Compared to your ancestors 100, 1000, 10,000, and 100,000 years ago, you're hopelessly dependent on machines and technology to survive. Fortunately you can harness the surplus energy and attention you aren't dedicating to just getting by in everyday life to do more productive and amazing things.
(I mean, I don't want to come off as a Luddite by any means, but...)
I'm 40, so perhaps things have changed a bit more than those younger than me, but I can still make most food from scratch ingredients, have no issues sleeping outside in the cold, and can iron and mend my own clothes. I don't really see that much of a difference between myself and a person 100 or 1000 years ago, spare electricity, and I certainly don't need that in any real meaningful way.
Perhaps it's a generational gap, perhaps it's my jaded old fart genes kicking in, but I look at this list and I see, for lack of a more fitting phase - a lot of useless shit.
I mean, who the heck justifies a smartphone controlled grill? Who's next purchase priority is a $250 blanket that you program with your smartphone to keep different areas of the bed warm? Is there really a demand for a gadget that helps with your mindfulness and tells you to calm down? Isn't that what a good friend is for? Granted, there are certainly a lot of items that do seem to have useful needs - and I love that many of them seem geared towards sustainability and such, but my god I don't think every single article on the planet needs to be "smart".
Then again, I'm a person that still doesn't see the use case behind the smart watch (that's dependent on the phone in your pocket, at least), so maybe I'm just completely out of touch. At any rate...don't read too much into my comment, I'm not as trite as I probably sound. Just getting a little put off by the trend that seems to be focused on using technology to power hyper-narcissism ("Your own shampoo flavour!") in the name of positive technological advances. :-/
> I'm 40, so perhaps things have changed a bit more than those younger than me, but I can still make most food from scratch ingredients, have no issues sleeping outside in the cold, and can iron and mend my own clothes.
I'm only a few years younger than you, and I can do all those things too. I think you likely vastly underestimate the gulf between the old-timey things you know how to do, and the old-timey things you'd be forced to do in 1915 -- the Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns.
> I mean, who the heck justifies a smartphone controlled grill?
Someone never properly taught to cook who panics at soft terms like "medium heat" and doesn't know what a given kind of steak should look like.
> Who's next purchase priority is a $250 blanket that you program with your smartphone to keep different areas of the bed warm?
A married couple that has regular arguments over what blankets to use and are ready to try a gimmick that might help.
> Is there really a demand for a gadget that helps with your mindfulness and tells you to calm down?
I've dealt with coworkers who absolutely could have used it, though of course the hard part would be convincing them they had a problem in the first place.
Well, you say from scratch but compared to lets say cooking a 100 years ago I guess you would find that a challenge. Of cause you could do it but it would be much harder than today.
