Roads?

No planning here; in fact I’ve been working on another essay altogether, and this one just struck me. (To be totally forthcoming, I am as I actually post this to the blog doing a quick read-over for editing, but not changing content itself.)  It will likely ramble a bit as it is being born as I write it, and the birth process of an idea is as messy as the actual event upon which the allegory is based. 

I am reading a rather fascinating essay in it’s own right.  This author is a rather insightful 17-year-old film fan who spent two years writing a 130 page treatise on the cultural significance and deeper meaning of the seminal film Blade Runner.  He loves the film as much—more—than I do, and though he could use a good professional editor (couldn’t we all?) he’s got some wonderful ideas about the various cuts, and the greater context of cinema in the year 1982, upon which he can look with a less biased eye as he didn’t yet exist to have experienced it first hand.  I saw many of those movies in the theater, so of COURSE I think it’s the best year movies have ever had.  The fact smart kids think so too is rather refreshing.

While discussing the type of future in which Blade Runner is set he quotes another simply wonderful film—albeit from a couple of years later—Back to the Future.  We all remember that last scene: Doc Brown in with his now garbage/fusion fueled time machine comes to take Marty McFly into the magic world of 2015 (screw you, Mayans) where famously Brown notes, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

I’ve been watching that film repeatedly for NEARLY as long a time as Brown and the McFlys traveled into the future.  Yet only now discussing potential futures does the profundity of that statement strike me.  “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”  Sure, Brown means it literally as evidenced by the flying Delorean, but think of the broader interpretation.  We’re heading for the future, and the way things are now are not the way things will be forever.  Right now we live in a nation webbed with asphalt connecting every single point with every single other point.  We live in an automobile culture (I have written elsewhere about our adoration of our cars), but one day we will beyond that.  Someday, we won’t need roads. 

Let’s get beyond the auto/road idea though.  The way in which we now live will not be the way our descendants will live.  Hell, the way we are living now won’t be the way we live 30 years from now, any more than we are living the same way as 30 years ago.  Sure, no moonbases or even widespread flying cars, but the amount of connectivity between people and information—even in the poorest of nations—changes the destiny of those nations (ask Egypt).  The way we shop, the way we get places, the way we eat, the content of our music and fiction; given only 30 years, all these things will be lost… like tears in rain (couldn’t miss that one).

With change so inevitable, we have no choice but to change ourselves, and honestly the more we fight it, the worse it will be.  Instead, we have an opportunity to shape that future.  We can cling to the past, or we can change those things we should change.  We don’t need roads; we don’t need to follow a path just because we always have.  We can ask ourselves what new way we can create to ride those ways of change. As one of my favorite futurists, Warren Ellis, states in his remarkable work Transmetropolitan, "The future is an inherently good thing."

Let’s take one more look: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”  Imagine a world where we make decisions not to follow those darker paths, not to oppress or attack, but to act with care for our fellow humans, and with the honest intent to improve the world around us.  You feel over legislated?  When we, as a species, stop causing trouble and start working together, we don’t need to be policed or governed, we can just live.  A place where we don’t need roads.  That sounds pretty cool. 

So thanks Doc Brown for getting my attention.  Reminding me the future can be bright if only we—all of us—want it to be.  We can’t take this on singularly, we can’t just “take care of ourselves;” we have to be responsible for our fellow humans.  Because as much as things change, it is always us in the middle of it, and in 10,000 years our nature hasn’t changed nearly as much as it should.  You can’t separate yourself from the world, from the responsibilities we have as a species.  Any of us are only as good—or as bad—as all of us.  If you don’t think so, go back and read whichever book you think serves as instructions for life; not one of them I am aware of says you’re on your own.  Not Darwin, not Jesus, not Buddha, not YHVH, they all tell us about an essential collectiveness to our species.  Act on it…

…so we don’t need roads.

Digital Milgram

So, in this season of shopping I wanted to share a couple of experiences which happened to me while dealing with young people working in the world of retail. Now, many years ago I was both young, and worked retail, and it is quite possible I was guilty of similar actions when I did so; however, I don't think so, and I think it has to do with generational differences. Before we go on, let me take a moment to discuss the “Milgram Experiment.”




In the early 1960's, Stanley Milgram, a professor at Yale, conducted a group of experiments which basically tested how obedient people would be to authority. I won't go in depth (please read the excellent Wikipedia Article), but the basic conclusion was 65% of test subjects performed an act they believed was lethal to another human being because the guy in the lab coat told them to do so. The authority figure told them everything was fine, and though many were uncomfortable, about two thirds did it anyway.

My concern this season is about programmed obedience, but not to a guy in a lab coat, but rather to a machine.



See, in the first instance, the Lovely Jennifer and I were shopping at Target. The nice young cashier told her the bill was $85.65. She handed him $85, missing the last part. He counted the money twice, and Jennifer realized before he did that she had shorted him, and apologetically handed him another dollar.

The young man must have punched the sum of $86 into the register wrong, because he tried to give her $10 dollars change. Despite the fact he had just counted the money, the computer TOLD HIM TO GIVE HER $10, and by God, he was going to do it. Once the situation was explained, we all know all he had to do is put the ten dollar bill back in the register, and his books would be even; however, he couldn't allow the computer to be wrong. He voided the sale and started over. He was extremely apologetic and polite, but see, the Computer could not be wrong.





Our very next stop brought us to Hastings, where they were having a sale, five used books for $20. Music to my ears. The Lovely Jennifer and I confirmed with the nearest book associate that the sale was valid, and picked out some books. Then, I breezed through their comics, and picked out some stuff I wanted to sample; five issues at about $4.00 a piece. See the nice neat pattern? A $40 ticket, with $20 worth of books and $20 worth of comics.


Once we reached the register, the books began to ring up full price, but the young lady behind the computer assured us the computer would adjust the price. She punched in the coupon code, and proceeded to ask us for $70. I told her she was wrong, and there was a sale. She insisted she had punched in the code. I pointed out the two very even sums of $20 that the merchandise cost, and pointed out as well that the five comics I handed her were not $10 a piece, and did not themselves add up to $50. She insisted I must be wrong, because the computer told her this was a $70 purchase.





Those who know me understand I have a tendency to get irate when people don't listen to well reasoned arguments, particularly when just a moment of common sense thought would show there was a problem. Explaining it to her again, she tells me I shouldn't get mad at her, IF there's a problem, she did everything she was supposed to do.


Once the book manager, and then the STORE manager were involved, they realized that one of the used books was mis-marked, and therefore showing up as a new book, and not triggering the proper coupon code. Once this was dealt with, the total was indeed $40 plus tax. The manager apologized, the sales girl did not; it never occurred to her I was not angry not to get my discount, but because she was listening to the computer over her own ability to count. She was so convinced of the computer's infallibility, she forgot the main rule of customer service: the customer is always right, even when he isn't. In this case, I was right, and she never understood why. She didn't have to, because the computer would tell her what to do.




Think this is isolated? Ask the clerk at Starbucks to count your change back to you the next time you buy a latte. Take an online class and have the program score a correct answer on a test as incorrect when it is correct, then convince the instructor of that. Tell someone the forwarded email they got about Mars looking as big as the Moon, contrary to ALL COMMON SENSE is wrong. You will be met with confusion, ambivalence, and downright scorn, hopefully in that order. We don't need to worry about a government going astray, we need to worry about our machines leading us down a primrose path.




Now, am I talking Cylon-like, Terminator take over? No, because our machines are only as good as their users (the Target kid punched in the wrong data; the Hastings book had been tagged improperly). We are asking devices we believe capable of outthinking us to do so with the same information we give them in the first place. That will end in disaster.



Do your world a favor; learn to count. Think critically the next time something looks wrong. Bother to care.

And ignore the irony of it being a guy on a computer asking you to do these things.



Merry Christmas.

Not with a bang but with a whimper.

Why a whimper? Fear. Fear is what drives people these days. Fear of the economy crashing, fear of the terrorists, fear of change. Fear drives hate. Fear drives paranoia. Fear drives bigotry.

This last couple of weeks, I have been poking fun at our society with some TS Eliot, and have been waiting for that funny little story to post to fit the title of this post, something full of snark and absurdity.

Instead, I got this:


Sorry, TS- there were bangs signalling the end and they were gunshots in a Holocaust museum.

See, this is where fear leads. It leads to ideas of us and them, and once we have us and them, we have to be better than they are. Then they have to be bad. Then they have to die. In this case, it's a White Supremacist, and like so many intloerant bastards, he claims God is on his side, and he's working for Jesus.

Hey asshole, Jesus was a Jew who claimed everyone on Earth was a child of God.

The White Supremacist movement wants America back to its core values.

Hey asshole, America was founded under the principle that all men are created equal. Forgive the irony that time and place of authorship paints that statement with, but this is America, and we are all in here together.

There are a lot of honest Conservatives out there who just genuinely want to maintain their faith and values while honestly being part of the solution. Here's a chance; denounce this man now. Right now. Make sure Neo-Nazis don't become the face of Conservatism in America. Talk about how we can acknowledge we have different beliefs, but we don't have to resort to violence over it.

There are a lot of Liberals out there who will equate this to Conservatism as a whole. Don't do it. Acknowledge the good honest Conservative movement out there, and reach out to it in order to work together to put aside the fear this man tried to sow.

America. Put aside your fear. E Pluribus Unum- it's the only way America survives this Century.

Otherwise, it goes out with a whimper of fear.

Let me be succinct.

This is your turn signal. Frickin' use it. Use of turn signals is not optional. Hit your frickin' blinker.

Not so Easy.

So, my firm takes me all over the world, and I have been in some fairly downtrodden places. I have been in airports which make me wonder how they could possibly manage to fuel jets without them bursting into flame due to their conditions. I think airports can tell you a lot about a city: from the frenetic motion carrying you along through Atlanta International's sprawl, to the DFW groups waiting to greet American soldiers with flags and bands, you can get a feeling for the town, though you may never step outside the security gate.

I am in the New Orleans airport right now. It reminds me of Sarajevo.

There is a smell lingering in the air, which at first evokes dirty laundry, but it is in fact just the mildew that seems to have crept into every building. There's a certain tired look in the eyes of the people, like they have been just trying to persevere, to keep themselves moving forward toward the next hardship. The buildings and hotels around it are made up of similarly tired people and moldy rooms and broken beds and doors which don't quite fit in their frames anymore. Damage is apparent, not only to the structures of homes, but to the psyche of those who live in them. It reminds me of distant, less fortunate lands riddled with war, and those who desperately wish it was what it once was.

But this is not some foreign country. This is America. This is one of the jewels of our nation. It is in pain, and watching the news I fear it will soon not be alone.

What was the moment? When did some young Roman citizen look out across the seven hills and say “this will be gone soon?” Did they have a clue before Alaric brought the Visigoths to the gates and demanded the city as tribute? Could they see it coming? If they had, could someone have reversed course-- have saved the Roman Empire from falling, the loss of culture, the 700 years of darkness which followed across Europe?

New Orleans is a canary in a coal mine for our nation. Its song is trying to fade.

Are you listening?