Comment by ryanisnan
15 hours ago
Convenience is our Achilles heel, as a society.
We'll keep dangerous devices like the SuperBox in our homes, if it helps us get access to free movies and tv.
We'll use single-use plastics, even if we know they're bad for the environment, because they're just so damn easy.
We'll let AI run that thing for us, because it's just too easy.
A whole generation has grown up without knowing what it was like to infect your computer with AIDS trying to download an MP3, and it shows. That caution will come back, just at a terrible cost.
just because there's a chance of something bad happening doesn't mean its worth it to abandon all convenience and workflow improvements, though. if no one ever used workflow tools that could access the contents of their emails because of the risk of a leak, its possible the productivity loss across society from that would be much worse than from the security incidents (like this one). there are pros and cons to things. it's not wrong to choose something just because it has a small risk associated with it.
> Convenience is our Achilles heel
More generically, our species' Achilles heel is our inability to factor in the long-term cost of negative externalities when evaluating processes that yield short-term positive results.
This. From simple personal choices to the marker economy and politics. With games we're introduced to cheat codes pretty early in our lives. Some people outgrow them, some don't. Too bad our systems encourage their use, whether it's a time-to-market thing, cutting costs, or the next election.
When life gives you AIDS, make lemonAIDS!