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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 18h \ on: will you put a robot in your home? AskSN
Industrial indirection.
These things aren't even close to utility in a domestic setting, but the incentives of companies making them are to paint a picture that garners investment and keeps the narrative alive that they help the forgotten person.
Reality is these things are 10+ years away from having an impact in the lives of average people, the gap between now and then is increased technocratic power, a "J-Curve" where they make things worse for the average person before they can begin to make them better. There will likely be a lot of lawfare during that time too as industry consolidates.
There's also an innate fear these companies need to front run, not just from a privacy standpoint, but when the movie iRobot starts trending again.
We see a bit of it already, but one of the next great political and cultural wars will have people picking a side as either a Luddite or a Technocrat.
May not be a top-down psyop yet, but that's coming and your intuition knows it.
incentives of companies making them are to paint a picture that garners investment
In a fiat-fueled, Cantillonized society, this is where energy and talent gets directed.
When you see how much economic activity is built on vague promises of future value rather than real value right now, you see what easy money is doing to our society.
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Maybe to some degree, but I don't think its notable. If it were the government printing money to invest in vaporware at the expense of actual innovation you could make a stronger case for that, but that's not what this is. This isn't the defense or pharma complex laundering government funding back to itself.
The history of technological and venture investment is pretty consistent back to hard money times. If anything, a vision would have to be shilled even harder then and on even loftier promises to separate investors from their money. This didn't equate to less vaporware and failure. In most cases it was the government itself that had to invest in technology, usually with defense as the only justification, and the rate of innovation and distribution of its benefits didn't increase until that decentralized.
A truly efficient economy would mean everyone is working with their own specific knowledge on asymmetric solutions, or retired, while menial tasks are automated away. A world where everyone is a solo founder is a better than one than where everyone is a wage slave. Imagine what speculative things you could work to improve your life and the lives of others if your hard money savings negated the need to chase a soft-money paycheck just to maintain your current lifestyle.
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