There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.
Or even one of the many other food replacement drinks.
I personally enjoyed Huel back in version 1, or it may have been 1.1, but then it quickly swung into containing high levels of sweetener. More popular than other options, but if anyone else found it had moved into drinking cake then try some of the others rather than giving up.
In this case it seems the search engine had indexed the thread/question, which was posted previously (making sense it was already ranking in search results), and ChatGPT followed that link and a found the answer.
Don't have to imagine, I'm living it. In my country of Finland every adult citizen is granted free housing, heating, electricity, water, Internet, healthcare and food. If you ask, you can also get extra for hobbies and irregular needs like furniture and appliances.
It's great. I've been able to dedicate my life to the highly uncertain career of computer art research. Never needed to work a job I didn't like. Zero debt.
Looking quickly at https://www.kela.fi/web/en , I see, for example, that, yes, there are unemployment benefits, but there is a work requirement.
I see that the sickness allowance is tied to income (though there is a minimum rate).
I see that there is an entire section called "Conscripts", which is worth noting.
I see a section that maybe(?) applies to your situation (?):
> Researchers who receive a Finnish grant for at least 4 months must take out insurance under the Farmers’ Pensions Act (MYEL) if the grant amounts to at least EUR 4,131 annually (in 2022). The entitlement to Kela benefits for researchers who receive a grant is based on this pension insurance policy for self-employed persons. The insurance is provided by the Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution (MELA).
Is your work funded by grants from the Finnish government?
In the US, there are various kinds of research grants too of course (none tied to housing, AFAIK, though it surely contributes to work requirements), but they are quite competitive to get, and the getting of them is basically what comprises the fairly high-status career of "professor". (Also some parts of the Defense and non-profit sectors.)
The specific mechanism is 'basic social assistance / income support'. It is a minimum amount of money that everyone has the right to, and is tied to your actual living expenses. To receive it one has to apply for it, a number of months at a time (varies, 1-6 months usually), and provide your bank account statement indicating that you've received no money from anywhere else (other income is subtracted), and you must send your bills as they come to receive matching compensation.
What you need to understand is that the institution handing them out, Kela, naturally must appear scary and imposing, impenetrable bureaucracy. Because simply giving out money is faux pas. So they have to use language like "this is a last resort emergency support you must only seek when all other options are exhausted". In reality, you simply refuse service from the unemployment office and they'll gladly hand you your benefits without complaint.
If they decline or give you less than you're entitled to (very rare), you simply complain to the complaints processing department and they got you covered. Personally I've never had much trouble.
There is a heavy cultural sentiment for "mooching off the government" in this manner. But my back of the envelope calculation indicates that every bum in Finland receiveing these benefits costs the average taxpayer about $1/month. Some of these people literally do nothing but drink beer for the full amount. I'm working on turning my life-long passion hobby into a career.
You would need an entire restructuring of society. Humans need a purpose to avoid falling into depression. Jobs don’t need to be that purpose, but currently jobs fill that role for a huge percentage of the population (if not the career itself, the purpose of providing for themselves and their family). What can replace that is not completely clear yet.
I don't see how the two are related. I don't think people find a great sense of purpose in a job if the only thing that job provides them is to not starve to death.
I'm not saying the current source of purpose is the best source. I'm just saying life is currently organized around working for most people. Something (or many things) will need to replace that structure.
The way I see it, it would require the dirty work (and probably most non-dirty work) to be entirely automated. Up to and including repairing the automation.
The natural environment already provides everything people need, if there aren't too many of them. The "fully automated luxury communism" we seek is already implemented by biology, and powered by the sun. Enclosure ended it.
(My experience is with amazon.ca) Amazon is filled with the kinds of deception that the article discusses.
I dont have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime.
I always buy enough to get free shipping (which they show with a big banner), but it always defaults to paid shipping, that often needs to be removed item by item.
More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before.
They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can.
I could go on, but the point is I agree with you entirely.
As of 2012 Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical books in the UK. I suspect that hasn't changed since then. So I'd argue defaulting to kindle is the right product decision as it's the option the majority of users want.
Amazon Prime on the other hand is definitely a dark pattern.
Amazon has 15 years of shopping history from me that includes multiple physical books each month and 0 kindle purchases. Its possible they don't consider that and default to kindle for everyone, but they at least have the info to know that kindle versions are not what I'm after.
Amazon is incredibly good at converting consumer surveillance data in to money. They could easily default this (and many other things) to sensible per-user values. Given their competence and attention to detail, the reasonable guess here is that playing dumb on this default pays better than doing right by the user.
Maybe what's happening is: if you have a Kindle (you bough it form Amazon - or you bought kindle books on your account), they assume is likely you want a kindle version. If you don't have a Kindle, they want to show you how cheaper the Kindle version is, and maybe you will end up buying a Kindle.
They sell more e-books because the publishing industry colluded to jack up the price of paperbacks so that $10 e-books look like a bargain. I'm not paying $15 for a physical book that would have been $5 15 years ago. Their production overhead has been dramatically lowered by digital distribution and I'm expected to pay more?
I think it's the convenience for both buyers and sellers. If readers want the book "now" they get the kindle version; if they want it later they get the physical copy. However, Kindle in general is a dark pattern: it forces users to be locked into their product ecosystem.
> I don't have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into getting prime.
Back when I was still in college they offered a "6 month trial" of Prime Student. I agreed, made a mental note to cancel it in 5 months, and was shocked to find the next day that my card had been charged. There weren't any purchase screens, any terms to agree to, or anything to indicate that the trial they were peddling was in fact just an ordinary Prime Student subscription which would then renew in 6 months.
They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as much as they can.
I mean, it says Sold by X and Fulfilled by Amazon right under the add to basket/buy buttons. It's repeated on the order summary. I'm aware people keep missing this, but I don't really get it.
If you are not buying from Amazon, then nothing on the entire page should imply that you are.
Why is this not obvious to us? It wasn't to me either. There has got to be some cognitive bias at play here to lead to our acceptance of inverted principles like this. The framing of the problem is completely inverted, yet we're pretty much okay with that.
If it's not clear what I'm talking about here's another example:
"Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?"
This is also a reframing that presumes I do not have privacy and therefore bare the burden to prove I need it. People accept this frame and attempt to argue it directly all the time, when they should really just say "Why do you need to take it?" The burden of proof is on the taker.
Neither the buyer nor the seller should be so accepting of Amazon's attempt to obfuscate the actual parties involved in the sale. Amazon is just the payment processor and possibly providing storage and shipping services.
A real world analogy would be if every store that accepts VISA looked like a VISA store.
> More often than not, books I search for default to kindle, and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version before.
This can't really be something Amazon is intentionally trying to trick you into doing. There's no way for you not to notice that it happened, and you can just return the kindle book.
In general you just need to change it for each shipment - if multiple items are grouped together [because they're all at the same warehouse) then changing one shipment will change the shipping speed of all items within it. They probably should be defaulting to free shipping when it's available, though.
I'm not saying they aren't. What I'm trying to get across is that people are more used to and, therefore, inured to their dark patterns. There's a learning curve for navigating any website's dark patterns, so I'm more comfortable using a site whose dark patterns I believe I can recognize and avoid than one I haven't used before and am consequently more likely to be victimized by.
I'm definitely overestimating my own ability to avoid Amazon's scammy tactics. I, like most people, am reluctant to admit that I'm vulnerable to manipulation by things like these dark patterns (and ads, PR, etc.). But since I'm talking about my subjective feelings towards the websites, I think how good I _feel_ I am is relevant.
I totally agree with everything you've said, but just want to clarify my initial comment. I'm not trying to let Amazon off the hook, though they are less problematic than almost all of the other examples in the article.
One example is their "subscriptions" to products. It's very easy to accidentally order a recurring subscription to a shipped physical product, rather than just a one-time purchase.
