Cybernetics - do we really want to go there?

Paying for my groceries the other day I was struck by the incompatibility between the speed of my thought and actions, and the speed at which the machine responded.

If I was to try to match Trish's speed (I've decided all those machines are called Trish - they should have a badge to that effect with "Here to help" written underneath it), I would have be moving like a drunken sloth when I took items from the trolley, across the scanner and into the bagging area, and like that little rodent thing in Ice Age getting my wallet closed and away, my receipt, my change, and my goods out of the bagging area in the microseconds allowed between

"Please take your receipt and change"

"Thank you for shopping with ..." and

"Please take your bags"



Unexpected item in bagging area!











It's as if someone programmed the thing to have a phobia about groceries in its bagging area; it is only with great reluctance that it recognises that they're there in the first place and can't wait to spit them out again at the first possible opportunity.

And what kind of phrase is "bagging area" anyway? I bet no-one ever used it before the advent of Trish.

So I thought, why don't we have some kind of cybernetic link between the customer and the machine so that it can match my speed? A painless little operation, a chip in the side of the head that interfaces with the device and we're away. I might not even need to remember my PIN anymore.

Then I went back to work and used Lync and I changed my mind.

If you haven't used Lync before, it's a form of electronic surveillance disguised as an instant messaging service. Sure, you can send half thought-out missives to colleagues and disturb them just when they're trying to concentrate or call them and steal time from their day at random intervals; so it has all the features of a modern communication device. However, it also monitors what you're doing. If you're in a meeting, the little box next to your name goes red. If you're available, it goes green. If you're inactive - and here's the kicker - it goes orange.

So, if you're slacking, the boss can know about it. Previously, the boss had to actually catch you with your feet up on the desk reading the paper. Now, the combined nightmares of George Orwell and Jeremy Bentham are made real with a well designed user interface and a veneer of usefulness. The boss could be on safari in a yurt somewhere but, if she's got an internet connection, she can know if you're goofing off!

Imagine how much worse it would be if there was a cyber connection? You'd start to get statuses like

Or maybe little automated instant messages

"Teresa is hoping you die"

"Incoming sexual fantasy from Belinda. Accept or Reject"

Or it could deliver mixed messages 

Bob's voice is saying "I think your idea has some real merit" 

While his status reads 

"Lying"

It could really ruin the work environment, not to mention cost the company a fortune in stationery and plastering as staplers are flung at people's heads. 

On the whole, I don't need to know that much about what my colleagues are really thinking.

I think I'll suffer through the frustration of the bagging area, after all.

Notes:

George Orwell, of course, invented Big Brother and the telescreen. Jeremy Bentham invented the panopticon - a prison of unparalleled inhumanity, designed so that the inmates could be monitored at any time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Thomas the teenage tank engine

It was a beautiful day on the island of Sodor. Down at Tidmouth sheds, the Fat Controller was just arriving for work. Thomas had an important job to do at the Sodor Dairy but he was still fast asleep.

"Wake up, sleepyheads", boomed the Fat Controller.

Thomas opened one eye, grunted, closed the eye again and went back to sleep, mumbling something incomprehensible about dairies, assholes and sideways.

"Come on you two", yelled the Fat Controller at Thomas and Percy, "You need to be Really Useful engines."

"We're not kids any more, Bertram", mumbled Thomas without opening his eyes.

"That's Sir Topham Hatt to you", retorted the Fat Controller.

"It's lucky he hasn't asked you to pull a really special special", whispered Percy to Thomas, just loud enough for the Fat Controller to hear.

"A really special special", replied Thomas in his retard voice.

They both chuckled.

The Fat Controller gave up in disgust and went away to find Toby, who was living every day in such dread of being turned into a concrete-mounted playground toy that he would agree to anything

Later that day, the Fat Controller was expounding on his woes to Lady Hatt.

"They're not like they used to be", he said, over his cup of tea, "they used to leap out of the sheds early, with smiles fixed on their faces and race away up the branch lines like nothing on earth. Now it's all grumbles and sleeping in and finding jobs half done, goods not delivered and passengers left stranded at stations."

Lady Hatt just smiled indulgently at her husband, while sipping her cappuccino.  She knew that for Bertram the whole world had stopped in 1912 and nothing was ever supposed to change. Despite the arrival on the island of jets, helicopters and diesel locomotives, Sir Topham still ran his vintage fleet of steam engines with great pride and at a glorious loss; an invincible bulwark against the pounding waves of progress and modernity.

"Maybe it's that new coal", opined Bertram, ''it certainly smells odd. George and Henry were using it behind Tidmouth Sheds the other day and it really was a most peculiar odour."

Lady Hatt smiled again. She knew all about "special coal" and the secret deal that all the trains had with Cranky down at the docks - someone who knew all about being high. But she wasn't going to say anything. Privately, she was less than happy about the amount of time Bertram had been spending fawning on Alicia Botti - the famous Italian opera singer - and was more than happy to let her husband suffer a little.

"And there's another letter from the department demanding a valuation be done on the stock, lines and buildings. I just know that they want to privatise my railway and sell it off to Richard Branson or some Saudi billionaire. They know nothing about railways. They don't even wear a top hat and coat to work!"

Lady Hatt softened a little. She knew that the continued existence of a steam railway with 108 engines on an island about 300 km square was beyond all economic and even common sense. Eventually someone was going to ask - in spite of the catchy theme tune and increasingly sophisticated animation - what possible Earthly use Bertram had for a train, a driver and a fireman for every three square kilometres of an island whose population - along with that of all the regional areas of the UK - had dropped to such an extent that Percy's mail train was a personal service for about three households and Annie and Clarabel had averaged 6 passengers a day each for the last decade. But she knew Bertram would never live anywhere but in a mental Enid Blyton novel and she really did love him; so she threw him a bone.

"Maybe if you were more firm with them", she suggested.

"Well I do tell them that I am Very Cross with them when they do something wrong", replied an offended Sir Topham Hatt.

"Something stronger, maybe?"

"Would Very Disappointed and a stern voice do it?". asked Sir Topham, starting to feel a little inadequate.

"They're teenagers darling", replied Lady Hatt, "Be a man.They have to know that you're not kidding."

And that was how it came to the day of Thomas' last adventure. He had been sent up to the castle to take a Very Important Parcel to Earl Robert. He had gotten distracted along the way and was found coupled up to Emily in a siding in the woods.

"I'm very sorry sir", said Thomas with a sad look on his face and a sideways glance at Emily who as grinning slightly, "I know you are Very Disappointed in me. It won't happen again."

"It certainly won't", said the Fat Controller sternly, "I'm having you scrapped. You've screwed up one too many times. Abandoned snow plows, lost loads, late deliveries, broken eggs, derailed trains. You've cost me a good deal more than you're worth. You're a Really Useless engine. You're Coke cans, Thomas!"

And from that day on, every engine on the Island of Sodor worked harder than they ever had before.

But you didn't ask

Dear Zog,

It is my tenth week here on Earth, observing these humans and, let me tell you, they are an endlessly perplexing species and live a great deal of their lives in silent frustration because their needs are not fulfilled.

Not because they are, apparently, incapable of fulfilling their needs but because they never actually communicate them.

The first stage in their misery appears to be to not allow their own needs to be clearly formed in their minds. Many of them appear to believe in a god that knows, and judges, what they are thinking and it may be that they don't allow themselves to think clearly about their own needs in case this deity is angered by the inappropriateness of their desires and is forced to have himself nailed to a cross again. Or something like that. The whole story about that god seems very confused.

After that, and before they open their mouths, comes the second phase of feared judgement - worrying about what other people will think of their desires. It seems that, lacking telepathy, and being brought up largely by parents who felt they had to hide their real selves from their children, most humans are left with a great deal of fear about what is going on in other people's heads. From what I can see, they seem to believe that they, alone, are having certain thoughts or need certain things and that everyone else belongs to a completely different species which would mock the ideas of the first person if only they knew about them.

Which, if they are all that way, doesn't make any kind of sense.

Ironically enough, there is a certain level of hypocritical mockery that goes on. Humans - mostly of the limited intelligence caste - seem to want to ensure that their thoughts about someone else's thoughts are the same thoughts that everyone else is having. So once one person starts mocking, they will join in as if they had never thought seriously about the idea of parachuting off the roof using an umbrella themselves.

The fear of mockery seems to be strongest between human beings who are mating. The desire to mate in the first instance cannot be clearly stated for fear of refusal. Therefore, it is important for the human to suggest and hint that they might, at some future time, like to mate and thus put off the refusal for some time. Perhaps wishful thinking is important to their psychological health.

Once they have agreed to mate - and many seem to promise the god I talked about before that they will continue to do so - the reluctance to communicate seems to get worse. I can only assume that it's because they have to appear naked in front of this person and share a bed with them that they are so reluctant to communicate what they want or need. I have overhead mating couples in argument where one party has said "You never give me what I need" and the other has said "How should I know what you need?" and the first has said "If you loved me, you'd know".

This is extremely odd. Unless the deity with the crucifix is giving telepathy as a wedding gift or the golden bands exchanged in the ceremony are conduits for direct communication of some kind, these humans remain little person-sized islands of consciousness in an ocean of darkness. Hiding there and hoping - indeed expecting - that another castaway will find them and know, without communicating, what they want seems to border on the insane.

So it seems preferable for them to be seen as crazy than seen as different.

As I said, a strange species. I will send updates as I learn more.

Your loving father.

Zig