>Washing clothes by machine is orders of magnitude cheaper than by hand when you factor in the value of your time.
I'll also note that it is less resource intensive overall. Handwashing dishes and clothes will use more water and more energy to heat that water compared to the machines that do the same job (people often assume the opposite).
I don't like the op-ed but I would agree with the main point or what I understand as the main point, even if the argumentation is weak).
It takes a mix of willpower / routine / systems / laws to keep people in check, otherwise we predictably go back to the path of least resistance.
> Once you have used a washing machine, laundering clothes by hand seems irrational, even if it might be cheaper.
Washing clothes by machine is orders of magnitude cheaper than by hand when you factor in the value of your time.
> After you have experienced streaming television, waiting to see a show at a prescribed hour seems silly, even a little undignified.
Undignified? What? Completely incoherent word slop. Good to see LLMs haven't completely taken that domain for themselves, I guess - a little hand-crafted slop now and then is a treat, I guess? Anyways, they're wrong. People still tune in to watch scheduled live events all the time.
> To resist convenience — not to own a cellphone, not to use Google
Neither of these things are a matter of convenience. A cellphone is at this point literally required to participate in a modern economy. Google is a tool that provides you with globally-retrieved information that you otherwise literally could not find on your own or without another similar tool.
I don't even disagree with the premise that convenience is a driving factor of our lives, but the justifications and conclusions drawn by this article are beyond stupid. Here's my view of it: the desire for convenience is what pushes us onwards as a species. Hunting for food is inconvenient, so we invented agriculture. Going down to the river or well for water is inconvenient, so we invented indoor plumbing. Repeat ad infinitum until we have modern civilization. There is one part the pessimistic view overlooks; that to achieve maximum convenience long-term requires more effort in the short-term. Developing the skill of programming is inconvenient in the short-term but convenient in the long-term because of the possibilities this opens up to you. This remains true even in the current LLM era, and it will remain true for as long as we are not replaced wholesale by LLMs.