Technology isolates as it also kills jobs

Published 2:32 pm Friday, January 16, 2009

It made me sad to see the Seattle P-I may disappear and that newspapers and the printed word don’t matter all that much, apparently.

We can get it “online” in the future. Maybe. Yippee! More time wasted at the computer desk. Why? To save a buck on subscriptions?

We rush to patronize Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com at the expense of the entire bookstore industry, bookstore builders, knowledgeable clerks and employees who love books and all that books represent. A whole literary industry dumped in favor of saving a buck and not having to interact with a human being and maybe paying a dollar less for a book. One geek gets filthy rich at the expense of thousands of jobs, stores and store builders, etc. Thanks to us and our laziness and love of isolation and a “cheaper” product.

A computer lizard sells us insurance at discount rates so we don’t have to have an agent (who will work for us and talk to us).

We allow computers to withdraw automatic payments from our checking accounts for everything in the world so we can eliminate somebody’s job somewhere.

We glorify a technology and computer industry that replaces human beings and jobs at a dizzying rate and then whine about the unemployment rate and a shrinking job market.

We want jobs and productivity but we don’t want to support working people or spend a dollar more here and there in the name of humanity, compassion, quality and connectedness.

We gotta have the Blackberry, the Wii, fax machines, cell phones, DSL, Netflix, On Demand movies, online sex, global positioning systems, X-Boxes, plasma screens, etc. Just so we don’t have to get up off our butts and do anything or go anywhere or talk to anybody. And we wonder why we and our kids are fat and depressed.

Of course we can always run to the doctor and get ourselves some Prozac. Or save some money and buy our anti-depressants online from Canada! Yippee!

Robert Van den Akker