Friday, September 15, 2017

I'll never own an Amazon Alexa or Device Like It



I saw this episode. It was raunchy as usual. It is weird they got the TV to integrate with viewers devices but a cynical part of me thinks, "Ah yes a PR marketing campaign!" The topic of the latest South Park was annoying as they put down unemployed poor people, in general to make some confusing point about Charlottesville. Of course they showed some who were racists with Confederate flags, but it was kind of alarming to see the part where Randy Marsh tells one of the unemployed men, "Coal mining and truck driving are not exactly jobs of the future". You're stuck in another time, afraid to change."

That said, I know a tech gap is opening between me and many people of better means. It's happening in general almost forming a cultural divide. I know my refusal to get a smart phone all these years puts me aside, my refusal is from real economic realities and also wanting the freedom to be left alone when I am away from home. How do people afford all the fees for these different devices? Isn't this another 30 or 40 bucks a month?

I do not understand putting a device in your house, where it can listen to and record everything you say. That's nuts to me. Also how do you get the shopping list when you are away from home and need it, from the smart phone? When people say the word APP to me, I do not even barely know what an app is, I am very behind on all this stuff. Maybe that is a good thing. Why do people need to ask some round blob in their house or apartment what time is it? Go take a look at a clock. I write this blog on laptops in bed. I don't own a Kindle, a smart phone or an Alexa or an Echo and don't plan on it.

It is interesting most of the show's ire was for blue collars workers out of a job and not the racists. I know South Park has some annoying political rhetoric, and has for years. I think they helped to fuel some of the alt-right extremes, but what was the point of this show? To sell more Alexa's and Echoes? It wasn't very funny either.

7 comments:

  1. The technology and the internet are supposed to make our lives easier. Unfortunately, some apps or gadgets like Amazon Alexia sounds like the ones created for children, mean kids, or teen-agers who have nothing to do with their lives than staying home and using technology. In our childhood and young adulthood days, we were able to go outside and play with our friends unsupervised. Unfortunately, laws changed since the 1990s, so that parents could no longer allow children to play outside without theirs or adults supervision.

    The internet and high tech toys are replacement for playgrounds and outside we get to play. It's really sad because these situations will be counter productive in the future. I never heard of Amazon Alexia since you posted this. lol

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    1. I believe all this technology has pushed people apart. I do meet great people and have wonderful friends from the internet, but there is that side of it. Many people don't use the internet for a library or to talk but for entertainment and to zone out too. I am old enough to remember the days before the internet. I think it is wrong too how kids are supervised 24-7. I know on this blog long ago I asked how come they are so busy inventing screens and nothing that really changes lives. There's no robots cleaning for me yet. I still have to clean the toilet like 40 years ago. LOL

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  2. Amazon Alexia is a classist too. I want to tell you that ability to obtain a professional position such as teaching, medical lab technology, or a nursing position are based on your income before you began your training. For example, if you want to teach and are a single woman, you have to come up with money to go to the Ed School for 2 years ($25K to $50K per year on the average), do unpaid student teaching for 1 semester to a year, depending on your state educational law, and fees to take three to five parts of Pre-Professional Skill Test (PPST) for your teaching licenses. Teacher training program is much more expensive out of your pocket that a training to become a professor of research university.

    Students who are pursuing a master's degree in teaching licensure programs usually have to take out loans or come up with money they saved after 3 to 5 years of teaching full-time, or have a spouses or parents who would support them while they do student teaching. Most single poor adults do not financial support nor the means to pay for their teaching credential program. I heard it is expensive in nursing and medical lab tech schools. I am appalled that society today are so classist against working class people, especially those who could not afford training and education programs for certain while collared professional positions.

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    1. It is classist, I thought this South park was classist as hell, and they didn't go after racists who suck, but people who are upset at having no jobs and mocked them for not being able to afford degrees. I wanted to go to graduate school but could not afford it, that is why I went for a post bacc in paralegal. What was worse is they would not let me transfer the art education degree and I was stuck with some very rigid people even though I had a decent enough grade point average. I actually interviewed to get into my alma mater's Social Work school and by then I had done years of art therapy, drama programs etc, and art classes for my juvenile home students, and I was turned down. I didn't know how I was going to finance the education and that was another blockade. I was interested in art therapy programs too and masters but could barely feed myself so there you go. A lot of things were thwarted. I don't talk about much on this blog how my student teaching was destroyed via my abuse but it was. I was fortunate I held it together and go through school but that was the hardest year of my life in some ways. I now know my parents wanted me to fail requiring I work while student teaching full time. I didn't fail but it cost life long health consequences. I know I had to graduate or I was dead meat, and it was fast food and low wage work for life. [See the post, "The first time I went no contact".. One thing I realized with horror getting into the teaching field is a lot of the hiring WAS CLASSED BASED. The wealthier students got better jobs and I noticed many of the women who had husbands with professional jobs and good homes, were more apt to get the good school district jobs. Connections counted a lot. Many people I graduated with in art ed never got a job in the field. I was fortunate I got what I got and had no qualms going into the inner city school districts though they definitely had more challenges. Teacher training is very expensive. If I was not in art education, at my alm mater, other teaching tracks were 5 years. Just to be an elementary school teacher, and while teaching in regular school districts, you were expected to go to graduate school and keep your teaching license. I basically was pushed out because I did not get a normal teaching job but an alternative school and grant based job. I substitute taught in regular schools. Sometimes I am angry no one was honest to me about my Aspergers, I wasted a lot of money. I know another person who was more severely austistic then me, who went through the whole 5 year program, and was told in student teaching for elementary education, she did not have the right personality to deal with students. She was not allowed to go into any regular school districts even to substitute like me or do long term assignments. She was pushed into pre-school and later day care, which was around only 30 percent of the wages she would have got as a teacher. I would not go into teaching again. Yes even if you have a bachelors to go into teaching at all costs a very expensive master's degree. I joked once my husband should become a high school english teacher years ago but the educational costs were a giant barrier. He wasn't interested.

      Societ is very classist against working class people. South park pissed me off with the attitude in this cartoon, well if you are an unemployed just go get an education. Well it's not that simple. Education of course is no guarantee now of a well paying jobs too. There are class barriers when it comes to jobs. Even if you have the training, grades, and more, they do look at your body, how new your car is, how nice your clothes are, who you know, your speech patterns and more.

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    2. Oops sorry for not putting in paragraphs, I type sometime in a stream of consciousness and then go back and put them in. I'm on the older Vista laptop where it's harder to copy and paste a long block of text and fix it.

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  3. I heard of one home owner who had a "smart" meter put on her house and her utilities jumped over three times the normal rate. It's all a scam. Every few years I go looking for my usual ancient flip phone from Virgin Mobile and just know eventually they wont even make those any longer. My motto on radioactive phones is "Remember Steve Jobs" .

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    1. Wow that is quite an increase. I found myself wondering if those Alexas and other devices start spouting off with advertisements, hmm if they don't they will. Hope you can find your phone for a long time. They say the phones do have health effects. So yeah Jobs serves as a warning.

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