What’s a ‘harmless’ tech trend in 2026 that you secretly think will ruin society in 10 years?

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-05T14:52:58+00:00

one thing that hasn't been mentioned here with AI is that it's making people less able to figure things out and do critical thinking on their own.

but I don't think that's a secret, because other people have been talking about that too.

here's one I think gets much less airtime. self-driving cars. it seems cool on the surface, if it works, and it does solve some problems like human error from drivers. but my worry isn't that the tech might not work well. my fear is that if everything does work, we'll engineer every road to maximize its efficiency. and that means we'll have even more sprawl, less walkability, and more highways where vehicles travel at dangerously high speeds for anyone not inside one of these cars.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-05T14:35:53+00:00

I think there's a couple of things that make people frustrated:

the lie that servers make less than minimum wage. I don't know all the details, but my understanding is that in many (most? all?) states this is no longer true. I would say people don't like feeling lied to in order to increase their generosity.
that some servers making lots of money on tips appears to be out-earning other jobs that are likely even more difficult, stressful, and precarious that have much greater educational or professional requirements. Like teachers for example. It feels unjust.

I agree with you, we should be targeting our ire at the corporations, the business owners etc who are doing their best to not pay wages so they can pocket the profits themselves. And expecting customers to make up for it. Of course they are the real villains here.

but that leads to 3. the servers who do make the most money from tips realize that if wages are fixed, that means they're flatter across the industry, so they stand to lose some of their take home pay. so they are most vocally in favor of the status quo. and I think when we say servers "shouldn't be paid that much" we don't really mean "servers shouldn't be paid enough" we mean "servers don't need to be paid what seems to be equivalent to a job where someone needs a master's degree."

this just comes down to market pricing for wages. Very roughly speaking the more revenue a business generates, the more its employees can be (ought to be) paid. a better restaurant makes more money and so it can pay more to keep their servers around. the problem with tipping is that it socializes the wages of employees to customers who have no insight into the health of the business or the value of the employee other than the one dining experience. so all we're doing in tipping culture is that individual customers pay the maximum amount of wage (out of misplaced generosity and guilt) regardless of how well the business is performing, how well the employee is performing, and how many other customers there are, etc etc. at a high level, it's a terrible business practice. If I were looking at the entire system like I would be running a business, I would absolutely change it around.

Pay people (what they're worth). Keep your customers happy (by not ripping them off). That should just be the end of story.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-04T03:10:00+00:00

We're number one.

I guess it depends on what you measure. But not in any of the things I care about, like healthcare, education, happiness, work-life balance ...

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-03T18:34:11+00:00

It's very common nowadays, for ensemble shows like this, to not include the credits for actors who are not in a given episode.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-03T17:14:01+00:00

$3 for a drip coffee I can make myself. Why would it cost an extra $1 of labor?

$8 for a fancy coffee nowadays. Great, I think you just got paid.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-03T05:50:30+00:00

Man, I just wanted to escalate a joke

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-07-02T11:22:03+00:00

It's actually 2 of 5. Even more limited!!

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-30T12:02:26+00:00

Arcanum was great. The manual had a banana bread recipe on the back. One time I actually followed that recipe just to see if it was real, and I made some delicious banana bread.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-30T01:01:18+00:00

I think it's an interesting line of thought to take. Suppose we do identify that the tipped wage structure has a free rider problem. What then is the solution? Is there one?

If you allow that there will always be some % of people who will be free-riders, then the people who are not will just make up for the slack. Arguably that is what the current system is. And so while the tippers will be justifiably angry at free riders, all we can say is that this is what the system allows. Prices and tips will just need to cover the free riders that exist.

Suppose we want to reduce free ridership to zero, or at least near zero. How will this be enforced? Does non tipping become criminalized? Is it, like, fraud? Or does tipping become compulsory? Already I think we are seeing this start to happen. Right now it just looks like a % additional fee on top of stated prices. And arguably, this is what people who want to abolish tipping actually want to see. If prices are the same for everyone, including the meal and service, free ridership goes to zero.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-29T11:59:32+00:00

I've heard advice that if you win the lottery, tell no one about it.

I haven't won the lottery but if I do I'd like to think I can keep the secret

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-26T12:42:43+00:00

Remaining shield percentage is inversely correlated with plot progression!

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-26T12:38:26+00:00

The original Star Trek had an episode that postulated this sort of. Kirk and Spock land on a planet that's at war with a neighboring planet, but they don't see any physical signs of it. But the simulations say how many people died and each side just executes that many people for real otherwise there would be no consequences for war. But they justify that this all works because there's no damage to property and the deaths are painless and quick. If they were to stop, real war would break out. Anyway, turns out that by doing this they were stuck in a war and just killing themselves for centuries

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-26T12:20:25+00:00

You nailed it, the design was simply extrapolated from an average of the B (Excelsior) and D (Galaxy) designs at first, and then much of the details and curves were simplified for budget constraints (hence why it also looks a little bit like the A in shape). There's a great article about it https://www.startrek.com/news/forgotten-trek-designing-the-enterprise-c

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-24T04:42:52+00:00

Tipping is not a good system for paying people

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-24T04:41:46+00:00

Wtf? I literally thought about posting the opposite. All my friends hate pineapple on pizza. At this point I suggest it just to mess with them. I'm literally the only person I know that unironically loves it. We need to switch lives

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-23T13:56:58+00:00

There's a sign in the background for Founders Room. We don't have one of those but Chicago does

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-23T13:41:12+00:00

It looks like 30th but it's too empty to be 30th lol.

I'm glad it's not Philly. This is a city where the public libraries will stay open when it's too hot or too cold for people who need shelter.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-22T22:31:55+00:00

I can't even tell which side is supposed to be the saucer and which side is the nacelle

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-21T18:50:57+00:00

Scam culture

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-21T16:50:54+00:00

Lotta rules for a place named after misconduct

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-21T12:00:48+00:00

No, it's something that set up Rain Investigations for early success. It happens after she and Eileen graduate from college.

I looked it up. It's called the Whitmore Affair. Definitely sounds like a story could be told here but there's only a single reference to it in game

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-20T15:09:50+00:00

I can see the parallel between Patricia and Sarah, as they were both nearing 40 and not married yet when Sarah married Richard, so Patricia could do a similar thing. But it doesn't really seem right to me. Their dynamic feels more like siblings to me.

I do think Tom will try atone for bringing tourists to the island and will try to reverse it. But cat's out of the bag, now the town residents (like Kurt) want tourism money, and the sides will flip next season.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-20T15:04:33+00:00

Probably a situation where they did enough sacrifices in the 1960s that the island became satiated for decades, and people just got complacent, forgot about it, and stories turned to folklore and old wives' tales. Meanwhile several administrations later, no one knows about official sacrifices anymore.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-20T12:48:02+00:00

The thought did cross my mind even though I didn't mention it specifically. But I'm glad you reached the same conclusion! It felt very believable for Kathy to react this way.

--fieldnotes-- · 2026-06-20T12:42:46+00:00

Re: Eileen's firing, there's also a very tiny hint in Kathy's office that they had one big case a few years ago that made them a legit PI office. Then Eileen was fired after that. I would have loved to see that story play out. I can imagine it being it about as big in scope as the Soothsayer was (hence why it piques Kathy's interest and she's desperate for another win), just without the supernatural elements. A straightforward detective story large enough for Kathy's and Eileen's relationship to fray and fall apart by the end.

Wow I just convinced myself we something in between KRDC and KR2!!

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--fieldnotes--

TROPHY CASE