Time and Effort

Calder's recent discussion of handwriting (http://cthingvold.blogspot.com/2013/10/apology-in-absence.html) brings up a mounting tide of thought I've had over the past year or so. It is no great secret that humanity (particularly those living in "developed" nations) is shoving more and more of its burdens onto automated machines. We take those tasks we deem tedious and place them in the cold hands of computers. Makes sense though, right? Who has the time anymore to actually open a dictionary? Thus, spell check. Who wants to fly a plane over the Pacific Ocean for hours and hours? Thus, auto-pilot. Who wants to make the effort to call or visit friends to check up on them? Thus, Facebook.

This attitude is dangerous for several reasons. Automation works by reducing complex situations to a list of variables that a machine can respond to in a predetermined manner. But what about situations that can't be reduced this way? What if the machine is trying to respond to a set a variables its creators never predicted? This system is designed so that it will respond correctly most of the time. The times it can't respond, a machine's human operator is required to take control. But will he be ready to? If he has assumed this whole time that the machine will do his work for him, how is the operator likely to respond when suddenly thrust into a position of control? In this way, automation not only opens itself up for error by not being able to adapt, but it also erodes the skill of those it supposedly services.

By handing our responsibilities off to machines, we are also demeaning our own abilities. One of the facts Google touts around about its driverless cars is that they have never been in an accident. The statement behind this is: we can't drive. It's a very defeatist attitude, one that weakens the trust we have in ourselves. How can we ever expect to be better (drivers) if we purposefully disengage ourselves from the task at hand?

This is the crux of the issue for me: no labor = no investment. Yes, doing things by hand takes longer. It requires more effort. Yet as Calder finds while handwriting his essays, the enjoyment of labor is the labor itself, not only the completion of it. The more time a person puts into something, the more labor it requires, the more invested she becomes in whatever it is. By sharing more time in the labor, she allows herself to attach meaning to it, to be changed by it. Can she be changed by staring at a computer screen? I have my doubts.

I've had a kind of writer's block lately. I lack motivation; I feel like I'm getting nowhere. I normally do my writing on a computer and I'm wondering now if this isn't the problem. Instead of holding in my hand the physical manifestation of my thoughts on paper, I scroll through a Word document. Instead of watching the ink vanish from my pen, I stare at my keyboard, static. Maybe its time for a change.