Someone gave me a book and I’d like to quote from it.
“One day he was walking in the jungle. He liked the jungle very much. Its dark beauty he thought special, its dangers overrated. Suddenly he spied a tiger, perhaps 20 yards away. At first the tiger, his attention fixed on something elsewhere that seemed interesting, even edible, did not see the man. The man’s quick brain spun off some thoughts. ‘The dangers of the jungle, I have maintained, are exaggerated, but they exist. In this unlucky happenstance I have encountered one of them, the worst perhaps. Here we have a lesson in the weakness of generalisation—the ultimate fallacy, from a personal point of view, of statistical analysis. The fallacy is insufficiently recognized, and if I should survive, I shall have an illustration on which to build a chapter, or at least a footnote, in my new book. The chances of getting killed on a jungle walk are less than on a motor trip. Very few people who come here suffer any harm—a tiny minority, really. We must keep in mind, however, that it is hard and often perilous to belong to a minority.’”
Rembar, C.: The Law of the Land: The Evolution of Our Legal System (New York: Perennial Library, 1989)
Tim Dowling wrote an article a while back that I have reacted to. He lists 16 ways in which tech has ruined his life. He’s probably in a minority, but his minority is a majority of one to him. Two, if you include me. At least in part. Here, below, are my ripostes (thank you, Graham) to his rant (in bold).
1. It’s destroying my concentration. A rabbit hole is a hole you go down in order to discover a rabbit. Rabbit hole is a term used by lazy people who shun profound research who have never remembered a single thing from what they went down a rabbit hole to discover.
2. It’s destroying my posture. I have a sore neck. Does that count?
3. Life sometimes feels like an unending struggle to prove I’m not a robot. Not unending, but if robotic users of the Internet are such a problem, is there no other way to deal with them?
4. It has rendered meetings inescapable. Saying “no” is still saying “no”.
5. I’m no longer able to have arguments in pubs. Who goes to pubs? Last week, at a party with four of us, Google was consulted at least three times. About what, I no longer have the slightest idea.
6. I find it increasingly hard to turn things on. Hire cars, yes. The taps in the restaurant I’m working in (especially the big springy one that loops over a wash-up sink that you could bath a baby in. Well, yourself, probably. And when you go to the staff toilet, if you stick your bum out whilst rinsing your face, it turns the airdrier on automatically. I can now make a coffee, but a cappuccino is a test too far. Even the chef burned the wedge potatoes last week.
7. It’s given me unfiltered access to the opinions of stupid people. Stupid people make me sound smart. I like the stupid.
8. It’s given stupid people unfiltered access to each other’s opinions. As I was saying, I like the stupid.
9. I am demonstrably worse at typing than I was 10 years ago. There is a devil-may-care sense when typing. What gets me is that Word dictation spells things in a way that even the Word spellcheck can’t decipher.
10. I feel a strange obligation to monitor bad news in real time. Bad news isn’t made into good news when you don’t read it.
11. I live in fear of being scammed. Yes. Constantly. Like now, probably.
12. I’m forced to live in silent, shameful defiance of all the accepted wisdom regarding passwords. iCloud. iCloud never knows my password. And the gas bill, for God’s sake. Never knows my password. You make a new one and then the computer pipes up and asks, “Shall I save it?” And I shout at it, “What a bloody good idea!”
13. It’s created a requirement to go everywhere forewarned and forearmed. No, it hasn’t. I feign ignorance about things I have a degree in. It makes other people feel less stupid.
14. I have consistently risen to the level of disorganisation that any new technology allows. Er, agreed. Sometimes my browser collapses in a heap when I have over 200 tabs open. Like 300.
15. As much as I resent technology, I am helpless without it. Disagree 1000%. I can still read maps, don’t have TV and pay cash for everything. Because, when cash is gone, it’s gone.
16. The rest of the world is also helpless without it. If the world refuses, let the world refuse. It will give up on me, and we’ll both be the happier for that.
A very fun post, Graham with which I am in agreement LOL