the clothes there are sold at a premium.
For 1, I still have yet to go to a restaurant where I couldn't ask the waiter for a physical menu instead of reading the QR code (not to mention that QR code menus are still far from the majority in every city I've been to, small and large). Are there any other examples where you "need" to be online when going out?
For 3, I've never been to a supermarket that doesn't have fresh local produce. The existence of a ready-made meal or of a more complicated snack food doesn't make produce in the same store any less real.
Happened to me. In one, "Ok, if you don't have own ways to read our electronic menu, I'll hand you the owner's tablet". (Bankrupted after a few months after years of prestigious service to its customers - the quality was good, the management "simple".) In another, "Ah, oh, so you do not have a way to... Really?! Well... Ok... Look: what would you like to eat?" - the manager did not know his own menu (but was open to discuss possibilities).
The point is not with the exceptions: it is with the creeping ignorance that gives assumptions for granted. And you should be ___very___ worried when the ignorant is not a service provider, but maybe your administration that takes for granted electronic money or a google|apple|microsoft account.
This is not at all the point TFA is making.
And then they want a tip from their QR code ordering system. I love AI, and I work with AI, but JFC tipping an honest to god waiter (and ya know, if it's a charming robot that puts on some theatre as a waiter - not a gloried tray on wheels, that's cool too, but my cellphone isn't that) is an important signal to the quality of the service and you've rubbed me wrong from the get go forcing me implicitly to bring my phone in the first place.
AI's prominent spokesmodels considered harmful IMO
About point 3, yes, you can find local products, but 95% of the products in supermarkets, at least in Spain where I live, have more than 10 ingredients.
Having to ask for something makes it a luxury? I don't like having to do it either, but let's not kid ourselves here.
I won't make a comment about Asia since I don't know enough about it, but tbf the author is Spanish and lives in Bulgaria from what I understand.
> About point 3, yes, you can find local products, but 95% of the products in supermarkets, at least in Spain where I live, have more than 10 ingredients.
The author doesn't talk about foods with less than 10 ingredients, he talks about "one-ingredient foods". Furthermore, having more options of many-ingredient-foods doesn't make few-ingredient-foods a luxury. Finally, the entire premise here is flawed imo, as more ingredients doesn't make something inherently worse (TFA doesn't strictly say this outright but implies it heavily). Tell me, how many ingredients are in a paella for example, and does that make it worse than a two-ingredient mixture of lard and sugar?
And while one could get away from this by taking a walk, cell phones finished the job. It's unreal to see someone walking their unruly dog, borderline shambling, while they stare, transfixed, into their phone. And I am out of you-know-whats w/r to this. Zuck won because he gave people what they craved. It wasn't what they needed, and it's up to the people to break their own addictions. I figure that's either after the commencement of my dirt nap or some contrived utterly avoidable apocalypse scenario triggered by our collective negligence on par with an expectedly dirty telephone as the root of a global pandemic.
It is a grave sign of downfall when disturbing elements roam unreached by any wakers.
Note that the phenomenon is symmetrical in the "upper" strata: just like in the lower "kids (of any age) are an island", in the upper administrations embrace the absurd without the voices of the intellectuals chastizing them.
Then my wife started worrying about my safety out there, and insisted that I carry a cell phone. Well, she was undoubtedly right that it was safer (this is another reason that married men live longer). But a bit of the freedom disappeared too - now I could be interrupted at any time, and sometimes I was.
...Remember what you are there to do, so keep it off and only turn it on periodically... Maybe if it is a matter of being able of being geolocated (so with frequent status updates), you could code an application that updates said status periodically (e.g. 40mins disconnected, 5mins updating, in a loop).
> wife
Maybe watch Deliverance (Boorman '72) together: it could confuse her into a state of indecision...
But, if you're not poor, and you don't want to carry a cell phone, you need one of these:
https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-ais-personal-loca...
Who says you can't have it all? Not technology!
Yes, I very clearly remember the not so faraway past when shoes last decades, when non-filled soles (as opposed to e.g. grids of blades) would have been considered a crime and an obvious matter of public health, and similarly for the use of toxic materials.
I also remember the times when machinery used quality material and lasted accordingly; when blinding lights were obviously considered a basic matter of health and when beeps and bebibeep melodies were considered a nuisance. And much more.
I grant you: the past offered people and systems with common sense - now largely gone.
> it(natural fiber cloth) lasted less than shirts I’ve paid 5€ for
For being offline and in silence, it is as achievable as ever, if not more. Companies/friends etc. now are more respectful of time and being offline or not picking up call now than they were 20 years ago.
Otherwise just try to get merino blends which will hold up a bit better.
Or synthetic clothing. Sure, natural fiber stuff is in retreat but some synthetic stuff is actually really comfortable.
They've almost always been staffed by bored teenagers tho.
I am currently in Caldas de Reis, population 10k, and there are plenty of stores with humans selling.