Here are two problems: unemployment and soil depletion.
Unemployment.
Our increase in intelligence has led to the displacement of thousands if not millions of people around the world who are not keeping up with the game or who don’t even have the opportunity to even play it. We are sacrificing some of our own species as we put on the glamorous, diamond-studded veil of progress. I guess this is the nature of competition.
I can’t remember the first time I experienced the ‘self-checkout’ line; most likely it was with Mom in our local Harris Teeter. Amazon is taking the idea to a whole new level with their Amazon Go stores. They’ve eliminated the checkout line. Will they develop robots to stock their shelves and maybe even robotic chefs that can put together a sandwich with perfection? It’s a logical step for the company if you consider the robots that run their warehouses.
Tom: What did you have for lunch today?
Tam: I had the exact same sandwich I’ve been eating for the past week. It’s perfect. It is prepared by the Amazon Whip at the Amazon Go store and it has the exact nutrient content I need for the rest of the day before my dinner salad – also prepared by my personal Amazon Whip at home. The Amazon Whip prepares my meals based on the data collected by Amazon Doc, the army of smart nano-chips that scour my body in blood stream and now live inside of me. But what’s amazing is Amazon Release, think smart-toilet, analyzes my stools each morning and sends the data to Amazon Whip. With the information from Amazon Doc and Amazon Release, Amazon Whip can whip me up a nutritious, life-extending meal. My time in the bathroom has never been so regular in my life! It’s like I have a doctor and a nutritionist in my Amazon Whip, Doc and Release.
Tom: Wow, Tam. Thank you for the wealth of information. I haven’t been feeling that great recently… I don’t know what I should do.
Tam: No worries! Come over to my place tonight and my Amazon Whip and Release will have you feeling better in no time. There’s no time to waste! Before you leave work just be sure to get an Amazon Doc injection from the Amazon Clinic.
It’s a matter of time before Amazon branches into the medical field and replaces doctors with Amazon MD.
It’s a matter of time before the cleaning industry may become under attack from several technological predators: smart vacuums and smart wipers.
Jobs are being lost to innovation. And we feel good about ourselves when we feel we can create jobs for people.
Here’s a concept from Masanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution, written by Nipun Mehta of Servicespace.org:
It it the same way with the scientist. He pores over books night and day, straining his eyes and becoming nearsighted, and if you wonder what on earth he has been working on all the time — it is to become the inventor of eyeglasses to correct nearsightedness.
Soil depletion
My theory is that all the stuff you see around you – cars, buildings, furniture, tools, planes, boats, food that sits on the shelves, purses, possessions, infrastructure – is the cause of our soil being depleted of minerals. Our food is no longer nutritious.
When I lived in China, I remember eating so much food but never feeling satiated. It was as if the food there lacked any nutritional value. I mean look at what they have to do the livestock in China.
I thought I was safe eating food in Japan. For some reason, I had this vision that they were producing food that was pristine and completely uncontaminated. I was shocked to hear from a friend that RoundUp is just as popular in Japan as it it in the States.
I remember walking into Costco once when I was younger. I was just stunned to see this giant building with all of its stuff in it that was completely separated from the earth it came from. I imagined all kinds of stores all over the world that mimicked this phenomenon. All kinds of stuff sitting on shelves.
We are extracting from the land at a faster rate than the land can be replenished. A building goes up and stands for several decades if not several hundreds of years. Every building we build takes from the land without giving anything back. It is as if using concrete is locking away the minerals that belong to the soil.
Think of all the supplements sitting on the shelves in the warehouses, GNC’s, Vitamin Shops and wherever else you can find supplements. All of the minerals that are supposed to be in the soil are above the land. How much of theses supplements end up expiring and when they do expire, what happens to them? Are they being sprinkled all around the earth where the soil has been depleted?
Maybe the soil is depleted of minerals because they are all in the people and animals now.
The comedian Louis CK said it best: ‘New York City is a giant piece of litter.’
I have the three of you to thank for the theme of this post. I don’t know where/when I heard your song, ‘Where have all the flowers gone?‘, but I know it comes from somewhere back in my childhood. Was it with Mom when she was listening to her cassette tapes? Or was it cruising with Dad in his white Mazda hatchback to Jordan Lake for a day of fishing for cat fish?
Where have all the jobs and minerals gone?
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