Wisbech Worries

Over recent weeks I have been watching and commenting on the Wisbech Discussion Forum, where the most positive and amusing contributions have been made by a chap living in Spain. Every day he lifts the spirits and puts out an anecdote from his life that is good to read.

This guy certainly makes a change from so many who limit their input to emoticons or a limited range of negative swipes at what are referred to as EEs, low-lifes or in some confused instances EUs. Yesterday evening there were a number of comments on how technology is displacing humans and reducing work opportunities, fascinating.

There was the usual comment that we can't alter the course we are on, there is no going back. How wrong that writer was. We are part of nature and of course we can go back if we choose, although the likelihood of a total reversal is small enough to ignore. However, we must not ignore the cases already documented. Dairy farmers who have removed all processed food from their cows diets and lowered the animals milk yield, but increased their profits. Such farmers are rolling back the use of technology.

We must always be mindful that we never know when we have gone too far until we arrive at that point and if we are wise we realise we have made a mistake. Just what do the proponents of the "We can't go back," mindset suggest we do then? Just flounder? Live with our mistake? Success in life, whether we are an individual, and organisation, or a society depends on us having the skill and confidence to admit our mistakes and change direction.

One comment on technology in society came from a person keen to have a coffee provided by Starbuck's every morning. By using the telephone app this person could pick up their latte without any waiting, he was happy, and claimed this was efficient.

Oh, how I hate that word efficient when it is used without thought. What do we mean by efficient? In the case of the Starbuck app we mean Starbucks can gain more morning coffee sales by speedy throughput in every sales site, thereby increasing profits. The Wisbech man meant he did not have to wait at all, he did not have to linger in a queue or wait at a counter for his takeaway. The coffee buying transaction had been stripped of human interaction, and he liked that very much. Looking around Wisbech market place I can often see people on the benches all looking at their phones, another reduction in human interaction. There are many people today who rarely, or never use public transport - another opportunity for human interaction lost.

As we strip away human interaction from the everyday transactions in our lives we reduce the range and types of people we meet. After a while those people cease to exist in our thoughts. And as we limit our interactions to People Like Us we diminish our capacity for empathy, as our knowledge of others becomes mediated by the news channels that inform. 

We need to think long and hard about what we mean by efficient. We are all tiny parts in a system and what may be perceived by the coffee drinker as efficient may have long term effects on other parts of the system, unintended consequences. Sadly, the coffee drinker also expressed his belief that the systems behind his coffee delivery aren't complex!  He isn't a thinker. We are all connected by complex systems, whether systems designed by nature or technology supported systems designed by man, and our lives are affected by thinkers and non-thinkers alike. 

Any reduction in human interaction can result in stress and feelings of isolation and social exclusion, and these are real problems that lead to costs for the individual, for society, for the NHS. Is that efficient? Over the last 100 years the amount of human interaction most of us achieve in a day has dramatically reduced, to the detriment of us all. Computer mediated communication can alleviate some of the symptoms, but only to a tiny degree. 

The Spanish contributor I mentioned at the start of this post will be moving to Wisbech next month, and I'm sure that when he does many of us will see a smile from him, maybe pass the time of day in the street, or share a yarn side by side on a market place bench perhaps. It won't be efficient but it will be effective in lifting spirits. I do hope he will linger over his coffee order and get to know the staff and other customers, because that's real life and we need more of that.

At the beginning of Rory Sutherland's TED talk he comments on an upgrade to a train. He is amusing but underlying his humour are a number of serious messages. In the train example he compares an engineering solution to a very different proposal that makes the journey more fun. Although this is not serious it is a good lead in to something that is serious, our perception of our world.