The other day I was bemoaning the erosion of community in our everyday lives and placing the blame squarely on automation. Automation and the never-ending race to achieve greater efficiency seeks to remove people from as many equations as possible. People are now seen as the weak link in every transaction. They are regarded as liabilities and as unnecessary costs. The fact that we have to physically move from place to place in order to get something done, that we have biases, that our memories are not perfect are all pointed to, in one way or another, as justifications for automation. And let’s not forget that employers would rather not have to pay wages, health insurance, etc. And let’s also not forget that as consumers the choices we make every day to get more stuff for less money drives that dynamic.
Of course, the falibility of human beings cannot be denied. We’re all capable of rhyming off a large laundry list of human failures, both quotidian and monumental. But the unbridled enthusiasm with which we are going about implementing automation needs to be examined. The trouble is that it’s happening so fast that ‘progress’ steams on ahead without us. We’re always behind the curve. By the time we’ve identified an issue the proverbial horses have already left the barn.
As a result of this obsessive drive toward automation and efficiency, we no longer have to go to the bank to do our banking. We no longer have to go to the video store to rent a movie. We no longer have to talk to a gas attendant to refuel our vehicle. We no longer have to talk to a ticket sales person to attend a movie or a play. We don’t even need to talk to a cashier if we buy groceries. Yes, these are time-saving and money-saving things. All of this automation has made it so that we can exist (I won’t use the term ‘live’) in a place in almost complete isolation and hardly ever have to interact with anyone at all. And we can do it very efficiently. Hoorah.
Yes, but, really, what value did those minor interactions have?
In expressing these sentiments to a group of friends one of them said “Yes, but, really, what value did those minor interactions have?” I was a little taken aback that the question even needed to be posed, but I suppose it makes sense in an era that only values something if it can be isolated, measured, and optimized. Reductionism is at the root of technological advancement, afterall.
What value do those interactions have? It’s difficult to quantify, but my sense is that it’s enormous and that we’ve gone and snuffed it out without a second thought. Much like boiling a frog, we didn’t realize what was occurring until it was too late.
The interactions we have in our community, no matter how small, are what make a community. Seeing the same people on a regular basis — at the bank, say, or at the video store, or passing them on the street on your way there — is what begins to build the trust and sense of commonality that makes a community emerge. ‘Emerge’ is a key concept, here. Communities don’t just defacto exist. They’re not engineered. They emerge from a million little interactions every day among the same group of people. And what compels them to interact? The physical locations that provide the services we require — the bank, the video store, the grocery store… These locations serve as much more than simply places to get our stuff and get our stuff done. They are the touch-points, the neurons in an incomprehensibly complex system of give and take from which emerges a sense of belonging and well-being for everyone who participates in it.
You see, those seemingly low-value, insignificant interactions critically create the opportunities for more meaningful ones. It used to be that at the video store if you saw someone reading the back cover of a DVD (how quaint), you could lean in and say “That’s a good choice.” Where it went from there was anyone’s guess. Maybe simply a smile and thank you. But it could have bloomed into a conversation about favourite movies. The person might have made a wonderful recommendation to you as well. You may have discovered a host of other common interests and made a new friend or a new business connection. Now, how many times has that happened to you while sitting on your couch scrolling through Netflix?
In the blind rush to cut costs and increase efficiency, the things that are less visible and less quantifiable are being ignored and then unwittingly destroyed without our fully having understood their importance. Fuzzy yet vital concepts like ‘community’ can only arise out of complex and diverse systems yet nearly all of our technological resources are dedicated to streamlining, simplification, and standardization. In our myopic zeal for ruthlessly rooting out inefficiency we are actively destroying the fabric that holds us together and gives our lives meaning.