Virtually Paul

If it ain’t broke

July 22, 2006 on 11:50 pm | In Uncategorized |

I was talking ranting about this tonight at a good mate’s 21st…

I have come to the conclusion that as humans we generally ignore problems - serious problems - that have enormous social justice, civil rights or even human rights implications. This may not be new to you. To be honest, it’s probably not new to me… but I’m going to talk about it anyway.

Matt Glover has posted an interesting example: ‘homeless in Vegas‘. Basically they’re trying to make it illegal to feed homeless people in Vegas. Do you think the problem might be somehow related to excessive gambling? Who would have thought that was possible in Las Vegas! Homelessness is obviously a serious problem with a lot of complicated things happening in the background. Trying to deal with the end result won’t solve the problem.

Anyone who has ever been the ‘computer person’ in a social group will identify with this sort of thing. It’s kind of like when someone has a computer problem. A friend might decide, for instance, that they’re not really interested that much in whether or not their antivirus software is working properly. They don’t update their virus definition files (which teach the software how to stop the latest viruses that are floating around). As a result, they get a virus, not because their antivirus program isn’t capable of the task, not because they weren’t capable of configuring it… but because they didn’t bother to find out how.

Now, we all know that viruses are bad. It’s just one of those words that doesn’t sound very appealing… even if you try to smile while you’re saying it. Our hypothetical friend would, I’m quite sure, click “No” if they got a popup saying “Would you like a virus?”. Unfortunately, you don’t really get that kind of courteous warning. However, as long as the virus isn’t stopping them from doing all of their usual computery tasks… like checking their email, watching Strong Bad Emails and installing stupid ’smiley fun’ toolbars into Internet Explorer… then chances are they won’t really care that they have a virus. When it actually does start having an effect, like opening 400 popup windows every 2 minutes, slowing down their internet connection, or stopping good old Windows 98 from starting altogether, then they are quite likely to seek some assistance. They will, however, maintain that they have every right to own and use a computer. As horrible as that reality is in some cases, it’s true. But does it make them a good computer user? I can fix the computer… but that will really only delay the problem from repeating itself unless I educate the user as well.

I picked that analogy because I have some computer skills, so it’s easy for me to throw stones with relatively few consequences… but if I widen the scope a bit, I think that even the blog-savvy have something to learn. If you haven’t already worked out where I’m going, here it is:

It is human nature to pretty much just keep doing something until we are presented with a reason to care enough about the consequences, such that we stop. We use the computer until it does something that makes it hard for us to keep using it. We drive our cars around until they start ‘doing something different’ that might require some attention. A guy I know had a serious alcohol problem but basically didn’t stop drinking until the doctors told him that his liver could no longer handle it and his next binge would quite likely kill him.

The same thing drives our responses to the ‘big picture’ issues. The reason why we don’t care that much about the levels of greenhouse gas emissions that our society produces, is mostly because global warming really hasn’t had any catastrophic consequences yet that would prompt those of us in suburban Melbourne to transformationally change our lifestyles. The reason why homelessness is suddenly on the agenda in Las Vegas has nothing to do with the age-old problem of homelessness. It is most likely because the voting, tax-paying public don’t like “people urinating and defecating in front of their door”. The list of issues doesn’t end there. The problems are real. Poverty. Hunger. Homelessness. Addiction. And anything else that you can put in the same sentence as “broken world”.

I’m not sure what that means for me in terms of a response yet. If I try to think too much about solving the big problems of the world, I tend to get overwhelmed by their unsolveableness. I’d like to start by having an awareness of the world around me that doesn’t primarily revolve around how much I am going to pay for petrol this week.