>This has been a solved problem for a long time: you look up the movie times and such prior to departing for the movies. No smartphone needed.

Strangely, not everyone is at home when they decide to go to the movies.

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everdrive 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well, I guess our only choice is to own an expensive corporate surveillance device. There's no other option. The ancient polynesians managed to learn to navigate huge, open seas by memorizing the stars. The ancient Greeks managed to measure the size of the sun with trigonometry and grit alone. We've mapped the genome and soon we may even cure inherited illnesses, or bring extinct species back to live.

But I hear you. What if I wanted to know what movies were playing, but I was already at a restaurant? What could I possibly do? The only answer is a smart phone. There's no choice, and no escape.

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Maxatar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You're kind of being a dick now.

	▲	everdrive 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm just so frustrated by how quickly and easily people give in to these things. People face relatively small inconveniences and quickly give away their rights. Smart phones and social media (in large part, enabled by always-on, always-present smart phones) have so, so many negatives effects and people won't even consider moving on. "It's hard to find parking" or "some restaurants are now inconvenient to eat at" are measured next to "the suicide rate of teen girls is spiking" and "we've enabled government tracking and surveillance on a scale never before thought possible." I don't know how else to be. People are so obsessed with immediate impulse satisfaction and immediate comfort that they'd give up anything. I think if you offered to remove someone's right to vote, but told them they would be able to gamble for free once a month you'd lose half the votes in the country.

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bena 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh man, the past was fucking wild, because you would do this. You'd just show up to the theater and look at what was playing. Or, if you were close to a store, you'd go and buy a newspaper that had the movie listings for your local theaters.

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parineum 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It can be it's own "adventure" just to go to the movies and pick something that's playing. You can end up seeing a movie you wouldn't have because you didn't spend 20 minutes reading the negative reviews of and it turns out to be fun.

I discovered a lot of new things by being forced to make choices from limited set of options.