Robots

 Excerpted from an article by Thomas Wells arguing that waiters should be replaced with scan codes:

For example, at least some middle-class people, especially in America, seem to want to keep waiters because they enjoy having someone perform the emotional labour of making them feel like they are more important than they are. It is as if they are LARPing as a rich person from the 19th century by renting a footman to give them lots of obsequious attention. There is something disgraceful about such a desire…

I used to like chatting with the man who pumped my gas, the lady who rang up my groceries, the college kid who brought them to the car. 

Now I ring up my own groceries, silently and alone; I take them to my car myself, silently and alone; I pump my own gas, silently and alone.

This hasn't made my life better.  I don’t think it has made anyone’s life better.

I like human interaction.  I never once felt superior to the people who helped me.

I valued them, was grateful for them, and I miss them.  We don’t need fewer people in our lives, we need more of them.

You can read the whole stupid article HERE, if you want to.