This is in response to this blog entry way over there at Wordpress, where Salted Caramel asks the question, what five things would I love disappearing in 2022. The challenge here would be to keep such a list halfway down the single digits like that. I'll give it a try on 1.4 (approx.) cups of coffee.
No. 1. The anonymous 7/8ths of the Internet.
Too many people (?) and too much information and too many opinions that are mostly irrelevant, misleading, or misguided. I'm just guessing, really, that the amount if about 7/8ths, discounting advertising. Instead, maybe to use the Internet should require some sort of controlled registration. Maybe then people would calm down and/or try harder to avoid embarrassing themselves and be held accountable, at least socially, for what they submit online.
No. 2. All self-driving cars that might begin to show up this year or next year or soon, and "driver assistance" features.
Who thought this was a good idea? Who thought it was a good idea to allow some software to control a ton of rolling metal with the only warning to the human occupant to "remain vigilant?" Who are they trying to kid?
No. 3. The very idea that computers are best used to replace humans, rather than assist them.
This is only slightly related to No. 2. I'm talking about the corporate use of computers that are being utilized mainly to allow the companies to hire less people. I mean when you call just about any company, like your insurance company, say, and get a robot voice that directs you to a "call-tree" to ostensibly route your call to the correct department. Typically it takes about ten to twenty minutes to get this accomplished, when a human operator could do it in about five seconds. And I'm being generous. Very often, a caller never gets to talk to a human, ever, and their question will remain unanswered, and they hang up and still have the original problem. This is not good service, and this puts people out of work.
I add that it does not hurt my feelings to cause corporations to have to spend more money to conduct business. I don't buy the argument that money saved will be passed on to the consumer. Additionally, when a single human can have more money than Argentina, then something is wrong.
No. 4. Bad driving.
That's such a huge category, it's tempting to pick one or two peeves, but I think all bad driving can be boiled down to one or two problems. But I'll start out by saying most humans must be pretty good drivers, because if you consider how many thousands, or millions, of cars drive through your town every day, and how few accidents there are, it speaks well of us. But when you do see bad driving--and it's frequent enough to cause stress--it's because either the other driver seems to be in a hurry, or the other driver is not actually paying enough attention to what they're doing. Let's make it three things: the natural tendency for humans to be self-serving, or just competitive.
Once in awhile we are in a hurry. No denying that, but just a little thought will reveal that driving faster is not going to help that much, if at all. And if a person is in a hurry every single f*cking morning on the way to work, may I suggest to them that they set the alarm clock for, say, seven minutes earlier. They'll hardly notice. And then, most of the time, NONE OF US is in a hurry. C'mon.
Paying attention while driving seems like such a no-brainer, right? Maybe we should reinstate Driver's Ed classes in school and go ahead and show the gory movies to demonstrate that what car manufacturers tell about how safe their cars are is just advertising BS, and there is no safer way to be than to NOT GET IN AN ACCIDENT.
I don't know what to say about competitive driving. That refers to the idle non-thinking response of speeding up because it looks like someone is going to get ahead of you. Think about it. There are always cars ahead of you. Lots and lots of them. As far as the eye can see, quite literally. You can't get ahead of them all. There are lots of cars behind you all the time, too, if that makes you feel any better. Get a grip. Despite this being America, home of the self-sufficient, freedom loving, gun-toting cowboy, driving, especially on an Interstate, is a group activity. Most of us, if we square danced like we drove, we would be kicked out of the barn.
No. 5. Mean people.
Get some therapy.
Thank you for stopping by.
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology should serve humans and not replace them.