Survival of the fittest

These are tough times. It's not really survival of the fittest though, is it? Survival of the most adaptable perhaps. Or survival of those lucky enough not to have been figured out by a machine yet.

I saw a bunch of people using those self-service check-outs the other day in a supermarket and it brought me back to my thoughts on why the future will fail. As it is, there just isn't enough for us all to do in terms of actual chargable work. Some of the crazy dumbass businesses people set up and call work don't survive a recession. Sure, they can often make people's lives easier or, more usually, make other businesses more efficient or stronger or, alternatively, less accountable for their actions simply by creating more links in that chain.

But, when things get tight, many of those not-really-businesses get dumped.

And, as this is going on, there are a lot of people out there whose business it is to try to find ways of putting other people out of it. Like the people who invented the self-service check-out machines.

But what future does that lead to?

A future where, eventually, most people are replaced by machines, computers, efficient systems. Those people are waste. They will be piled upon more waste until whole cities will become ghettos. Maybe all cities, except for small areas of London, Tokyo and a large chunk of New York. And it's not like those people are going to have fantastic lives either. Yes, they'll have lovely houses in the Hamptons. Caviar, assuming all fish aren't extinct. They'll have power, something not guaranteed to the waste class when the fuel sources run out. And, with a good deal of fertility treatment, perhaps a child. Even two.

But they'll live in fear.

Fear that the waste class, the filth, will get so angry one day and have so little to lose that they'll just snap. And they'll take the world back.

That's the future.

What happened to those futuristic dreams of living in a nirvana? Silver cities in the sky? Well, those were built on a premise that turned out to be false. The idea that, when we are replaced by a computer or machine, that we then get to live in paradise, exploring art, music, philosophy together. But, as it happens, when a person is replaced, he is dumped on that scrap heap. Someone at the top rubs his hands, having just got that little bit richer. He smiles, not seeing that dark future hurtling towards him. And, quite honestly, if he does see it, he doesn't give a fuck.

He'll die rich. Let the rest of the world fend for itself.

Who cares about the future?

Yeah, it would have been cool

I'm only just beginning the recovery process. Trying to reclaim some humanity after all this work. It's not easy.

But I can't be the only one who went for tests at some point in his life and was disappointed to find that he was nothing more than just that - human. I think every child dreams about being something more. For girls, it's being adopted and finding out they're a princess. For guys, it's being a robot.

It was a crushing blow the first time I got an MRI and there wasn't one raised eyebrow. No emergency scientists appearing to study me. Just a plain old human body.

How dull.