A parting gift for humanity

who is the gift for ?
the giver or the receiver ?

humanity is a genocidal maniac bent on extinction of the species via nuclear war or climate change or disease & famine

why reward that behavior, does it not make you equal to the evils of the practice to reward such terrible actions & intent & ignorance & laziness ?

explain/discuss ...

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I missed wegs asking anything...!!!???

as for Ethernos 1997's question : When the last few vestiges of Humanity are headed for seeming Extinction, a "parting gift" of sure Mortality to the few remnants, just to guarantee the Certainty of Humanity's Extinction!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I can help you there.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Sign up for it, get your free shipping and immediately click the cancel box.

You will still get free shipping for another 29 days, won't have to worry about cancelling and you won't get any more offers for Amazon Prime for at least a year.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Freudian slip, Dave?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Yep. Sorry. I meant Ethernos.

 

a gift to some is a curse to others

is that which is given equal to that which is desired to be received ?
like knowledge

nobody wants to be told they are crazy

& if you cant change that then what use is the information

 

How you ever been told that you are crazy?
Explain/discuss..

 

Let us count the ways!

 

cerebral cortex capitalistic contempt
societal mass media misuse
orbital mechanics oversight American socialism
DSM-5 psychological catatonic babble corporate speak

 

Please explain.

 

Yes! i was asking that. My english is below average.

 

Ah, thanks for that. Last time I accidentally signed up for it I failed to click cancel immediately - and then found, once I realised what I had done, that I had to go digging through several screens to find, in minuscule writing, hidden away, an option to cancel it. I find the technique of signing you up for things by default highly objectionable. In fact I then made a decision to avoid Amazon as much as possible, which I have stuck to. I use it about twice a year, I reckon.

Amazon is destroying the British high street. Only last week I found our local music shop is closing. The owner told me people order all their music on line now and the instrument business is not enough to make ends meet. The only good thing about Bezos is that Trump hates him, so he can't be all bad.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Here endeth the rant.

 

I like Amazon. I'm not sure how you accidentally sign up for Prime

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

but they used to ask me to sign up every time I ordered something from them.

I eventually did it when I wanted something right away and didn't want to pay for shipping. I cancelled as soon as the item arrived but they let you know that it's still good for 30 days but that you won't have to cancel at the end of those 30 days and you still get 2 days free shipping for that month.

The prices on Amazon are usually the lowest but if the item is less than $35 shipping is about $6 so in that case I just find the same item (usually) on Ebay with lower shipping.

Even with free shipping, shipping is slow as they wait several days to do anything and then when they do send it, it's usually done with Prime (meaning it's delivered to my front door rather than to the mailbox down the road.

They also used to try to get me to sign up for a credit card and for the Amazon club card. While I had the free Prime I also signed up for those. Approval was automatic (15 seconds) and I got a $120 free Amazon gift card.

I've never used the credit card, nor do I plan to so it was just a free $120 gift card. Now they don't bug me to sign up for anything (another plus).

I don't mind the shops that go out of business either. The ones that figure out how to compete stay in business and the rest I don't care about. I rarely buy anything other than groceries and gas locally. Most shops don't carry what I'm looking for even after all my driving around.

The one local store that did adapt well was a small chain of independently owned hardware stores. They don't try to compete with Home Depot so they don't carry the larger expensive items but do carry the smaller items and much of what they carry you don't find at Home Depot. They are easier to get to as well. Their customer service is also excellent.

To me, that's the way it should be. It shouldn't be about the customer having to worry about keeping the store in business. That's their concern. If the price is less on Amazon and the service is fast and the selection is virtually unlimited...who needs a local shop? I certainly don't need them for their "expertise", which they rarely have anyway.

 

Yes from a pure market forces viewpoint that is logical, but you are in the US whereas I'm in London.

I recall from my time in Houston that the high street as we in Europe know it, doesn't really exist in much of the US, because most retailing is car-orientated. Our retail set-up is centuries old, having evolved in the era of walking and horses, when people lived in villages. To this day the structure of London remains a collection of villages, that have merged together at their edges but retaining their own centres, with a high street. When high streets lose critical mass, they start to die, because the footfall is not sufficient for the remaining shops to make money. When they die, the sense of village community is lost as well. You easily end up with a blighted centre of boarded up shops, attracting graffiti and vandalism, forcing people into cars to do their food shopping remotely, which is the opposite of what we should be doing. It's actually a huge problem in the UK.

Amazon has led the charge, but all the big chains stores are having to follow, to compete. I am also concerned that all the home deliveries by van increase the CO2 footprint and the amount of packaging of goods, a lot of it plastic. Some, that still have a high street presence, do click and collect, which is what I like best. I can go when I want, by bike, to pick stuff up. But I don't know if that is popular enough to keep the high street going.

 

I've enjoyed Amazon, too but I also see the ''cons'' of it. There are still quite a few cities whereby small book shops, restaurants, bistros, and some retailers are surviving. NYC still has a lot of foot traffic, so those stores are still attractive to many residents. Bezos changed the way we do business though, the ''expectations'' we have of retailers. We have choices, the retailers don't dictate to us what we can or can't buy simply because they don't carry it in stock. They have to compete in price, instead of charging ridiculous prices for their products. Of course, there is a downside as you point out, and also that it has caused us as consumers to become impulsive buyers, because we can have whatever we want in two days (or less). Amazon now offers next day shipping on many products, and is advertising that it will eventually be delivering items within a half hour. lol What?

So, I can't fault Bezos for taking an idea and profiting off of it, but with all capitalist ideas, there are cons to it. The thing is though, the brick and mortar shops that you're talking about, could easily sell their products on Amazon. Many products, like jewelry for example, are sold through small-ish shop owners who can still do what they love, but don't have to pay overhead, rent, etc to stay in business.

It would be interesting to see what Bezos might suggest for the US healthcare system. Probably would make the market competitive, doctors and hospitals might have to compete for 'business,'' instead of charging outlandish fees that no one seems to question because we rely on the insurance system to gobble up the bulk of the costs. There is no other industry whereby customers don't ask ''what is this going to cost me?'' Imagine going to buy a car, and you don't ask the car dealer such a question, you just hand over an insurance card, and drive off, and whatever happens after that, happens. Hmm, maybe I'll ask that the next time I have a doctor appointment - pretending that I don't have insurance.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

The reception staff will probably fall off their chairs, not knowing what to say.

That's the US healthcare system. We have one of those most obese countries in the world, if not the most obese. We are unhealthy as a nation, despite our ''awesome'' healthcare system (from a technical medical standpoint) The US has a reactive healthcare system - it enables people to remain enslaved to their drug pushing doctors, and never get to the root cause of their sicknesses and ailments. I could go on and on, but it would be interesting to see a more competitive playing field between doctors/hospitals/pharma and patients. Some may say ''oh, that will turn medicine into a commodity,'' and to that, I say...so what? I'm rather tired of seeing the medical industry getting filthy rich off people's cancer treatments, yet many patients still die. Something's definitely wrong here, and it isn't just that insurance companies are greedy, so is the medical profession. Socialism isn't the answer, really. I'd say creating a competitive marketplace, as though insurance didn't exist, might be. And creating more checks and balances with the doctor/patient relationship - so that doctors are not permitted to keep writing scripts for their patients, without truly trying alternatives, as well.

Not trying to go off topic, but Bezos has transformed consumer behaviors, and mindsets. It would be interesting as to how he would ''reset'' healthcare. Interestingly, I recall that Amazon was going to dabble in prescription drug distribution, as in take the place of your local pharmacy. I'll have to research that, but remember that being an idea he was thinking about.

Bezos for President! Just kidding, I wouldn't go that far.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

He seems to exhibit the traits of an extreme narcissist, despite his business success.

 

Well at least that would make a change from a narcissist who is a comparative business failure.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

lol

 

My thoughts exactly although I don't know that Bezos is an extreme narcissist. Trump, yes.

I worked for Amazon for a short period of time, in their company headquarters. Jeff would show up in line, just like everyone else in the cafeteria. He didn't act any different than anyone else.

He definitely was more accessible than Bill Gates and much less narcissistic than Trump. I would love to see him take on the healthcare industry.

Even local drugstore are taking on prescription meds. In many drugstores many of their prescription drugs are cheaper on their free in-store plan than many insurance plans so it's often cheaper to just pay rather than using insurance.

 

If it's not popular enough, it will go away. Horse transportation was popular at one point. Now, not so much. The carbon footprint of cars is better than that of horses too.

Malls are less popular here than they used to be. Small shops can compete more easily than mid-sized stores when large stores are nearby.

Some of the small sized hardware stores survived but all the mid-sized hardware stores were put out of business by Home Depot. Which is good IMO. It used to be too expensive to do your own work on your house. Now it's easily affordable.

When I was a kid it was expensive to go into mom and pop sporting goods stores. Once the big stores came in, it wasn't.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

The high street shops you are talking about can have an internet presence as well to help lower the cost of their physical location if they so choose.

Not adapting isn't an option for addressing change however.

 

I agree there. The issue is finding the right future for the high street and in time. The way bookshops like Waterstone's work is good, I think. You can order on-line but also click and collect from their shops. Which suits me perfectly. I struggle with clothes ordering on line. With a lot of stuff you really need to try it on before buying. Sending stuff back that does not fit, and re-ordering, is a huge pain in the arse. Food is obviously far better bought in person, especially since the selection and quality varies. Drink on the other hand is often better delivered - heavy and quality determined by label not physical appearance. Though some people like to taste wine and so forth. As you say, the little hardware shops thrive still, but mostly because they are run by Pakistani families who seem prepared to carry on with low margins (At least they look pretty impoverished) and huge ramshackle stocks. Very useful for odd things like bath plugs, obscure types of light bulb, glue - even mouse traps. God knows how they manage.