[Project Application] Swipe Stuff

[peteyreplies]

BIFFUD Project Application

As described in section 11.11.B of the BIFFUD Corporate Bylaws I (we) hereby invoke my (our) rights as a (a) sentient being(s) who has (have) not uploaded their mind(s) to the cloud for consideration of this project application by the BIFFUD Hive Mind. With this application I (we) submit my (our) interest in becoming a (a) Member(s) of BIFFUD and having this project supported and adored by all who can 🤔.

Project Information

• Project Name: Swipe Stuff
• Project Haiku:

i like to swipe right  
and also random garbage   
bezos take my cash 

• Project Analogy: Tinder, but for buying things on Amazon

Project Description

What is your project? What is the goal?
Amazon and Tinder have four things in common: they each offer 1) an endless supply of 2) things you don't need but 3) will seek out anyway because you believe consumption will make you feel less lonely and yet you inevitably 4) regret your decision the next morning.

Shouldn't they share the same interface?

Why not bring the casual, impulsive dismissiveness/acquisition of people to the realm of objects by making it possible to swipe your way through everything on Amazon? Load our app and be presented with a randomly sorted list of things that are available to buy on Amazon (possibly subject to certain minimum/maximum price restrictions as analogue to age, or categories as analogue to gender). Swipe left for the next object that you didn't know you needed, swipe right to instantly Prime it right to your house.

There are a few prior art inspirations for this project, which has been sitting in an evernote folder I have for bad ideas since September 2014:

• Darius Kazemi's random amazon shopping bot
• Canopy, which bills itself as "Aamzon, curated" (note: THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE WANT)
• dating apps, which, lol

Bylaw Questions

How is this project a bad idea?

Jeff Bezos doesn't need any more money and this will probably give him some. Also probably will have negative environmental externalities.

If this project were a D&D Character, what alignment would it be and why?

Alignment:

• Chaotic Neutral

Because it is a fount of random garbage.

Where are the lulz?

As Darius' bot proved, there are a lot of weird things on Amazon, and since this app won't (indeed, mustn't) privilege highly-rated or otherwise recommended items, it will increase the likelihood that people stumble across them.

(You can imagine a web-based version that does the same thing too, which is kind of nice).

How does this project make people 🤔 (thinking face emoji)?

You did this to yourself.

[Any arbitrary set list of objects] disrupts being, spilling a heap of unwelcome and incoherent crap at the foot of the reader. In doing so, a tiny part of the expanding universe is revealed through cataloging. Ontographical cataloging hones a virtue: the abandonment of anthropocentric narrative coherence in favor of worldly detail...Such is the ontographical project, to draw attention to the countless things that litter our world unseen.

We must not confuse the values of the design of objects for human use, such as doors, toasters, and computers, with the nature of the world itself. An ontograph is a crowd, not a cellular automaton that might describe its emergent operation. An ontograph is a landfill, not a Japanese garden. It shows how much rather than how little exists simultaneously, suspended in the dense meanwhile of being.

• Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology

Who is Involved?

Sentient Being

• Name: Chris 'Petey' "Peter" "The Petersterater" Peterson
• Twitter: peteyreplies
• Github ID: peteyreplies
• Skillz: none to speak of
• Project role / expectations: unhelpful and low
• Project stake: I had this idea 4 years ago and don't know what else to do with it

Bot Overlord

• Statement of Purpose:

Who will be the project's Comptroller?

I don't know what this means.

Is it realistic to implement through BIFFUD?

I think so?

Next Steps

Please attend the next scheduled BIFFUD plotting session to plead your case.
This issue will be updated with application status and next steps.

[peteyreplies]

A few related notes:

• I have documentation from Darius on how he built his bot and some of the issues that might be relevant to building this one (at least what was true 4 years ago)
• if we can figure out how to make this be amazon affiliate/associates then it could probably generate revenue for biffud

[slifty]

HOLY MOLY WE ARE GONNA BE RICH!

[peteyreplies]

Project call:

• the technical challenges of plugging into amazon's infrastructure seem significant
• baron thinks it's possible though
• paul thinks we should pull in (one) star reviews
• we should definitely pull in prices

[knowtheory]

@slifty: what would implementation of this look like? do you have thoughts about the technical side of this.

@peteyreplies that he's not a coder he can barely put together twitter bots. The key reasons why he thinks this is tough is ensuring actually pulling random things from Amazon. And somehow allowing folks to sign into their amazon accounts. If you want to have the shipping and billing built as easily as possible.

Petey is interested in making sure this is as much like the dating experience as possible. So like swiping through a bunch of garbage before finding something interesting.

Lou would like some mechanism not to impoverish someone. Like a spending limit or something like that.

[peteyreplies]

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/Welcome.html
• it looks like how canopy works is they just pick stuff and then make pretty affiliate links on their website