The Automated Life- Is There an Alternative?

There is always an alternative if you want it enough.

I am holding onto the phone trying to get through to web support for an online account after passing through a cadre of robots. The head robot tells me the reason I am calling is invalid. I yell at the robot telling it that it is rude to answer the phone with a robot and the robot keeps on repeating itself.

It is rude but no one ever says so. Time is money, especially to the working class, and so the incremental theft of our time by automation is another face of financialization. Robots eat away at our time uselessly just as financialization eats away at our money while producing nothing of use to society. Robots create a mechanized company culture environment and are not very bright. The use of robots when limited to a very brief “select your option”, from a concise list is non-offensive, but that is not the state of the world today.

What is the cultural psychological effect of a world where humans have decreasing interactions with real humans in their daily lives? The psychological b…