Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I'm not sure I like your tone, young lady. 
You seem to be suggesting that even though the state of the art has advanced tremendously, people should be satisfied with the same performance of days gone by.
A century ago the rate of women dying in childbirth was 40 times higher than today. Should people not "whine" about a hospital who's death rate was like it was then or only slightly better? Have their expectations for health care "run amok?"
I think the advances are wonderful! And its quite reasonable for people to expect a company to deliver all it promises. Deliver...see what I did there? |
Hopefully, pretty much everyone can make a distinction between the reduction of birth-related mortality and the mind-blowingly crucial importance of instant gratification?????
I guess I'm simply old and cranky. I'm
sick of it. People can't even digest news or data any longer--and more importantly, can't be bothered, not when being FIRST-FIRST-FIRST with a tweet or FB post is more important than actual validity and veracity. John Doe posts a tweet, and it doesn't matter if it's real or not. Doesn't matter if he's a flake or a nut, or not; people cannot WAIT to leap on it.
They're outrage addicts.
All of this--whether it's Amazon's delivery schedules, social media, expecting major publishers to "fix" (OMG, a MISTAKE!!!) in a book--I feel that absolutely
none of this is healthy for humans,
who clearly aren't capable of handling it. I mean, tell yourselves whatever you want, but most of the ants crowding this anthill are Sheeple. All you have to do is look at the outrage over some alleged political thing, just in the last 24 hours, that turned out to be a thing from four YEARS ago. But, bygod, everyone and their brother leapt on it, so that it permeated all the air in the room.
It's all much of a thing. Whether it's people whining (no offense, all) about how they have to wait an extra day for delivery, instead of 8-12 weeks; whether it's trying to be the FIRST to launch a new hashtag, or announce some newly alleged wrong committed by POTUS or what-ever. You cannot breathe anymore, and everyone's communicating--if you want to call it that--in 140-character Twitterings. Which, of course, provides no basis for actual communication--instead, it's a
"ME TOO" engine. So that--back to my topicky-rant--enables them to feel as though they are participating, even though they've done zero research, of course, so they don't actually have to
think about it.
It's made the manipulation of people ever-easier. Feed the outrage, don't enable them--god forbid--to think, or research, or do anything that takes effort. Anyone who's studied animals or worked with them knows that any animal--four-legged or human--will take the path of least resistance. Social media, twitter, Reddit, etc. all take advantage of that. So does Amazon, which has
built an empire feeding it--overnight delivery, etc.
As I said--it's all part of the same thing. People grow less-informed by the day, but more easily manipulated in large numbers. Their demand for instant-gratification is getting greater, and the companies that feed that do well; those that don't, don't. People don't READ any longer, and no, it wasn't always that way. I have to deal with this daily--I've had to change my written instructions, in text, to PICTURES and COMIC BOOKS.
You can tell yourself that they're not related--that kvetching about Amazon delivery times is unrelated to the rest, but IMHO, it's not. All part and parcel of the mindset leading to the Idiocracy. Honestly--and I never thought I'd say this--I'm
glad I'm not going to live long enough to see the unintended consequence of it all.
Hitch