Human contact is now a luxury
March 24, 2019 3:20 PM Subscribe
Bill Langlois has a new best friend. She is a cat named Sox. She lives on a tablet, and she makes him so happy that when he talks about her arrival in his life, he begins to cry.
That said, I do think the article kind of mixes different points together: that screens are bad for you, that elder care is provided virtually, that it costs money to hire an attendant, that virtual objects teach us things that do not apply to physical objects, etc. These are all good things to agitate about, but they aren't really the same thing beyond being united by not being used by the rich, because the rich have money. There is no one answer to them beyond eating the rich, and even then that doesn't cure aging and loneliness.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:10 PM on March 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:10 PM on March 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
So does this mean that the digital divide has been and shouldn't have been bridged?
posted by Selena777 at 4:10 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 4:10 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
Perhaps more simply: a solution to a problem should not be considered bad if it déclassé. It should be considered bad if it is bad.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:13 PM on March 24, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:13 PM on March 24, 2019 [15 favorites]
I liked this article because it is such an inversion of thinking. Just a few years ago access to screens was considered such a luxury, then a convenience. Now it's a burden. Like Selena777 says this sure puts all the "digital divide" discussion in a different light.
posted by Nelson at 5:17 PM on March 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 5:17 PM on March 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
One way to think about the divide might be that job seeking is increasingly done online: you submit a resume as a PDF, etc. Overcoming the digital divide can be seen as capital telling workers that this is how it's going to be because it reduces costs, so you'd better catch up or you're screwed.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:24 PM on March 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:24 PM on March 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
Turns out The Diamond Age was wrong.
posted by Foosnark at 5:36 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 5:36 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
Why oh why do they continuing interviewing Turkle versus the many other people that could speak on this topic?
posted by k8t at 6:12 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by k8t at 6:12 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
Why oh why do they continuing interviewing Turkle versus the many other people that could speak on this topic?
My thoughts exactly.
To speak to the article: defunding an educational system and replacing teachers with screens doesn't indicate that screens are bad, but that defunding education and channeling money into a tech company is bad. A society that can't provide for its elderly and infirm and channels money into a panopticon nursing program is the enemy, not the device that supports the virtual assistant's avatar. The article gets so close to making that point, but seems to stop short by valorizing screenless lives of the wealthy.
I guarantee you that in Silicon Valley, even if kids are going to Waldorf schools, they're still learning how to program. If they're not, then someone being adept with a "screen" was at some point responsible for that child's luxury of a "screenless" life.
posted by codacorolla at 6:36 PM on March 24, 2019 [24 favorites]
My thoughts exactly.
To speak to the article: defunding an educational system and replacing teachers with screens doesn't indicate that screens are bad, but that defunding education and channeling money into a tech company is bad. A society that can't provide for its elderly and infirm and channels money into a panopticon nursing program is the enemy, not the device that supports the virtual assistant's avatar. The article gets so close to making that point, but seems to stop short by valorizing screenless lives of the wealthy.
I guarantee you that in Silicon Valley, even if kids are going to Waldorf schools, they're still learning how to program. If they're not, then someone being adept with a "screen" was at some point responsible for that child's luxury of a "screenless" life.
posted by codacorolla at 6:36 PM on March 24, 2019 [24 favorites]
It's kind of inspiring to me that the person profiled in the article can be so happy with this odd form of digital companionship. I would feel kind of vaguely ashamed and too cool to enjoy it. I wish I were more in touch with the part of myself that would just be happy with some people in a call center keeping me company through a cute avatar.
posted by value of information at 6:49 PM on March 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by value of information at 6:49 PM on March 24, 2019 [13 favorites]
the part of myself that would just be happy with some people in a call center keeping me company through a cute avatar.
I mean, in a way that's more-or-less what Metafilter is doing for me, just the cute avatar is the skeuomorphic textual interface of a bygone era instead of like, a pikachu.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:29 PM on March 24, 2019 [52 favorites]
I mean, in a way that's more-or-less what Metafilter is doing for me, just the cute avatar is the skeuomorphic textual interface of a bygone era instead of like, a pikachu.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:29 PM on March 24, 2019 [52 favorites]
Why oh why do they continuing interviewing Turkle versus the many other people that could speak on this topic?
Could you elaborate? Is this a critique of Turkle's work or a critique of journalists who are only talking with the usual suspects? Alone Together was a gamechanger for how I thought about social technology, although Reclaiming Conversation has since sat unread and dusty on my bookshelf.
posted by rogerroger at 8:14 PM on March 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Could you elaborate? Is this a critique of Turkle's work or a critique of journalists who are only talking with the usual suspects? Alone Together was a gamechanger for how I thought about social technology, although Reclaiming Conversation has since sat unread and dusty on my bookshelf.
posted by rogerroger at 8:14 PM on March 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Gosh my mom would really love a program like this. The check ins and reinforcement and avatars would please her.
posted by SyraCarol at 8:38 PM on March 24, 2019
posted by SyraCarol at 8:38 PM on March 24, 2019
Turns out The Diamond Age was wrong.
No way... I was reading along, thinking "The Diamond Age got this right" -- the 'thetes get all the freely-available tech, while the wealthy New Atlantis phyle pay craftspeople for humanized work. The primary difference between Nell and the Mouse Army is that she got the version of the Primer with a real person (Miranda) teaching her, while they got the algorithmic/AI mass release.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:00 PM on March 24, 2019 [16 favorites]
No way... I was reading along, thinking "The Diamond Age got this right" -- the 'thetes get all the freely-available tech, while the wealthy New Atlantis phyle pay craftspeople for humanized work. The primary difference between Nell and the Mouse Army is that she got the version of the Primer with a real person (Miranda) teaching her, while they got the algorithmic/AI mass release.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:00 PM on March 24, 2019 [16 favorites]
Damn, came for the The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer reference too late. I wish my grandfather had had something like this... he was so lonely after granny passed that he'd call people every couple of hours. Something like this might have passed for a live-in nurse for a few years at least before he really needed to go into a retirement home for that day-in-out care.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:48 PM on March 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by zengargoyle at 9:48 PM on March 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
A sad state of affairs is brewing.
Like vitamin D, vitamin H is essential to our well-being. Being reclusive comes with a cost; vocabulary and intonations fall off, as do facial expressions and other physical communication skills. Being out-of-touch with what's going on around us means losing the social currency of small-talk. We become less able to converse about things other than what we tend to focus on (which, unless they are 'popular' topics, may be easily avoided).
Etc. Bad enough that communities fracture, but sadder still when relationship infrastructure isn't maintained. Should our bridges collapse, we become ever more isolated.
Illusory algorithmic charades are very, very far from being meaningful friends, that we can meaningfully share with and help. Humans are much, much richer beings, and we can do so much better for one another.
posted by Twang at 10:35 PM on March 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
Like vitamin D, vitamin H is essential to our well-being. Being reclusive comes with a cost; vocabulary and intonations fall off, as do facial expressions and other physical communication skills. Being out-of-touch with what's going on around us means losing the social currency of small-talk. We become less able to converse about things other than what we tend to focus on (which, unless they are 'popular' topics, may be easily avoided).
Etc. Bad enough that communities fracture, but sadder still when relationship infrastructure isn't maintained. Should our bridges collapse, we become ever more isolated.
Illusory algorithmic charades are very, very far from being meaningful friends, that we can meaningfully share with and help. Humans are much, much richer beings, and we can do so much better for one another.
posted by Twang at 10:35 PM on March 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
Good God...it's like a sex phone line for banal companionship. Now I can't help thinking about how Chris Farley died.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:46 PM on March 24, 2019
posted by es_de_bah at 10:46 PM on March 24, 2019
Could you elaborate? Is this a critique of Turkle's work or a critique of journalists who are only talking with the usual suspects? Alone Together was a gamechanger for how I thought about social technology, although Reclaiming Conversation has since sat unread and dusty on my bookshelf.
My opinion is that Turkle found a comfortable niche by saying something that people wanted to hear, and then proceeded to do a bunch of pseudo-research to create the illusion of support. Her work is largely disconnected case studies, with a great deal of editorializing thrown in for good measure. There's definitely nothing wrong with a case study approach, but Turkle's work (as it's presented in her mass market books, which is as much as I believe she does currently) is not rigorous qualitative research. It's custom-made, just-so stories to get play at venues like The Atlantic and NPR pushing a narrative that conflates "screens" (what a dumb term) with a phenomenon unto themselves, instead of looking deeply at the sick society that pushes people towards anti-human technology. The creators of technology disappear entirely, and instead it's some amorphous ill that has seemingly been created from nothing. To the degree that Turkle addresses any context, she does so with a meaningless handwave, saying that we can build better technology instead of addressing alienating economic and social structures that feed the networked ecosystems responsible for those conditions.
posted by codacorolla at 10:51 PM on March 24, 2019 [12 favorites]
My opinion is that Turkle found a comfortable niche by saying something that people wanted to hear, and then proceeded to do a bunch of pseudo-research to create the illusion of support. Her work is largely disconnected case studies, with a great deal of editorializing thrown in for good measure. There's definitely nothing wrong with a case study approach, but Turkle's work (as it's presented in her mass market books, which is as much as I believe she does currently) is not rigorous qualitative research. It's custom-made, just-so stories to get play at venues like The Atlantic and NPR pushing a narrative that conflates "screens" (what a dumb term) with a phenomenon unto themselves, instead of looking deeply at the sick society that pushes people towards anti-human technology. The creators of technology disappear entirely, and instead it's some amorphous ill that has seemingly been created from nothing. To the degree that Turkle addresses any context, she does so with a meaningless handwave, saying that we can build better technology instead of addressing alienating economic and social structures that feed the networked ecosystems responsible for those conditions.
posted by codacorolla at 10:51 PM on March 24, 2019 [12 favorites]
Why can't the tech be turned around to help someone like Bill L. talk to a couple of other lonely people in a networked community that's heavily moderated and supported, rather than a dummified-avatar? I suppose this is cheaper and simpler to create than an organic network of actual community that risks people being people with legal liabilities, wheree you have total corporate control but oh so depressingly silo'd.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:37 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:37 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
Why can't the tech be turned around to help someone like Bill L. talk to a couple of other lonely people in a networked community that's heavily moderated and supported, rather than a dummified-avatar? I suppose this is cheaper and simpler to create than an organic network of actual community that risks people being people with legal liabilities, wheree you have total corporate control but oh so depressingly silo'd.
A human relationship is a substantial thing that asks something of you. It sounds like Bill is essentially getting a cheap, minimal version of a therapist that also gives you some protection.
Honestly, the most horrible image in the story is a cute dog avatar asking a lonely senior citizen if they were considering suicide and if they had a plan to act on it.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:44 PM on March 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
A human relationship is a substantial thing that asks something of you. It sounds like Bill is essentially getting a cheap, minimal version of a therapist that also gives you some protection.
Honestly, the most horrible image in the story is a cute dog avatar asking a lonely senior citizen if they were considering suicide and if they had a plan to act on it.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:44 PM on March 24, 2019 [9 favorites]
I don't get the school comparison, here. Schools are a thing we have. If you want to replace schools with something else, you'd better have evidence that the something else is at least as good as school. But older low-income adults don't currently have an alternative, here. The level of disability you need to have in order to have a real person come over under Medicaid is basically "please save us the money of putting you into a nursing home," from what I've seen of friends and family who were disabled and with limited mobility and social networks who really could have used more assistance.
And as far as it being a silly animation, I mean, to me that just goes back to "humans will bond with almost anything" and it's more of a feature than a bug, if you can't reasonably provide someone the same couple of humans consistently--this is, IMO, even a problem with in-home care programs, where the pay is so low and turnover can be disruptive. It'd be nice if we could do all this with a full-time real human for everybody, but I'm pretty far down the socialist line and even I don't see how that can be reasonably accomplished with an aging population and a living wage.
I want these things to get good, because I expect to be using a future version of this technology. My dad had some mental health issues and he died alone and in a way that I... very strongly do not want to repeat. Ideally for most people this would be a supplement to other social contact, but you can't just go tell a bunch of low-income elderly people that they should have had children, they should have had different relationships with their children, they should have made more friends, they should have gone to church. There have to be solutions for people for whom those things weren't workable.
posted by Sequence at 12:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [8 favorites]
And as far as it being a silly animation, I mean, to me that just goes back to "humans will bond with almost anything" and it's more of a feature than a bug, if you can't reasonably provide someone the same couple of humans consistently--this is, IMO, even a problem with in-home care programs, where the pay is so low and turnover can be disruptive. It'd be nice if we could do all this with a full-time real human for everybody, but I'm pretty far down the socialist line and even I don't see how that can be reasonably accomplished with an aging population and a living wage.
I want these things to get good, because I expect to be using a future version of this technology. My dad had some mental health issues and he died alone and in a way that I... very strongly do not want to repeat. Ideally for most people this would be a supplement to other social contact, but you can't just go tell a bunch of low-income elderly people that they should have had children, they should have had different relationships with their children, they should have made more friends, they should have gone to church. There have to be solutions for people for whom those things weren't workable.
posted by Sequence at 12:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [8 favorites]
Humans are more expensive, and rich people are willing and able to pay for them.
That’s not ‘human contact’, it’s ‘servants’, hardly a new phenomenon.
posted by Segundus at 1:24 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
That’s not ‘human contact’, it’s ‘servants’, hardly a new phenomenon.
posted by Segundus at 1:24 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
Isn't one of the negative consequences attributed to the curse of King Midas his loneliness because he turned all of his subordinates to gold?
I think contact with servants has always been regarded as what we'd think of as human contact, and as a specific and positive type of human relation even: see for example the historical crime of petty treason, which places the servant/master relationship in the same category as marriage and the hierarchical relationship between priests.
(Of course I'm not arguing that there's no exploitation involved in these relationships, just that they were definitely regarded as human contact.)
posted by XMLicious at 4:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think contact with servants has always been regarded as what we'd think of as human contact, and as a specific and positive type of human relation even: see for example the historical crime of petty treason, which places the servant/master relationship in the same category as marriage and the hierarchical relationship between priests.
(Of course I'm not arguing that there's no exploitation involved in these relationships, just that they were definitely regarded as human contact.)
posted by XMLicious at 4:09 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
What is Sox the Cat's position regarding Deep State conspiracy theories? Because I think Bill is interacting with technology in a healthier way than my elderly father is.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:38 AM on March 25, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:38 AM on March 25, 2019 [16 favorites]
"For a sense of where things could be headed, look to the town of Fremont, Calif. There, a tablet on a motorized stand recently rolled into a hospital room, and a doctor on a video feed told a patient, Ernest Quintana, 78, that he was dying."
Goddamn, an ipad on a wheels informing you that you are about to die is some dystopic nightmare shit I don't think our most famed dystopic novelists ever dreamed of. Ernest was born and lived most of his life in an era before computers, now there's one dispassionately rolling into his life to tell him he's too poor for human attention right now, but the don't worry, you're about to die anyway which will save the insurance company loads.
"What is Sox the Cat's position regarding Deep State conspiracy theories? Because I think Bill is interacting with technology in a healthier way than my elderly father is."
Their position will be whatever they think their patient wants to hear. I don't think businesses would hesitate to engage in that sort of shit, it would take a lot for them to even stop and consider if it would be okay to do or not morally and it seems a no-brainer it'd be more profitable to enable crazed fantasies than fight them.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:22 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Goddamn, an ipad on a wheels informing you that you are about to die is some dystopic nightmare shit I don't think our most famed dystopic novelists ever dreamed of. Ernest was born and lived most of his life in an era before computers, now there's one dispassionately rolling into his life to tell him he's too poor for human attention right now, but the don't worry, you're about to die anyway which will save the insurance company loads.
"What is Sox the Cat's position regarding Deep State conspiracy theories? Because I think Bill is interacting with technology in a healthier way than my elderly father is."
Their position will be whatever they think their patient wants to hear. I don't think businesses would hesitate to engage in that sort of shit, it would take a lot for them to even stop and consider if it would be okay to do or not morally and it seems a no-brainer it'd be more profitable to enable crazed fantasies than fight them.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:22 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
This is hard. On one hand, having nobody but a quasi-automated robot operated by some poor schmuck in an offshore callcenter to keep you company is dystopian as hell.
On the other hand... I'm not about to quit my job to go work in a nursing home. (Oh, there's probably some hourly rate where I would, but it's… a lot. I've seen what caregivers have to deal with.) And so, if we assume a non-exploitative labor market, it'd be hypocritical to expect to be able to purchase a lot of 1-on-1 time with another person when I'm no longer working.
Provided the wheels don't come totally off the economy (which could mean a real dystopia), we kinda want the value of human labor to keep increasing over time. That's the flip side of increased productivity. There's no pleasant, non-exploitative world where paying someone to spend 1-on-1 IRL time with you isn't a luxury good.
So despite my discomfort with robots standing in for people, I think we need to destigmatize it, accept it as part of a high-labor-cost, high-productivity society, try to ensure it's not just a cover for exploitation (e.g. the use of offshore call centers), and let it happen in situations where a real person isn't absolutely necessary. (Telling someone they're dying strikes me as a situation that's worth the cost of the meatspace 1-on-1…) Otherwise, if robots are socially unacceptable, what I suspect will happen is that elder care and other unpleasant, emotionally laborious tasks will just get shoved onto people who aren't in a position to politely decline.
If we need to marshall our resources as a society to afford significant 1-on-1 time, I think it's probably better spent employing teachers for children at higher ratios, than babysitters for people in their dotage. I mean, in the end we all die alone; there is no existence in which getting old is pleasant. But a failure to adequately socialize and educate children risks a lifetime of unnecessary immiseration. As tradeoffs go, that one seems clear.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:35 AM on March 25, 2019 [8 favorites]
On the other hand... I'm not about to quit my job to go work in a nursing home. (Oh, there's probably some hourly rate where I would, but it's… a lot. I've seen what caregivers have to deal with.) And so, if we assume a non-exploitative labor market, it'd be hypocritical to expect to be able to purchase a lot of 1-on-1 time with another person when I'm no longer working.
Provided the wheels don't come totally off the economy (which could mean a real dystopia), we kinda want the value of human labor to keep increasing over time. That's the flip side of increased productivity. There's no pleasant, non-exploitative world where paying someone to spend 1-on-1 IRL time with you isn't a luxury good.
So despite my discomfort with robots standing in for people, I think we need to destigmatize it, accept it as part of a high-labor-cost, high-productivity society, try to ensure it's not just a cover for exploitation (e.g. the use of offshore call centers), and let it happen in situations where a real person isn't absolutely necessary. (Telling someone they're dying strikes me as a situation that's worth the cost of the meatspace 1-on-1…) Otherwise, if robots are socially unacceptable, what I suspect will happen is that elder care and other unpleasant, emotionally laborious tasks will just get shoved onto people who aren't in a position to politely decline.
If we need to marshall our resources as a society to afford significant 1-on-1 time, I think it's probably better spent employing teachers for children at higher ratios, than babysitters for people in their dotage. I mean, in the end we all die alone; there is no existence in which getting old is pleasant. But a failure to adequately socialize and educate children risks a lifetime of unnecessary immiseration. As tradeoffs go, that one seems clear.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:35 AM on March 25, 2019 [8 favorites]
I have worked in a nursing home and I strongly endorse what Kadin2048 just said.
The odd thing about the linked article is that it's the nicest possible view of the problem. Bill has a wife, she's just busy. Bill enjoys the anime interaction and it makes him cheerful. And we never see the workers. How are they? How are their emotional support needs being met? How many of their clients only feel an emotional connection when abusing the workers or making sexual overtures to the camera? (Very common in nursing homes, expression varies with how ill the patients are.) How many of the workers actually feel emotional connection and responsibility towards their clients and are hurt by not really being there, literally not being seen, never knowing what happened to the person in the empty chair? (At least when you physically work somewhere you can ask about the missing and hold the hand of the people you like.)
posted by clew at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
The odd thing about the linked article is that it's the nicest possible view of the problem. Bill has a wife, she's just busy. Bill enjoys the anime interaction and it makes him cheerful. And we never see the workers. How are they? How are their emotional support needs being met? How many of their clients only feel an emotional connection when abusing the workers or making sexual overtures to the camera? (Very common in nursing homes, expression varies with how ill the patients are.) How many of the workers actually feel emotional connection and responsibility towards their clients and are hurt by not really being there, literally not being seen, never knowing what happened to the person in the empty chair? (At least when you physically work somewhere you can ask about the missing and hold the hand of the people you like.)
posted by clew at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]
The Diamond Age got this right" -- the 'thetes get all the freely-available tech, while the wealthy New Atlantis phyle pay craftspeople for humanized work. The primary difference between Nell and the Mouse Army is that she got the version of the Primer with a real person (Miranda) teaching her, while they got the algorithmic/AI mass release.
The crux is the very thing that Diamond Age seemed muddled about. Was Miranda (the call-center-ish employee behind the animated online companion) simply reading a required script? Was she allowed to deviate from the script? Or was she given some level of agency in trying to develop a relationship with the person she was hired to interact with?
The best case version of this is staffed by people with some amount of training and some ability to be personable given agency to establish a relationship with the client but with pretty strict guidelines about what they're supposed to say and what they're allowed to say.
The 2nd worst case is your worst customer service telephone call. Someone who is not a native speaker of the client's language struggling to choose the proper line of the script they're required to read from.
The worst case version is that it's just some chatbot using Facebook algorithms to maximize the client's engagement between the bits of conversation written by advertisers.
posted by straight at 11:48 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
The crux is the very thing that Diamond Age seemed muddled about. Was Miranda (the call-center-ish employee behind the animated online companion) simply reading a required script? Was she allowed to deviate from the script? Or was she given some level of agency in trying to develop a relationship with the person she was hired to interact with?
The best case version of this is staffed by people with some amount of training and some ability to be personable given agency to establish a relationship with the client but with pretty strict guidelines about what they're supposed to say and what they're allowed to say.
The 2nd worst case is your worst customer service telephone call. Someone who is not a native speaker of the client's language struggling to choose the proper line of the script they're required to read from.
The worst case version is that it's just some chatbot using Facebook algorithms to maximize the client's engagement between the bits of conversation written by advertisers.
posted by straight at 11:48 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
TANGENTIAL memory from a pre release reading of Cryptonomicon at MSFT -- one of the ubercoders asked Stephenson whether he really believed, as Diamond Age implied, that children needed HUMAN INTERACTION in their education instead of really good software.
Of course they do, said Stephenson, cautious but bewildered.
Brief pause, next question, now I really wonder what happened to the questioner's kids.
posted by clew at 4:33 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
Of course they do, said Stephenson, cautious but bewildered.
Brief pause, next question, now I really wonder what happened to the questioner's kids.
posted by clew at 4:33 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
... I can think of an even worse case for the computer-mediated interaction, which is that the company's scripts are edited to change to `improve customer outcomes' which is actually weighted to `reduce healthcare expenses' which leads to scripts that encourage people to die quickly. But it's all DeepDream confusing and deniable.
posted by clew at 4:39 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 4:39 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
To me what stands out here is that this is only viable because the emotional labor is coming from overseas, where the care providers can legally be paid much less. One of the biggest issues we're facing in the US in getting appropriate care for seniors and people with disabilities is that care jobs don't pay enough even for the people who love them to stay long-term.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:25 AM on March 26, 2019
posted by bile and syntax at 8:25 AM on March 26, 2019
care jobs don't pay enough even for the people who love them to stay long-term.
It really is amazing how Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos stay rich while teachers and caregivers can't even afford to live alone.
This fucking country.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:59 AM on March 26, 2019
It really is amazing how Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos stay rich while teachers and caregivers can't even afford to live alone.
This fucking country.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:59 AM on March 26, 2019
It'd be nice if we could do all this with a full-time real human for everybody,
The solution to "lots of people need individual care" isn't "hire health-care workers for everyone," but shared multi-generation living that's not a specific care facility. A whole lot of elder care isn't specifically medical aid, but "needs someone to help them tie shoes or get something off a shelf;" a lot of the psych needs are, as noted, "someone to chat with." Many also have medical needs, but those get much less expensive if there's a non-nurse who can adjust the temperature and bring a snack before the person goes into distress.
Put 8 people of various ages in a 5-bedroom house, next to another 5-bedroom house with 6 people in it, having no more than 4 of those total people with full-time day jobs, and there is suddenly enough human contact and low-skill low-stress personal attendance to go around. I don't mean, "and the younger ones will all be servants;" I mean, "hey if you're heading out, can shut the front window? It got chilly."
Living alone is an aberration. Like the "nuclear family," it's a 20th century departure from thousands of years of human history--not that it was never done before, but it was never the norm before. Of course it's not working for anyone not rich enough to hire full-time servants.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:03 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
The solution to "lots of people need individual care" isn't "hire health-care workers for everyone," but shared multi-generation living that's not a specific care facility. A whole lot of elder care isn't specifically medical aid, but "needs someone to help them tie shoes or get something off a shelf;" a lot of the psych needs are, as noted, "someone to chat with." Many also have medical needs, but those get much less expensive if there's a non-nurse who can adjust the temperature and bring a snack before the person goes into distress.
Put 8 people of various ages in a 5-bedroom house, next to another 5-bedroom house with 6 people in it, having no more than 4 of those total people with full-time day jobs, and there is suddenly enough human contact and low-skill low-stress personal attendance to go around. I don't mean, "and the younger ones will all be servants;" I mean, "hey if you're heading out, can shut the front window? It got chilly."
Living alone is an aberration. Like the "nuclear family," it's a 20th century departure from thousands of years of human history--not that it was never done before, but it was never the norm before. Of course it's not working for anyone not rich enough to hire full-time servants.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:03 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
and there is suddenly enough human contact and low-skill low-stress personal attendance to go around.
That seems . . . uncharacteristically utopian? Mutual Aid does seem like the best possible way out of this mess. If nearly everything in our society weren't pushing against it, I'd be a little more hopeful. Be the change you want to see I guess.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:17 PM on March 26, 2019
That seems . . . uncharacteristically utopian? Mutual Aid does seem like the best possible way out of this mess. If nearly everything in our society weren't pushing against it, I'd be a little more hopeful. Be the change you want to see I guess.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:17 PM on March 26, 2019
The solution to "lots of people need individual care" isn't "hire health-care workers for everyone," but shared multi-generation living that's not a specific care facility.
This feels a lot like the old sexist arguments that working families shouldn't demand more and better flexible professional childcare options, working women should just stay home to take care of their kids. It's concealing/devaluing the labor performed by families (disproportionately by women) by assuming it's free and automatically granted. While there's nothing in this comment indicating that we should assume the "8 people of various ages" are a group of relatives instead of housemates, there's also no indication that such a group wouldn't be a family or wouldn't fall into common family dynamics of labor (again performed disproportionately by women).
Just taking a quick skim through relationship questions on AskMe gives a clear look at how complicated and exhausting family obligations and expectations can be even in a best-case scenario with family you deeply love and enjoy, let alone in abusive relationships. Breaking away from thousands of years of human social patterns has also involved breaking many abusive and oppressive social expectations. And an elderly person who is a toxic abusive parent/relative/neighbor/whatever with zero friends still deserves to receive compassionate elder care, provided as a professional service for all, not from family members forced into it.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:33 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
This feels a lot like the old sexist arguments that working families shouldn't demand more and better flexible professional childcare options, working women should just stay home to take care of their kids. It's concealing/devaluing the labor performed by families (disproportionately by women) by assuming it's free and automatically granted. While there's nothing in this comment indicating that we should assume the "8 people of various ages" are a group of relatives instead of housemates, there's also no indication that such a group wouldn't be a family or wouldn't fall into common family dynamics of labor (again performed disproportionately by women).
Just taking a quick skim through relationship questions on AskMe gives a clear look at how complicated and exhausting family obligations and expectations can be even in a best-case scenario with family you deeply love and enjoy, let alone in abusive relationships. Breaking away from thousands of years of human social patterns has also involved breaking many abusive and oppressive social expectations. And an elderly person who is a toxic abusive parent/relative/neighbor/whatever with zero friends still deserves to receive compassionate elder care, provided as a professional service for all, not from family members forced into it.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:33 PM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by Going To Maine at 4:01 PM on March 24, 2019 [6 favorites]