I have seen the future, and in it I have totally freed myself from the need of having to interact with anyone at more than a superficial level. I need not familiarize myself with the grocery clerks at the local supermarket, because I have a service that takes my on-line order, and delivers it into my house when I’m not around since I gave access to my house through Amazon.
No longer do I need to go outside and venture into a restaurant for a meal. Instead, I can scroll through menu listings from hundreds of restaurants and select a meal, then wait for the service to come deliver it directly to my door. Still have to interact with a delivery person though – can’t wait for drone delivery to come so I don’t have to interact with anyone.
I never see my friends in person because I am so busy keeping up with my facebook friends, my twitter following, my instagram buds, who has the time to keep up face to face. Besides, if I went to see someone, I’d have to change out of my robe and slippers. No, online connections are so much better than having to put up with actually interacting with others.
Gas stations? Who needs gas stations? You can pay someone to deliver a set amount of gas to your car. Use Yoshi, and arrange for weekly fill-ups at work or home. It only costs a small delivery cost in addition to your gas purchase. Of course, I haven’t interacted with someone at a gas station for a long time since they put credit card readers out at the pumps. And I can arrange for someone to come to my car and do my basic maintenance, like oil changes. Pretty soon I won’t have to use a car at all.
Unless I really need some money to pay for all of these delivery charges I’m racking up. Then I can use my car and drive for the ride services. Yes, I do have to deal with the people I carry, but I never have to interact with a supervisor or co-workers. I don’t even have a supervisor, and I don’t know who my co-workers are, since we are all contractors.
I can’t remember the last time I set foot in one of our local stores. In fact, I was surprised the last time I drove through one of the shopping areas in town. Looks like most of the stores are either closed or are having going out of business sales. Well, no wonder. They can’t compete on convenience with ordering things on line and receiving it within one or two days. I do wonder what I’m going to do with the mountain of cardboard I’m accumulating.
My insurance company has this great new service. If I have a cold or some sort of minor issue, I don’t have to go to a doctor. I can connect with the service and go through a series of questions, then have a brief conversation with a doctor, and then they will arrange for an antibiotic to be delivered to my door for my sinus infection. How wonderful! You do know that 67% of all communicable diseases are transmitted through doctor’s offices. Not having to go out – that’s wonderful.
I can get my dog walked, even if I’m home. Just have to pay that service. One thing I haven’t gotten rid of though – still have to make it to a vet. No remote app for that – yet.
I’m living the good life.
Note: It seems like the purpose of most technology advances and technology business offerings is to eliminate the need to interact with other individuals. Soon we’ll flit through life like dragonflies, unaware of any other life form. Maybe we hook up and have a brief fling in the air, but then it’s over and we can fly off to our doom unbothered by any other human contact.
Scholarly articles are written pondering whether technology is fueling depression and loneliness. I don’t need a graduate degree in sociology to enable me to say, hell yes it is, and the race to the bottom is accelerating. Just look at how many folks check out of the moment where they are, and look at their phone to catch up with the latest text or facebook post. I’m sitting in a choir rehearsal, and if there’s a break of more than 30 seconds, my neighbor pulls out his phone and gets an update. I will admit, I have looked for a sports score sometimes, but I’m not guilty of seeking constant status updates.
With the social media movement, business has finally found something more addictive than slot machines. We the users gleefully allow ourselves to be parsed, analyzed, and monetized for our commercial exploitation. We voluntarily expose our natures and our most personal thoughts and expressions, and release it willingly, just so we can see how many likes we got on our last post.
You know, I’m really amazed that Twitter expanded their character limit recently. With the ongoing shortening of the national attention span, I figured they’d cut it down to 100 characters (and you can have 20 additional emoticons in order to make up for the loss of bandwidth in cutting the character limit). How many folks have the time to read 280 characters! Sad!
Originally posted on my blog https://evenabrokenclock.blog
Comments
We humans are by nature social animals. But in my view, the current, centralized political system forces us to be too social. So at one level, being able to live with less interaction with others is a good thing. (Oh, if only we could all live without having to interact with politicians, tax bureaucrats and other criminals of their ilk!)
On the other hand, when we interact with those we want to, the results are usually positive on both sides. It's called trade.
To sum up:
If you're lonely, don't call Hub.
Get your shoes on, go to the pub.
Do you support Trump ban on Muslims? Go in the Black community and see who is in every corner shops serving up their burgers. If ever you decide to socialize and engage in multicultural appreciation, visit the basement of those stores and see who is preparing the containers to deliver your food. More venomously or is it ominously, visit the kitchens and see who are the people, not in your neighborhood, preparing your falafal.
My habits are all insular. I am a writer. The world passes through my keyboard. I live vicariously.
Opher..you go out and around..its how you write.
I have stores I love to go to, but they are small stores. One of my favs is closed now (2015) and it sucks. But I did frequent the store at least once a year. FAO Schwartz.
I even went out a tad bit this year for Christmas, but ended up cyber shopping there wasnt anything on the shelves. Small books stores are cool when you can find them and record stores.
Ahhh..Merry Christmas... Keep Mom and Pop in business.
Dr. Green - I wish there was a category that we could apply to say that a post is satire. My tongue was pressed so hard in my cheek that I gave myself a cheek hernia when I wrote this. I'm hoping you were also a bit satirical in your response, but just in case you weren't, let me assure you I share none of the views in the first part of my post.
I do believe that the way business is going, the only business plans that can be funded are those that offer to take human contact out of the equation. Just on the issue of shopping - I went to a couple of small businesses that we have had relationships with for many years. The proprietors knew my name, asked how my wife and children were doing. We caught up. Now I may go to these places only once or twice a year, but there is an ongoing relationship that exists. You don't get that with a checkout on an online shopping site.
Personally, I look forward to the menus where I just point-and-click on the menu items rather than trying to communicate my interpretation of the menu to someone who seems to have another interpretation. My greatest anxiety comes from trying to coordinate restaurant orders.
Our technology is turning us into zombies who no longer know how to interact with others. When I go to a mall, a family event, or even on a nature hike, it seems that virtually everyone under the age of 40 is staring into a smartphone at all times. When I am out walking or hiking, it seems that most of them love to use their phone as a means to avoid saying "hello", or even cracking a smile when you are approaching them.
I watched my neighbor's 10 and 12 year old kids turn from smiling, cheerful, super-personality youngsters into zombies after being issued their smartphones several years ago.
I was part of a large group of Hams that built the original TAPR TNC-1 kit and helped setup a node on a local mountaintop that eventually became part of a network that allowed the first coast to coast packet radio contact to take place. the data rate for this unit was 300 baud on HF radio and 1200 baud on VHF radio. The circuitry that took up a 10" x 4" x 6" box now resides on one single IC about 1/4" wide along with about 6 other functions in today's smartphone.
History of packet radio
SEF and Opher, along with George are right there with you. Some others also. But you have to give EABC..a hats off this year.
Merry Christmas also the the person who added 20 people to my twitter feed, it jumped up.. LOL.... :)
I have to agree with Jeanne that your articles are always interesting, informative, and varied.
I'm one of those people who relishes human contact, because I live alone and isolated. In fact, I don't want strangers coming to my house, for any reason. I'd rather go to them. Once someone knows where you live, they know. I'm not suggesting all UPS delivery-men are ex-cons, but home delivery isn't all it's cracked up to be, and it's not all that safe.
I like the idea of low-overhead kiosks, if that's what Amazon is doing. It would be an easy business model to duplicate, on local levels, and a good use of empty commercial space.