Thinking about “higher level,” it’s funny how words and phrases first enjoy popular attention and use, then become utterly devalued through overuse, and finally descend into the condition of allergen (at least for me) to which I (again, me) have a palpable histamine response. It’s happened with “freedom” and “patriot,” words that are effectively meaningless in 2024. In a much smaller circumstance—work, I now have the same sense toward the words “higher level” or derivatives.
The description usually arises in discussion about any given communication not in the form of bullet points, containing polysyllabic words, or ascribing 50 or less words (and ideally some pictures) to stand in for a complicated, if not complex subject. That subject could be a business venture or initiative, policy position, innovation, or some kind of restructuring or transformation. And that doesn’t even cover the waterfront because the “higher level” rejoinder is applied to EVERYTHING.
It now gets under my skin. Mostly because it is used by people who haven’t the faintest idea of what genuinely constitutes these mythic levels. That is, not only are the classes fluid but they’re used knowingly by people who actually don’t know. That makes them code. A kind of nudge nudge, wink wink.
Want to have a little fun? Ask the next person who mentions that something has to be taken to a “higher level” what exactly that might look like. Silence. Or, worse, some febrile explanation that it will be briefer, maybe in bullet points, and so forth. Utter nonsense in any case.
So what is this “higher level” nonsense about? As far as I can tell it is shorthand for:
I can’t or don’t like to read. Besides, I don’t understand any of this material anyway, probably because I don’t have the baseline level of knowledge to judge it. That means nobody else will understand it, especially executives above me who are intolerant of superficial blather. Despite not knowing what might be valid and what is superficial, I am taking it upon myself to edit on behalf of the executive [or whomever]. It needs to be simpler and not as dense and—optimally—at a grade 5 reading level. Besides, I absolutely love white space, don’t you…”
Don’t get me started on how widespread and deep the rot of that need to abbreviate goes. Suffice to say it goes too far. There was once a time when the distinguishing feature between lower and higher ranks in an organization and society had to do with the capability to communicate IN WRITING (which means both writing and reading). Requisat en pace.
society, stupidityComments Off on Nigerians know MAGA means “fool”
Mar202024
I was watching the most recent episode of Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller. It was about Nigerian scammers (Black Axe) that lure people with promises of enormous inheritances to come to an African country—in this case, Mozambique. There they are sent on with a suitcase of “gifts” which, in this case, was heroin. Mariana found this story because of the daughter of one such “blind mule” now in prison in Mozambique.
Never minding everything that comes to mind, that shouts “THIS IS NOT A REAL THING!” suffice to say it happens—a lot.
The real point here is that Mariana interviews a couple members of these syndicates and they tell her that everybody can be scammed. Moreover, in Nigerian street lingo, those people who fall for this despicable and absurd scam are called “magas.”
I learned a lot about the world and, indeed, how sophisticated and insightful are Nigeria’s mafiosos.
Whoever initiated the contract probably did what (s)he was told to get best practice thinking on “on ‘IT cost optimization.’ That report included supporting documents on IT contractors, domain utilization, printer consolidation, software asset management and suggestions for reducing costs in each area.”
Whoever authorized the contract apparently had no idea that at the very least this could get politicized and spin was going to be put to the underlying situation into the position of being ridiculed. Irrespective of its other merits.
The consultant partner that took the contract should have also considered how this might play out with this spin. (It has reflections of an old Jackie Mason bit about finding the real you… [go to 8:00]) Just a little “whore-ish” maybe…
Tempest in a media teapot resulting from people trying to make political points in a politically divided environment. What’s left to say?
For more fascinating observations check out the whole site.
The word “freedom” has been drained of any worth. There was a time when it was a foundational article of constitutional republics and democracies the world over. There was a time that young men died in the name of freedom from genuine fascist tyranny. There was a time that the fight for freedom from a genuine oppressor of some type was a cause to join or if not join at least rally to.
Those days are over.
Most demands for “freedom” are pure hypocrisy if they rise above idiocy
But the cry of freedom as a rationale or excuse is at fever pitch. Why is something ridiculous or selfish or anarchic or antisocial or… being done? Why for freedom, of course. Freedom is even invoked when it makes no sense, such as in almost every complaint in the United States that the media or private corporations are imposing on freedom of expression by disallowing some expression of mental indigestion or another.
For clarity, it’s nonsense because the 1st Amendment applies only to the government imposing on the right to express oneself. And that’s just to start. Freedom, quite unsurprisingly spelled out as “fredum” or some equally incorrect variation, is like the universal “get out of jail free” card. Until it’s not. But that’s not what this is about.
Religious people tend to be hypocrites
What this is about is a segment of the freedom claimers that belongs to any form of Judeo-Christian organized religion. This is about the rabid hypocrisy of their demands and claims for freedom. Not necessarily but certainly including religious freedom.
Before getting into this specific consideration, it’s worth putting on the table that a large proportion of religious people are raving hypocrites. Undoubtedly there are many genuine believers who abide by the tenets of their faith. In my experience though, leaving Sunday to Sunday seems to be no problem for many of the faithful, let alone for the leaders. Yes, that would be you Jerry, Jimmy, Jim, Pat, Joel… It is table stakes in many churches.
But those garden variety hypocrites are not what’s troubling and generally has nothing to do with “Freedom.” Except, freedom to keep the grift going. The religious person/freedom nexus is with all those hypocrites who chant, march, spew bile, lie, and often just generally make a nuisance of themselves for the sake of some freedom that they are claiming, demanding, justifying some kind of alleged freedom.
When they do so, it is almost guaranteed that their demand for something—let’s say the right to ignore public orders, like wearing a mask to check the spread a viral pathogen—always quickly gets to the right to freedom… to ignore that order. This could be another essay about the selfish, privately and publicly regressive attitude. But it’s not.
There is NO natural or God-given freedom; it’s certainly not a baseline
The right to freedom claim is always framed as though this freedom or right to it is some natural or God-given right. That is the baseline and so whatever is being opposed is an imposition. Of course this is idiotic on so many levels through so many centuries. Even if one believes in God, it’s idiotic. God hardly granted a right to freedom.
Or, probably more accurately, God did grant a right to freedom. One that was almost instantly taken away from the humans that proved incapable of abiding by the rules and responsibilities associated with it and too weak-minded to protect it. (Look it up. Genesis 2:16 – 3:24)
God did grant a right to freedom. Humans couldn’t handle it and it was almost instantly taken away.
In point of fact, for those of religious bent, there is probably enough in these verses to set them on their heels regarding pretty much any order from an authority. But this isn’t theology class.
The point I have been late to making is very simple: religious adherents participating in any claim of natural or god-given freedom being imposed on by public order as a reason to defy it are hypocrites of the first order. In addition to the obvious first point just above about God having taken back that freedom, consider the following:
The 10 Commandments
Let’s say that you don’t buy my point about God-given freedom having been withdrawn at the time Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden. Let’s say that you were willing to make spurious contextual and semantic arguments. I absolutely defy you now to prove that the 10 Commandments are not massive, universal impositions on human freedom.
Fully eight of the ten are prohibitions on freedom. These are the ones that begin with or contain the words, “Thou shalt not….” The other two are positive instructions (Keep the Sabbath and Honour your parents). But, one would have to presume that God was not making an idle suggestion of these two. They are, after all, commands. So ten out of ten Commandments are impositions on freedom.
Again, it would be completely expected for you to argue that these are specific and definitive, and if the imposition were not coming from God or were of a different type, then they would be impositions on all the other freedoms (i.e., everything else). A very strict read and interpretation of an allegorical situation. Not dubious at all.
The Sermon on the Mount
Matthew recounts Jesus’ admonitions to his followers and the assembled for how to behave (Matthew 5-7). It is a formidable part of the Christian moral universe replete with guidance and the centrality of what it means to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. Again, as with the Commandments, it is not really my intention to debate the fullness of these declarations. It is, however and again, my desire to point out that the Sermon is several chapters worth of direction for how to behave if one is a Christian. Certainly the organized Churches promulgate it in their followers.
That has to be an imposition on freedom. For a Christian that wants to remain a Christian in good standing, it is kind of important to abide by these and many other rules (many of which have been appropriated by the organizations, but that’s another story). If you don’t, then, well you are at the very least a bad Christian at the worst, excommunicate. That’s a pretty fair reduction in freedoms even if they were natural or God-given.
The real point is that religious people are more than abundantly familiar with complaint to impositions on their personal freedom that come from their social leaders, or elders. Some might actually fool themselves into believing these are somehow acceptable constraints because they come from God, not from man. It’s ridiculous or if not let Him smite me now.
Moreover, it’s imposed and enforced by men even if its origination were God. The parallel, of course, is that the social freedoms or lack thereof (i.e., the impositions on freedom) tend to come from historical precedent for the social order. These are centuries old. They are codified. For all intents and purposes, they have the same origin and stature.
So, please, if you won’t stop being hypocrites, at least stop being falsely outraged when your bluff gets called. Be fearful that you will be seen naked and prepare to be cast from the Eden you’re in.
Check out some of my other extended essays and such (My Oeuvre).
Since 2020, I, like everyone else in North America, have been treated to a regular though slowly diminishing force feeding of “news” about the “Lab Leak” source for the COVID pandemic. At first, when it was novel (like the Coronavirus underlying the pandemic), it made me wonder. Today, it makes me wonder—about the people obsessing about it.
The Novel Coronavirus and the Pandemic of the 2020s
To recap:
A novel coronavirus took hold near Wuhan, China.
It rapidly spread, globally, because of the way modern society transits the planet and the fact that our virginal constitutions, at least with regard to this pathogen, were most hospitable hosts.
The factors beneath this virus’s communicability and mortality led to it being declared a genuine pandemic of concern.
To combat it, humanity in various parts of the world took various measures from the idiotic through to the excessive (and sometimes both together). That these were novel and tentative measures for which efficacy was still to be proven made some sense given the novelty of the situation.
The biological problem turned into a political problem as the underlying virus issues gave way to the social issues surrounding combat measures. This, naturally led to tribal fault lines and the anti-vax movement.
The WHO declares the official pandemic health emergency over. Right or wrong, we’re moving past the emergency posture. But the tribal fault lines remain as does the questioning about the source of the entire episode.
Through this latter period, one vector of attack and mis/dis/genuine information was the source of the virus itself. Did it arise organically as the result of a racoon dog in a wet market in Wuhan or was it a lab leak or was it something more nefarious.
The Source of the Novel Coronavirus
We are an inquisitive species by nature. If we’re that determined to source the origin of the universe BILLIONS of years ago, could anybody expect that we wouldn’t collectively insist on knowing “How this happened?” And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In some form, most of us know that if you want to prevent the same thing from happening again, if you want to not make the same mistake again, if you want to… it’s important to be clear about the real cause.
In this case, there seems to be at least one naive and two clearly purposeful reasons behind the inquiry. None of which is of particular value to any but those with very particular interests and obligations. Ultimately, the source of the pandemic is a novel coronavirus in the same way that the cause of an ebola outbreak is the ebola virus, of SARS in the early 21st-century, another coronavirus…
A virus, even by name, is not a sufficient root cause
This seems to be the broad-based response that perpetuates the interest in the “lab leak.” That ought to be true to officials of research and other containment labs, to public health officials, probably to wildlife officers and various other ecologists in remote parts of the globe—especially those that are now exposing their hidden treasures (more below).
The Pointless Constituency: The General Population
It ought to be mostly satisfactory to the broad population. The cause of our experience is a virus. What does it matter, beyond curiousity, to a house painter or an opinion columnist, what lays as a deeper root cause. Would this information, whether accurate or misguided, have any impact whatsoever on his or her daily life? And what does debating the merits of a theory about the source do for that person? Play out the two basic alternatives: it was or it wasn’t. Will that change the tilt of his or her life in any meaningful way? It is truly mere curiousity, probably combined with tribal weaponization of mis/dis/genuine information.
Alternatively, there are those for whom digging deeper could be more meaningful. The World Health Organization and other national public health administrators. Surely they have greater need for more insight. Probably. And, probably more importantly, they ought to also have more perspective on what that added insight means. That is, what value it contributes to the issue. But do they really?
Why Should They Care?
In the event that there were a similar outbreak and similar situation, would the method of combatting it be different based on knowing it’s origin? For bold relief clarity, if the source were a wet market in a Chinese industrial city v. a isolated tribal village in the centre of the Congo or the Amazon basin v. the top of Mt. McKinley or Mont Blanc? If the core uncertainty is that we’ve never seen this before and we have no further insight into it, does it matter where it came from?
Somewhat less facetiously, whether the novel virus came from a lab or from out of the deepest jungle is also irrelevant without further information. And, it is that further information upon which any kind of meaningful alteration in response action might be based.
The further information is whether the virus is indeed “novel.” Perhaps this usage does not conform with virological definition so let me specific that when I used the word novel, here, I mean have we seen this exact viral strain before and do we know anything about it. Ideally we know things about it that would leapfrog our experimental responses in the wild and allow the response to the pandemic to be more focused. And, ideally, more successful (and shorter).
Presumably, a lab leak of a virus would have this kind of added information load. So it would not be quite as novel. Let me go back to my painter. If this were known, what possible impact could this knowledge and understanding have? To him or her, who stands in as the vast majority of humanity not specifically in the public health (virology, specifically) world, it’s trivia.
Such information, that the source was a lab leak, ought to have significant impact for those public health officials as stated. But, logically, the value of that information does not persist. It diminishes as time passes. As the fight against the virus and the pandemic wears on, the underlying virus becomes less novel. It becomes less relevant where it came from because generations of evolution have turned it into something else. And (and this is the important part), we have more meaningful and valuable insight about the virus problem than any amount of understanding about it in December 2019 or March 2020 much provide. In short, at some point, even for those on the front line of virology and immunology, determining the origin of the virus is ancient history.
Today’s Value of the Lab Leak Determination
Not to diminish but simply to overlook and ignore the value of this inquiry from a tribal, political perspective, there are two constituency that has an ongoing need to know for sure whether there was a lab leak. My painter is nowhere close to either one. (By the way, dear reader, don’t get to fixated on the “painter” as a painter. As I’ll explain later, it’s a broad-based stand-in.)
The Primary Constituency: Public Health Administrators
The first constituency that should know that there was a lab leak is the community of administrators and operators of similar containment facilities. In this case it’s so-called level 4 virus containment laboratories, but it could be study spaces for bacteria or any other biological or non-biological pathogenic research. If what’s being studied is inherently dangerous to humanity if it is not engaged with through strict protection protocols, arguably it would qualify. So, atomic experimentation fits. But it seems the focus should be on pathogens that can be extremely destructive to humanity without human help. More or less, we’re talking about biological pathogens.
This constituency deserves to know if for no other reason that to understand and remedy similar conditions in their own facilities. Strengthening protocols to prevent leaks and so forth would be a good outcome—obviously, IF there were a leak. Good faith errors happen. When the consequences can be so extremely bad, it makes sense to ensure there are fail-safes, buffers, and other backstops. What if this were the first virus to develop the ability to evade all such defences in some “novel” way? Again, knowing and understanding—and sharing—this information is to the good of humanity, full stop.
The Secondary Constituency: Governments (Including Defence, Military, and Public Safety)
All this is good and well. It represents the valid ethical and humanitarian reasons for searching out the source or cause of the virus entering our human biosphere and doing its damage. And, as I’ve stated, there is at least one good reason why determining a lab leak was the cause—and hence a lab—was the source of the novel coronavirus. It is, of course, not nearly the end of the story.
One way or another, sometimes only whispered because saying it out loud is diplomatically charged at best and racist at worst, the real reason EVERYONE is so interested in whether a lab leak is behind this is not the “leak” part, but the “lab” part. The point of the lab leak hysteria is whether there was a Chinese lab involved. More specifically, was a Chinese lab purposefully holding this virus in the Wuhan lab (that the origin is Wuhan, at least, is beyond dispute)? And did the virus “leak” from that lab?
Leak is a funny word in this situation. It’s banal obvious meaning is that perhaps through error or for any other of a hundred reasons, the virus being contained simply “got away.” Kind of like a lion escaping from a zoo. Maybe a keeper left the gate unlocked; maybe years of rain and heat corroded some part of the enclosure. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that (a) there was a lion there and (b) it got out.
The constituents in the heading are interested first in confirmation that this otherwise unknown virus was or was not known to “the enemy.” Let’s assume that’s proven, which in that world can mean anything from it is a very strong rumour that everyone feels good about through to there is absolutely unimpeachable, conclusive proof.
Once that has been “established,” a number of further allegations can be supported in a way. First, they “had” and knew about a novel virus that they kept from “us.” Obviously (natch!) this can only mean that they were seeking to use it as a biological weapon directly or as a stepping stone to something more deadly.
Such labs are known to perform gain of function experimentation. We do it for obviously good reasons. But maybe they were doing it for obviously(!) nefarious reasons. Either way, we obviously didn’t know about it. So, if we can establish there was a lab leak, then we know they were doing something and can focus attention on where they might have been going.
Even if we can’t prove “they” were doing something nefarious, we know that (a) they were being secretive and (b) they’re sloppy. In either case, we have a Western feel-good narrative. But wait, what if the nefariousness were not merely in what was going on inside and a mistake? What if the “leak” (see, I told you “leak” is a great word in this situation.) were purposeful? What if the pathogen’s release were not accidental but meant? What if the zookeeper wasn’t actually a little doddering but, in fact, left the gate open to see how many children the lion would eat before it were caught?
Speculation. Leave It For The Speculators
Who knows? Who cares? The point I’ve been trying to make is that it doesn’t really matter to the vast majority of us that neither administer public health facilities such as containment labs nor tread in the international diplomatic/military waters.
Sure, maybe my painter (who could be a divorce lawyer, dentist, accountant, investment banker, car detailer….) has some kind of morbid fascination with such things because he or she doesn’t have enough to do, a good family life, or an interesting hobby. But to get riled up by politicians and media using this as something to further deepen the chasm between political tribes is a little silly.
This aging red herring is almost certainly being poked to stink as a distraction from what’s important and to lend urgency to what’s not.
Have a read of Zeynep Tufekci’s column in the May 12 New York Times. There is some insight there for those of us in the pointless constituency: “The Pandemic Threat That Hasn’t Gone Away”
Radical transparency is in demand; that much is obvious. Anti-vaxxers and the “Fredum” thugs, anti-business anti-government anti-[insert what bugs you here] and conspiracy theorists all demand greater transparency just in case (or because) somebody’s trying to pull one over on us.
Of course, none of them actually believes the information provided. So there’s that.
Transparency is the new black
I got to thinking about this again seeing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene reveal classified information during a public committee meeting. Her unabashed reasoning was that she thought Americans should know [operational boarder information]… On another front, I’ve been seeing a lot of Sarah Kendzior’s book, They Knew (mostly as she promotes it). I believe—as I haven’t read the book—her theme is: you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you, and I have the receipts. By her reckoning, there are provable (government) conspiracies in the USA with different, complicit participants in each instance. The conclusion is apparently that (a) “they” knew a tragedy was coming and (b) it was largely to “their” gain and at “your” cost.
I’m not a fan of either. It goes without saying there will always be groups with privileged information they keep to themselves. In business, it’s called “trade secrets.” Investors hoard and use information for trading advantage and profit. In affairs of state there are countless reasons for keeping things opaque, shall we say. Military and defense activities among an alliance, such as NATO, is a good example. Justice is another.
There are good reasons for this behaviour, which is perfectly reasonable and normal. Besides, information typically requires context to be meaningful and tracts of it requires skills, training, and comprehension that eludes most of those “doing their own research.”
(Valuable) Information can resemble a Rorschach blot: (a) sure to be misunderstood; (b) revealing more about its analyst than the underlying subject; and (c) raw material to manufacture disinformation—rarely for a good purpose.
What good is transparency if what it reveals is at best meaningless and at worst combustible?
Secrecy, Conspiracy, Collusion…
Information itself and conspiring to hold it from others is not in and of itself untoward. It can be sane and sensible. We can’t all be polymaths and expert at every esoteric area of expertise. (Except, of course, Elon Musk and Donald Trump.) We don’t all have a direct say in how the government operates. We get our say periodically to elect representatives to represent us. We certainly get no say in the human resources and processes by which modern states operate any more than one-share stockholders can demand a say in corporate structure and operations. It has never happened before; it will not happen now, and; it will not happen in the future.
The division of labour, a foundational Capitalist principle, compels us for efficiency and effectiveness to leave tasks and the necessary carrying out of those tasks, including choices about information (disclosure), to nominated or designated people.
This bedrock principle upon which the Western, democratic world (and arguably every other part of the world) bases itself and its affairs is dependent on one of two things. In North America anyway, these are rapidly changing.
The first is trust the second is fear. Fear, in this context, is much to fraught to tackle here, so let’s focus on trust. In a social context this is trust in institutions and the people that populate, particularly lead them. Social trust is in tatters on its way to being shredded.
For some justifiable reasons, the populous has lost trust in the institutions of government and the representative politicians (of the other tribe). In the USA, the political tribes have fully separated and certainly the Republican party has done everything it can to actively drive mistrust of not only Democrats but government in general.
Side note: Probably because it spends much more and has accumulated better PR, “business” luxuriates in higher levels of social trust. This is bizarre when a substantive record of how and why trusting “business” has failed the masses. But, whatever.
Absent trust, credibility is an early relationship casualty so every institutional error is perceived as having ulterior motive. That leads to genuine withholding of information for good reasons. Thus the doom cycle commences and continues.
Sometimes it behooves leaders of all sorts—business, government, families—to withhold information for the broadest benefit of the whole. Using a tired philosophical saw, yelling “fire” in a crowded auditorium results in pandemonium. People—in herds—responding to information they may not understand or have the tools to effectively address, are known to panic… regularly. The crowd will stampede and many will not make it out.
(This used to be axiomatic: given today’s level of “doing my own research” rejection of authority, who knows how many would rampage—perhaps for altogether different reasons—anticipating more palatable facts to surface.) A leader may not mention the fire, using a ruse or some other oblique rationale for orderly withdrawal. More people are unharmed. Is that so bad?
Transparency on what’s more cancerous than benign: Corruption
One of those justifiable reasons for trust diminishing I mentioned earlier is the overwhelming evidence of corruption and (their tribe’s, of course) self-dealing. Withholding information, even as a syndicate, should be expected. What may also be expected but is definitely beyond the pale is self-dealing, benefitting unjustly, and harming others—those others who have given their faith to the “good faith” of those empowered. (Let’s also not restrict ourselves to politicians and governments; this applies to businesses and other organizations be they charities or labour unions or…)
We have stumbled into the area of corruption, not conspiracy or secrecy or withholding information. The legal phrasing generally contains, “…conspiracy to….” The word “to”—not “conspiracy”—is the operative one here. The conspiracy part merely refers to a group; “to” leads to a crime.
The issue is not conspiring or colluding or anything else until they become instrumental to implementing and executing a crime. At this point the rabble rousing and transparency demanding has a crisis: the choice forces many to create the artifice of crime out of whole cloth.
When bankers, oil & gassers, other industrialists and oligopolists collude to maximize movement of wealth from the masses to the few, that warrants uprising. When chemical companies conspire to influence regulation or cover-up lethal toxic impacts of their making to avoid culpability, that might warrant pitchforks. When the government and the political leaders (of their tribe) self-deal by pocketing hundreds of thousands or billions of dollars by virtue of their privilege, that warrants blowback.
Competent, employed professionals entrusted with a particular division of labour, making good-faith decisions for the greatest good based on imperfect and shifting information, probably is not. Certainly anyone or any organization holding operational information without a criminal intent has no obligation to disclose all of it just because “one shareholder” wants to see it. Even government bodies.
If there is a crime at hand, pursue the crime. Prove it. There are rules for information disclosure with provable probability of crime. (Caveat: Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s a crime. Corrollary: Just because you do like something doesn’t mean it it isn’t a crime. You know who I’m talking about.)
Incidentally, Sarah, none of this suggests or recommends NOT being vigilant about potential crimes—especially coups d’état, which are inarguably social harms… and crime. But yeah, “they” probably or maybe definitely knew! They’re there and you’re not. And Marjorie: some things don’t need to be radically transparent just because you—loosely said—think so.
Something prompted me yesterday to dig into the “red pill” phenomenon that is at the root of just about all social upheaval in (at least) North America. In my imagination, I was going to deconstruct the ridiculousness and inconsistency of those who use this shorthand to justify their antisocial positions. I was going to spend some time considering how it is decontextualized even from the movie universe in which it arose. Then I remembered, It’s FICTION. MADE UP. LOGICALLY ATTUNED TO ITS OWN ILLOGICAL CONTEXT. It doesn’t matter how much one points out the flaws in raise it–even as shorthand for some kind of awakening and realization–it will remain a useful tool in the hands of idiots. That was it: “idiots.” And I moved on to another stream of thought.
society, stupidityComments Off on Is that really what the technology is for?
Jan062015
New Year’s eve… Like many, many people apparently, the lovely and talented Mrs. G and I skip the parties and go straight to the movie theatre. Often following Chinese buffet dinner, but that’s another matter entirely. There is 30-40 minute opportunity to observe people in action. And what I saw made me sad.
There, four rows ahead of me was a couple that sat down to do the same thing as we were doing. They were (even) older than us. There was 10-minutes before the movie would begin. They sat. Then they each whipped out a smartphone and completely ignored each other.
But this is not the saddening part.
I often sit in in airport lounges and other places where waiting is the order of the day–or at least the hour. I, too, will check email, text messages, look up stuff that’s pressing, and respond to the demanding beeping of the reminder apps. Usually I’m alone not sitting with someone (like my spouse) with whom I could and probably should be communicating.
Even that’s not the saddening part.
I get it. You’ve got things to do. This is as good a time as any to be productive. Go ahead. However… the fellow sitting four rows in front of me, in a movie theatre, on New Year’s even, at 8:55PM, 10-minutes before the movie would start, WITH HIS WIFE was… playing solitaire.
That’s what’s so important? That’s how small life has become? That’s how meaningless direct human interaction has become? Was this the vision of the RIMs and Apples when they developed this technology?
Or then again, maybe they’d just had a fight in the lobby over whether to pay extra for the butter topping…
God damn Steve Jobs! It’s hard to dredge from memory or history another huckster who left behind such a legacy of dreck. Jobs was a tireless promoter who innovated relentlessly and—as legend would have it—single-handedly changed the face of the consumer world from personal computing to animated movies to music consumption and mobile telephony/computing. Love it or hate it; he did it.
But that’s not what I mean. The detritus in his formidable wake is all of the half-baked nonsense that others less capable have picked up. Where for Jobs the result if it would be a gastronomic delight, in other hands it becomes fast food. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Web world.
You see, Jobs was a man with vision, drive, and—to switch metaphors—the skills of a utility fielder. He was a showman and marketer with a sense for the appealing. He was an evangelist and salesman with a feel for the con. He was an industrialist with a grasp of production. And, allegedly, in his later tenure, became something of a strategist and commanding agent of change. What this adds up to is a well-rounded entrepreneur who knew inherently that even though he was reducing a complex mix of ingredients to a single catchy phrase, there was a lot of magic going on.
Those who worship at the alters of his several business religions are not so well versed. They do not appreciate that, just to hold the mystique for single-minded people like them, Jobs oversimplified and reduced to an aphoristic sound-bite, very complex conditions. They don’t get that Steve Jobs was a sophisticated carney and they are his marks.
Why do I rant? Because I am now fed up by the noxious and excessive blather from all levels of so many organizations about consumer experience or customer experience. Don’t get me wrong: such concern is paramount, or at least it will be until it proves unprofitable and therefore unacceptable to the stock market. To satisfy the customer—to make him or her or it categorically happy with your wares is fundamental to loyalty, repeat business, referrals, buzz, and ultimately revenue if not profit. And there is truth to the causal connection between the visceral experience with a product/service and the good outcomes noted above.
That said, the ham-handed Webheads roll this all up under the aegis of user experience. And then they reduce all of that holistic business complexity to what would properly be limited to user interface. When gullible and complicit executives support the cause user interface gets conflated with customer experience and the absurdities begin.
“So what’s the problem with that Mr. Pedant?” You ask. Not much except for how the UI (user interface) people—interaction designers really—get up on their hind legs and throw their weight around with the support of improbable, linguistic overreach. All of a sudden the interface carries dominion over all other possible aspects of customer experience. For instance:
A customer’s preconception of the product, from which his/her experience is anchored, starts with the ads and promotion. Shouldn’t Marketing Communications be in charge?
A customer’s sense of proportional value and the resulting positive/negative experiential feeling is critically related to the price paid. Why wouldn’t Pricing get the last word?
In the highly probable event of a problem with the product/service/Website, how the various customer service channels respond has enormous impact on customer experience. Why then does Customer Service not hold sway?
Let’s not overlook that an offering simply working (or not) has a clearly enhancing or detracting effect on one’s overall impression. So it seems that Operations ought to be the final arbiter of customer experience.
All this without even considering that the product group determines market need and value, and orchestrates all the above-noted constituent players and more—including the interface designers—to create and provide an offering to please customers and fill the company coffers.
Let’s agree that customer experience is valuable, but that it is the complex output of many inputs. Even if you make the dubious causal leap that customer experience equals success, it may or may not recognize that ultimately success is profit. And on this it merely muddies the simplicity to note that while touting the experience, Steve Jobs could shave Lincoln’s beard off of a penny. (Maybe that has had a little to do with Apple’s commercial success…)
To blithely dictate that user experience equals customer experience is wrong to begin with. To push that further and allow customer experience, which is actually now equal to user interface, to be the start and end or at least the dominant element of commercial input is simplistic, naïve, and unduly credits user interface (i.e., design) with too much.
Besides, isn’t this kind of hyperbolic overextension what “Marketing” is all about? Does nobody care that now Marketers have no real purpose let alone dominance?
I fly fairly consistently though by no means am I row 13 troll racking up 100,000 miles a year or more. That said, I’m on enough to know that airlines squeeze people into too small a space for actual comfort.
More than that, people flying on business tend toward pulling out laptops to make productive use of the time in the air. That laptop has to sit in the already unsuitable space on the meal tray. So when the person immediately in front of the worker exercises his/her right to recline the seat back for greater comfort, it not only invades the already cramped space but makes using the computer all but impossible. I, personally, have had the clamshell lid cracked because it got sandwiched when the seat in front of me was thrust back.
So when two 48-year olds come just short of blows because one guy, sitting in the worst seat (middle) uses a little piece of plastic that costs 14-cents to make but is $22 at retail called the Knee Defender to prevent the seat from coming back, forcing the plane to be diverted from destination, you can do nothing but say, “Yeah, so what?” (See BBC story here)
Have to say that because it’s inevitable and has probably happened without such media fanfare many times. You also have to say it because both of these people were being douche bags (though I sympathize more with the guy using the device than with the gal who wanted to recline). Douche bags they might be, likely very self-righteously protecting their position and logic.
The airline, on the other hand, never mind the regulators, are culpable and should be punished. Here’s why. They create and foster the situation.
They create seat pitch (the gap for knees and breathing space) and squeeze it as tight as they can get away with. They do this because over 30 rows, 1-inch adds up to another row of seats which adds up to more revenue at a solid marginal profit. Notably, this fight broke out in a part of the plane that already had a larger pitch than cattle class.
They install seats that recline. Frankly, I think this whole notion is ridiculous and warrants physiological testing. The amount of recline the seat affords is not enough to be really any more comfortable; only enough to be irritating, imposing, and beyond annoying to the person behind you.
They make (and sell) the space and time on the plane to business travellers as a time to get things done. For crying out loud, they’re installing wifi on-board. Wifi is useless without a device to connect and trying to do real work on a tablet or smart phone is preposterous.
So, it’s the airline that creates the conditions that create the possibility for nobody’s wrong, self-righteousness.
Reclining passenger says, “Hey, the seat reclines and it’s my right to get more comfortable (or at least have the feeling that I’m getting more comfortable) by reclining completely. As far as I’m concerned, given the structure of the seating, that space MUST be mine to recline into.
The passenger being reclined into says, “Whoa, hold on, this space between my nose and your upright seat is inadequate to begin with. As soon as you recline, especially if the person in front of YOU isn’t reclining, you’re getting more space–MY space, which I need to work in. Back off. Reclining is a privilege, not a right.”
At the end of the day, the douche bag who pushes her seat back is probably more in “the right,” but in any case, the airline is in the wrong. And who suffers? The recliner, he being reclined upon, and EVERY OTHER PASSENGER who didn’t get to Denver as promised or has to listen to the kerfuffle.
