Comment by ryangittins
1 day ago
> what can be done by an intercom
The Doorman Fallacy is exactly this—thinking that one function of a job is the whole job. The doorman doesn't just open doors nor relay messages. They're eyes and ears, security, friendliness, an extra hand with bags, local knowledge, emergency response... The list goes on and on. Almost none of their functions can be replaced with an intercom.
The modern alternative is elevators where you can't push buttons but just wave a card at it, which themselves mean obnoxious tech systems to deal with delivery people and packages and visitors, and other automation that seems to border on the paranoid. Which—just by its existence vs a human—further removes you from society and day-to-day practice at normal human interaction.
Much of the US has buildings that are too small to justify a doorman regardless, but something is lost for it.
"Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are...well...human beings." - Terry Pratchett