This is for topical issues effecting our fair world... you can quit snickering anytime. Note: It is the desire of the leadership of SFDebris Conglomerate that all posters maintain a civil and polite bearing in this forum, regardless of how you feel about any particular issue. Violators will be turned over to Captain Janeway for experimentation.
Riedquat wrote: ↑Thu Nov 24, 2022 8:09 pm
The phone is a fairly trivial luxury, if you mean mobile. It's rather worrying that people have got so obsessed with them that they view them as a basic need.
I recently got a new job. Package handler for FedEx ground. You need the phone and the ability to text just to get the job, then it with an app are the only means for you to get your schedule and ask for extra shifts. UPS is in a similar position and the app used is not proprietary it is its own other company.
My previous job when we got bought out? The new company wanted everyone on smart phones for zoom meetings, and texts.
Follow that up that my jury duty this year required a zoom meeting for orientation and may have gone for virtual jury service. (I was not selected).
So I think society is making the smart phone a necessity.
Society has managed to rearrange itself in to a situation where in many cases carrying around a bunch of expensive electronics to do things that could be done without it with no real hassle is almost unavoidable. Doesn't make it fundamentally necessary. Or not ridiculous. And that's just in jobs. You certainly don't need one for your ordinary day to day life. I don't feel I'm missing out on anything by not having one.
You're right in that society is trying to make a smart phone a necessity but all that means is that society is becoming increasingly farcical. You'll probably need an app just to put your shoes on in ten years' time, and no doubt it'll attract the same sort of jokers saying how great that is, because they're too fvcking lazy and inept to do even the most trivial things themselves without a big pile of electronics.
I make no apologies whatsoever for my contempt towards such people.
I feel I lost my last job over the lack of that means of communication. Before that the question was do you have a home phone number and you were not worth the time without one.
Where do you draw the line on society getting more technical and farce?
Oh, and the app to put on your shoes? I would not be shocked if something like that did come to pass and wonder why. But then I think not too soon society will turn over grocery shopping to a third party. They then decide what you can get and when. So traditional grocery stores will go out of business. Another choice, thus power, of the people handed away in the name of convenience.
ProfessorDetective wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:02 am
Thank you all for reenforcing my point. No one needs the iPhone 15 or Pixel 7, but just about everyone needs SOMETHING.
Yeah. My Mom and Dad both have the 'eco-Galaxy' models. A50. Functionally they are no different than my S10 which I am riding until S23. And they cost about a third of my S10.
My S10 still performs all the functions I need it to do. It's not the latest and greatest model, it may not be as fast or have 5G but it does its job.
And that is all you need.
But I am getting the S23 because I can and can afford to.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:15 am
A smartphone is necessary in this society in the same way that an income is necessary, or legal ID is necessary. It shouldn't be needed to get through life, but the fact is that it is needed to get through life, and if you don't have one you will be locked out of society's benefits.
Well manage perfectly well without one and don't appear to be missing out in the slightest.
A society where such things become necessary is a society with serious issues (and a person who can't bear to be without one instead of just regarding it as perhaps handy to have has serious issues too for that matter).
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:15 am
A smartphone is necessary in this society in the same way that an income is necessary, or legal ID is necessary. It shouldn't be needed to get through life, but the fact is that it is needed to get through life, and if you don't have one you will be locked out of society's benefits.
Well manage perfectly well without one and don't appear to be missing out in the slightest.
A society where such things become necessary is a society with serious issues (and a person who can't bear to be without one instead of just regarding it as perhaps handy to have has serious issues too for that matter).
We are not talking about having a smart phone only to be used for social media, communication like texting or games.
It's more that jobs have started to use them to be more efficient. Remember they are small mobile computers with a phone function at this point.
Frustration wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 10:15 pm
Our expectations for how we should live were set in an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Then things started to go downhill, and we found that we couldn't maintain that standard of living without ever-increasing effort. Now it's commonplace for marital partners to both work and still not meet their expectations.
That's the reason people are having fewer kids. In the past they did so successfully with many fewer resources, precisely because their expectations were lower. That's no longer possible.
It's not about expectations dude it's about material decline in what people can afford. In 19 80 the average household income was $21,020 and the average home cost $47,200 and the average rent was $283. In 2020 the average household income was $67,521, but the average home price was $329,000 and the average rent was rent was $1,586.
That means rent went from around 16% of gross income to about 28% and buying a house went form about 2 years and 3 months income to 4 years and 9 months income.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:08 pm
Cell phone is more than just a phone with some fun apps.
It's a literal mobile computer with alot of functions that does streamline alot of things.
Take for example, you are the middle of nowhere and you need to look up a reference for a job that you need. Well, your phone can do that.
Before that you may have needed to haul around a bunch of manuals. Now your phone can do that. All in the space of a pocket.
Need to respond to an important email about a new job or part or something coming in about the availability to pick it up or be somewhere on time? Cell phone.
Gotta do math? Use your calculator that your teacher said you wouldnt be carrying with you.
Lastly, there are no pay phones. Or they are rare. Landlines are going away.
Now unnecessary luxury would be saying you need the latest and greatest model of phone every year or two.
It should also be noted that the most expensive iphone right now, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, is $999. The average monthly rent in the cheapest city in the US, Wichita Kansas, is 600 dollars. It's cheaper to get the most expensive iPhone than to live in the cheapest city for 2 months.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:25 am
We are not talking about having a smart phone only to be used for social media, communication like texting or games.
It's more that jobs have started to use them to be more efficient. Remember they are small mobile computers with a phone function at this point.
If one's a required tool for the job (and it really isn't for many, which doesn't mean it wouldn't be of benefit for some) then the job should provide one anyway, like any other tool.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:25 am
We are not talking about having a smart phone only to be used for social media, communication like texting or games.
It's more that jobs have started to use them to be more efficient. Remember they are small mobile computers with a phone function at this point.
If one's a required tool for the job (and it really isn't for many, which doesn't mean it wouldn't be of benefit for some) then the job should provide one anyway, like any other tool.
Like plight said, some jobs like mine require to bring your own tools. I have a large rolling tool box filled with wrenches of different shapes (and sizes), screwdrivers, sockets, power tools, special tools, and none of them are cheap. Other companies, larger ones will provide the same thing that you check out and check back in each day.
And yes, my last company did provide smart phones if you didn't have one. Usually due to the older generations of 50+ years old saying they don't need one and relying on their flip phones or none at all. They have upgraded since then but the model was a IPhone 6 at the time.
