I’ve got a relative who is a brilliant and accomplished engineer but also a total wreck of a human being. Shortly before the pandemic started he ended up in a pretty bad way due to overuse of rave drugs. He was (and still is) the physical incarnation of “better living through chemistry” and had a ton of supplements to minimize the negative effects of ecstasy.

Anyway, three years later and it seems like things are better - he’s off the sauce(s) and working again, but he’s also become obsessed with engineering his way out of his dependencies, having reached the conclusion that the rave lifestyle is not something he’s capable of giving up. He’s got wearable devices that are allegedly capable of tracking mood and has recently purchased one of those automatic precision cookers that you can get pre-packaged meal kits for. He’s excited about “using AI” to manage his environment and food intake so that he has more time to “concentrate on his connections,” but from the outside I’m not really seeing the benefit.

I’ll admit, I’m cranky because we had a falling out over the first iteration of this plan a while ago and it doesn’t seem like either of us really have the energy or motivation to mend that bridge, but - all that aside - I’m also wondering how much this is actually a good idea and how much it’s just a mirage. One the one hand, modern life is challenging and the constant bombardment from distractions makes it hard to focus on mental wellbeing and maintain human connections but on the other, it seems like you’re giving up a lot of autonomy and outsourcing your responsibility to take care of yourself to a computer. I enjoy cooking as a hobby and spent a lot of time reading recipes and planning meals for myself and my partner every week, and I’ve also become a pandemic homebody who doesn’t talk to friends much anymore and hasn’t done much socializing with anyone since 2019. Is offloading some of the daily responsibility of living to a machine the way forward? What do y’all think?