Humans will always be upscale, because upscale invariably means old fashioned. People pay extra for nostalgia, and even more to be pampered and catered to.

Dining at the automat used to seem the vision of the future, but sitting in a real restaurant means not only better food, but the experience of having servants, if only for an hour.

Kind of like banks advertising how friendly and human their personnel are, even though most people use ATMs. Or the way up-scale apartment buildings have doormen and concierges, while cheap places have card-key locks and door buzzers.

Only for a little while, Zed. When robot cashiers get cheap enough, the high-end places will switch to humans . . . unemployed grad students trained to dispense intelligent banter.

(These places will also offer uplifted canines to accompany you as you shop; they'll offer opinions on how fresh the produce and meat are.)

Nah, the upscale places'll have robots. Human beings'll be a sign of low-rent.

Excellent! Packed with great stuff.

I think there -will- be check-out boys in upscale stores--I'm sure of it. Personal service will still look like the best service. A warm body being really nice to you (or faking nice) will always trump a machine with most people.

Edited by author 04-30-2003 04:00 PM
Indeed--any reference to seamen would be inappropriate.

I suspect Cory's original comment was "Blow me asshole" which he correctly found too seafaring.

Reminds me, of course, of "The Space Merchants" by Kornbluth and Pohl. Even though they didn't envision the same technology.

Maybe this shows that it isn't the technology that matters so much as the mindset of the market, and that's the same whatever is new.

Forget self-promotion, bring on more fiction... :-)

good story, and I cant decide whether the world depicted is
heaven or hell...

thats something I like in stories like that

Great little story. But checkout boys? They're being phased out already.

Pretty fast on the draw, Cory. Thanks for a good laugh to start off the day! BTW, I enjoyed the story, too.

Well, since its Cory's weblog (at least partly), I don't see any reason why he can't promote himself.

But what I want to know is what Cory's unedited post said. :)

Art is long, artists are short.

Edited by author 04-29-2003 11:23 PM
Blow me, asshole.

Please, less Cory Doctorow self-promotion.