Monday, June 20, 2005

Our economy: A product of miscommunication

I started work today at a mortgage company. I must admit my job is not what you would call "challenging". My main responsibility consists of taking a folder with two separate piles and rearranging them to form one pile in a specific order. If you think reading about it is great just imagine doing it for eight hours! Another employee pointed out today that if the companies submitting paperwork to us would simply use the same order as we do it would make things easier. It occurred to me that it would eliminate my job, thus it seems my job is a result of two groups unable to decide what forms go where. Later I realized that there are a larger number of jobs geared towards this gap or lack of communication. Psychologists, counselors especially marriage counselors, political cartoonists, and psychics all seem to tap into this whole miscommunication market. Then I considered the process I've come to know as McDonaldization (not my term though I would claim it) by which processes, especially human processes, become dehumanized. As humans become increasingly exposed to dehumanized interactions, we gradually lose what we might call our social graces, think engineers. I don't think it is a real stretch to conclude that, the less we interact in human conditions the worse we become with such situations and from that comes miscommunication. So from what I see as the world becomes more and more dehumanized the economy will only grow in the areas related to miscommunication. So yes, the science fiction writers had it right all along, machines will rule the world. The twist is that we will be those robots. Make a difference. Talk to your cashier, save humanity! People say that hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. Personally, I have to vote for ignorance.

1 comments:

frogkisser said...

I wasn't going to comment because I seem to have written something on all of your entries, but here I am. I love being ignorant. It is bliss after all!:)