Social Commentary

Apped to Death – Techno-Optimism and the failure of future promises

2023-07-17 By Sachin Leave a Comment

Marc Andreessen famously wrote in 2011, “Software is eating the world”. And he’s possibly right. Software has invaded almost every facet of our lives, from cars to refrigerators, and even your toasters. While I agree that the push of software technologies has brought massive improvements to society, it has also brought its own set of social implications. Prompting me to ask, “Is it all worth it?”

The “Gig” Economy

I watched a YouTube video recently called, “The Gig Economy was always a Scam“. In it, they describe how these “software companies” were trying to use software to enable a system whereby labour is cheapened. These businesses and corporations depended on persons they called “contractors” or “freelancers” in order to create a temporary labour force, but really worked to bring down the cost of labour.

While these companies may have been trying to do something good – or at least trying to make it look that way – they instead exploited people to make a few people rich. The thing is that these companies were never profitable, and are being artificially propped up by fundraising. Their aim is to decimate an established system under the guise of “disruption”, then when they have an established monopoly, milk that to the max.

In fairness, the gig economy does work for some high-paying roles such as software developers, or for people in developing nations, but for many others, it just doesn’t.

This is just one example of technologies – particularly software – claiming to be about making life easier, but in reality, creating another set of problems. I wish this was the only way that software wasn’t actually making the world better.

The “Subscription” Economy

Another trend that has taken root is “subscription services”. This type of service started with the advent of cloud services and the realisation that many businesses were willing to “rent” their infrastructure and services, so why not rent applications as well? Subscriptions are great for businesses because it’s recurring revenue, but it’s often bad for consumers, especially when they make it hard for you to cancel.

What started as renting compute power and then software applications are now extending into our printers, cars, and even tractors. Soon you will own nothing, and when you stop paying, you lose everything.

Even when you own something they implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) so you have to go back to the same vendor to buy consumables, or even to repair. You cannot choose a 3rd party replacement part, or create your own.

Loss of Privacy and Security

And even when they force subscription services on you, they collect data on your utilisation to sell you more stuff. Not to mention the privacy issues associated with tracking your data, and worse, your location.

Then, in an effort to make a quick buck, these companies are stingy with the quality control of the software being used in their devices, meaning that hackers easily break into many of them and can access the same data that they’re tracking. This leads to safety issues as well, as these IoT devices may be in things such as cars or deep sea submersibles.

Planned Obsolescence

The last thing I want to point out is planned obsolescence. Companies need to keep you buying stuff. Ever notice that your old phones and computers get slower? This is because as software gets updated, it consumes more resources – processing and memory – which then causes it to take longer to perform tasks.

There’s no reason why software can’t be maintained for much longer periods – it’s all about the money here. But this leads to a very real environmental issue of e-waste with tonnes of electronics thrown out every year, even if they are in good working condition. Of course, manufacturers have been reducing the quality of goods for years, but software has only accelerated that.

Lazy Innovation

Some say that software will lead us to better things, and perhaps it can, but coupled with capitalism and our consumptive behaviours, it inevitably leads to worse things. Like “lazy innovations” such as “reinventing” a user interface to improve “user experience” or UX. Let’s make the button redder.

Take a look at Artificial Intelligence – AI – for a moment. I’m not going to get into the whole reason why the current hype around AI is BS but let’s look at how it’s mostly being used – for mainly marketing. So much for solving the world’s problems. Bring on the “Prompt Engineers” so they could build a chatbot to replace the lowly customer support people. Forget about curing cancer or solving climate change, there’s no profit in that.

Trust Humanity

Software will only be as good as the people who wield it. Watching the current state of humanity, I don’t have much hope.

A better future

2021-10-18 By Sachin Leave a Comment

It’s the year 2050.

You put on your mask to go outside. Not because of COVID, but because the air is so polluted you can’t breathe properly, and respiratory illnesses are rampant. At midday, you can’t go outside because it’s so hot. There are wars all over because of water scarcity and people trying to leave areas that are now unhabitable. Around 30% of the types of plants and animals we know today is virtually extinct. Many of the Caribbean islands are inundated with cyclical flooding, storms, and droughts.

This is what climate change looks like. This is but one possible future if we continue along our current path. And we can change it, but it will take collective action.

When you were younger, do you remember seeing many butterflies and bees around? I don’t see much anymore. The destruction of our natural environment has driven them away. They’re not entirely gone, but many of these insects are likely to die off within this century. It means our grandchildren are not going to know their beauty.

And it’s my kids I’m scared about the most. I worry about the world that I’m leaving behind for them. Or the suffering that they may have to endure.

This is not what I intended when my wife and I decided to have a family.

Last week a co-worker said that it’s really hot outside; I may be right about this whole climate change thing. And I lost it. There are hot days, and there are cold days. The weather is not the climate. The climate is the longer-term patterns that exist, and we’ve altered it.

But it shows that the issue of climate change is hard to picture. The world is so large, and there are so many things going on that it’s hard to see the changes on a day-to-day scale. Even when presented with data that shows the effects of our activities on temperature rises, we relate it to our everyday experiences and think, “but it doesn’t seem different.”

And while there is mostly consensus on the climate science, there are still people out there who debate it. And because the “costs” for combating climate change is high, both in the amount to spend and the revenue gains to forego, people tend to latch on to those debates as reasons to continue as is. But that will lead us down the wrong path.

Now we’ve been told it’s about our individual habits that are causing this. This is problematic because it seems right while also feeling wrong. I recycle, even though as much as 90% of plastic waste doesn’t get recycled. And, as much as I care about my so-called “carbon footprint”, I drive to work daily. I would love to bicycle to work every day if I felt safe doing so.

Our built environment has not made it easy for us to make better environmental choices. And that’s not something that I, as an individual, can change.

It will be up to governments and leaders to create policies and set up systems that put us on a path to environmental sustainability. We need to force our leaders to start making the decisions for sustainability. To force corporations to create products that are environmentally sustainable and to reduce consumption. To cut back their insane chase for growth and re-election to give future generations a fighting chance.

But we as individuals also need to cut back. It would mean that we are not upgrading our phones, cars or clothes every year or so,

And I know it’s hard; FOMO is a real thing, and corporations use that to entice us to consume the items they produce. But we must fight back. And fight back hard.

We, too, need to make decisions for the future, a future that we will never see. But there’s a saying – A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they’ll never sit.

There’s a comic by Joel Pett with the punchline – “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?”

Don’t we want a better world? Ask yourself, “what will the world look like in your grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s day?”

Now, I want you to imagine this.

It’s the year 2050.

You go outside, and it’s a nice, cool day. The air is crisp and has a pleasant earthy smell to it. Birds are singing while butterflies and bees buzz around flowers that grow on the rooftops and along the walkways and cycleways in the city. It’s quiet as there are no cars around – bicycles and safe mass transit systems that run on green renewable energy are the main modes of transport. People are healthier and happier as we’ve learned to mix technology with our natural environment. You walk past families as children play under the shade of trees planted thirty years ago.

This is another future available to us if we take collective action now to make it happen.

Let’s go plant some trees.

Out of time for climate change

2021-09-13 By Sachin Leave a Comment

Alarms bells have been ringing since the 1960s but stepped up after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1990. The reports showed evidence of human-caused global warming. Still, countries were slow to accept the results because any cutbacks would slow economic growth.

Now, the recent IPCC 6th assessment report shows that the world will probably reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C of warming within just the next two decades. That’s by 2040.

Temperatures above 1.5 degrees will lead to more extreme storms and heatwaves, water shortages and drought, lower crop yields, higher sea levels, and destructions of coral reefs, leading to reduced sea life.

Temperatures above 2 degrees will be catastrophic.

The Caribbean countries will be greatly affected. Besides being hit by a higher number of high-intensity storms, sea-level rise (SLR) will cause destruction of tourism, ports, farmland and residential areas.

To limit warming to 1.5 degrees depends on us taking drastic actions now. What are some of these drastic measures? We need to:

Accelerate the increased share of renewables in electricity generation five times faster;
Phase-out coal in electricity generation five times faster;
Reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation three times faster;
Accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles 22 times faster;
Accelerate the increase in the share of low-carbon fuels by eight times faster; and
Accelerate the increase in annual tree cover gain five times faster.

Today climate change deniers, like COVID-19 deniers, still dispute the science. However, while we can see the effects of COVID-19 now, it takes years to see the impact of climate change.

A tipping point is close. Let’s not wait until it’s too late.

The progress dilemma

2021-06-27 By Sachin Leave a Comment

Would you give up development if it meant that the world would be a better place? Would you live in trees or caves if it meant that we can have a safer environment?

I think we all know the answer to that one.… No!

We don’t want to give up what we’re accustomed to, even if it means that we can save the world. The environment. The planet that we live on.

What’s our plan B if the planet becomes uninhabitable? Or inhospitable? What will we do then, when it’s too late.

We have to be mindful of everything we do.

The billions of years that nature has taken to create balance in the ecosystem has been usurped by a species that has only been around for about 200,000 years. Just a fraction of the time it took to create that balance.

It’s strange that we would destroy the only home that we’ve got. But have no doubt that nature will regain balance. The question is, would we be part of it. COVID-19 is only just one of the consequences of encroaching too much into the wilderness.

We have made tremendous advances in technology, but looking at the cost of it all, is it worth it?

Would we in the next 100 years look at the status of the world and wonder if it was all worth it. Whether we could have done something to change it all.

Well, we have the opportunity now. It’s certainly not too late.

We don’t have to live in trees or go back to the dark ages. Instead, we can start by doing different things to live more sustainably.

Reduce and reuse. Aim to cut back on consumption of goods that are not required. Do you really need to upgrade that smartphone or TV? Do you need to buy disposable cups and plates? Stick with your old tech for a while; you won’t die. Wash those plates and cups. Buy reusable grocery bags and save on plastic handbags.
Then, when you can’t reuse anymore, recycle the garbage. It means to look out for recyclable goods. Buy plastic items that can be recycled. Aim for packaging using corrugated cardboard over plastic fillers. Aim to use items in glass or aluminium as those two items are 100% recyclable.
Aim to eat meats with no hormones or antibiotics in them. Try local farms that treat their chickens more humanely than any commercial farms that fatten chickens in a short amount of time by pumping them full of steroids.
Reduce meat intake altogether and eat more plants. Animal farms use more energy, take up more land, use more water, and produce more greenhouse gasses than any plant farms would.
Buy from the farmer’s market and cut back on foods grown with pesticides.
Aim to reduce your energy consumption by turning off lights whenever you don’t need them. When you leave a room, for example. Install motion detection lights outside so that the lights come on when it detects motion and not stay on consistently.
Turn off taps when you brush your teeth. Use a bucket to wash your car. Ensure that all leaky faucets are fixed.
Take walks or bicycle to nearby locations. Use public transport if you could. Mass transit is more efficient at transporting large amounts of people than just a single car. Carpool. Try to locate shopping close by that you can get all your shopping done without much travelling. Map out your errands so you can cover the shortest distance and use the least energy doing so.

If each of us does a little, it can go a long way.

Consumed

2021-06-13 By Sachin Leave a Comment

In the ’90s, there was an animated short called “Nguyamyam”.

The Nguyamyam were the inhabitants of a planet called Pakaskas, a planet made up of edible parts such as mountains of jelly, rivers of milk and oceans of chocolate. The inhabitants loved to eat all day given all the goodness. One of the Nguyamyam name Inggalok noticed that the planet was getting smaller from all the consumption and tried to warn the others, but none took him on. Inggalok fled the planet (in a coconut spaceship no less), but the others stayed and consumed their planet into nothingness.

The video was meant to teach children about overconsumption and taking care of our precious natural resources.

This video was thirty years ago. Those children are now in their late thirties, early forties (like yours truly).

It’s obvious we’ve learned little.

We each consume far more than we need, and if we continue, we will outstrip the planet’s capabilities.

We all have enough, but we want more.

Defenders of this behaviour say that it’s natural, and capitalism is more closely tied to human nature than socialism or communism. The SARS-CoV2 virus is all-natural too, only doing what’s in its nature, but we’re here trying to stop it anyway.

So why aren’t we stopping capitalism? Or at least trying to find another way?

Perhaps we’re too much like the Nguyamyam and rather just eat for today and heck about tomorrow. Let’s hope we don’t eat away our homes too.

Watch the video:

Survivor’s Guilt

2021-06-06 By Sachin Leave a Comment

The pandemic has caused many casualties – in the figurative and the literal sense. Here I’m speaking to the economic sense. Many persons have lost jobs and livelihoods. Some businesses are at the brink, while others have gone over altogether. Some are barely surviving.

Then there are those who have prospered and thrived during this time.

I’m one of the lucky few who have continued to enjoy gainful employment with my entire salary in place. I mean, I should feel lucky, but I don’t. I feel guilty.

While some are suffering, things have not changed that much for me. On top of all that, I don’t feel happy in my position. Instead, I continue to dislike my job and want for something different.

First world problems in a third world country.

It’s not that I’m ungrateful, but more so that I feel like I should be doing more. I’m lucky to have a job, but that just doesn’t cut it for me if it feels meaningless. How exactly am I contributing to making the world a better place?

The pandemic has shown the great disparity in the classes and the inequality that exists. And I don’t feel as though this has raised enough questions about the economic models that we follow and whether it’s due for a change.

It’s certainly caused me to question many things.

Choose irresponsibly

2021-05-23 By Sachin Leave a Comment

A woman’s husband is in the hospital struck down with COVID-19. He’s the primary breadwinner in the household. She cooks and delivers food as well for some income. While she’s supposed to be quarantined, she continues to cook and deliver her meals as a way to earn revenue.

She’s being irresponsible, most will say. But this is a simplistic view of her predicament.

On the one hand, there’s a possibility she may be sick and spread COVID-19. On the other hand, she knows if she doesn’t get some cash, she can’t buy food this week.

The pandemic has shown cracks in society and inequality in terms of opportunity and economy. The number of choices available for a large percentage of the population is small, and none of them good.

I know of many parents who had to leave their school-aged children alone at home while they went to work and schools, including childcare centres, were closed. Were they acting irresponsibly? What should have been the better action?

These people are not acting irresponsibly. They lack good choices. And when all you have are bad choices, then it’s always a lose-lose, and you go with the lesser of two evils. It’s easy for many people to judge when they are comfortably working from home and continuing to make a living. You are comparing their choice to the ones available to you, but not to them.

I cannot blame these persons for their choice. They are doing what they have to do to survive. I don’t consider them irresponsible at all.

I consider businesses that can open during this time and do so without understanding that there is a pandemic ongoing as overly irresponsible. Those who mandate their people to come into the office physically because they don’t feel that the persons are being productive enough at home. Or those who continue all their projects, even project that are not essential to their business operations, adding stress to an already stressful situation.

While I don’t want businesses failing, a company can always be restarted. A lost life will never be reclaimed.

COVID Fatigue

2021-05-05 By Sachin Leave a Comment

As the number of cases of COVID-19 in T&T increase and another lockdown looms, the people are… not caring anymore.

COVID fatigue has set in.

People are understandably tired and frustrated at all this. I, too, am getting a bit discouraged by all of this. The social distancing, mask wearing and constant hand sanitising everywhere I go. I want a sense of normalcy again.

And I’m one who is very happy to stay at home. So I could only imagine all those extroverts out there.

So it’s no wonder that cases are spiking.

The toll on our collective psyche is great, not to mention the economy. We will be paying for this for many years to come.

We can only hope that we can overcome this quickly. But looking at the progress we’re making, I’m not so sure that we will.

For now, we continue to wear our masks, wash our hands, and keep socially distant. I sure hope I could get vaccinated soon.