This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
On Tuesday, December 17 I received notification from Vodafone, thanking me for shopping with them and informing me that my order would be delivered within one to two working days.
The order was a SIM card. It must be one of the smallest items possible to deliver anywhere.
The following day, Wednesday, DPD sent a van to my address, alas I was not at home. You would imagine they would simply drop it in my letter box. No such thing, they drive off without delivering it. It arrives the following day, Thursday.
The tiny SIM card is wrapped in an enormous amount of ‘stuff’. I place the new SIM in my phone to discover it would not be activated until the following Monday. After many phone calls to Egypt and India and listening to robotic voices, which maybe sourced in Dublin I eventually am connected to the world with my mobile phone on Monday.
No I am anything but a Luddite but honestly I can’t help wondering where is all our technology taking us. It took two van journeys to deliver my SIM, which was wrapped in such a way that the parcel that arrived was hundreds of times the size of the SIM. The waste of materials, including power to fuel the van.
On the one hand anyone with a brain is shouting that this planet is in trouble and on the other hand we are becoming more profligate.
Yes, the technology is simply amazing, totally beyond my understanding but is all this ‘magic’ and globalisation not leading us to dark places. Just look what social media is doing. I have heard stories from people whose job it is to examine the phones and computers of those who have been arrested for serious crimes. The material they see is unimaginable.
It can’t be healthy that any one family or any one individual can have vast wealth. It gives them too much power. After the atrocity in Magdeburg Elon Musk, who is worth €309 billion, called the German Chancellor an incompetent fool and suggested he resign. Naturally the leader of the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party Alice Weidel, agrees with Musk.
Large corporations run to the countries where they can get the cheapest labour. The individual person is becoming less and less important. We seem to be swallowed up in some sort of vortex that makes us feel helpless and hopeless.
People feel alienated, especially the poorest and the marginalised. It’s inevitable that they will grasp at any fake promises that seem to offer a new beginning. We sure do need change but not the change of a Trump or a Musk.
I wish all my readers a great year ahead. Let’s all make a special effort in 2025 to be kinder to one another.
It’ll make the world a better place.
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