It’s getting hot here and today I went for a little walk with the dog. Our daily routine. As we trotted along, almost everyone (and few there were - most probably inside with the AC on) was strolling with a small, handheld electric thingamajigger stuck infront of their face.
It’s all getting ridiculous, this dystopian physical offloading.
A few days ago I wrote on my education blog, some thoughts about cognitive offloading and how AI might slowly turn us into token knowers. Today’s walk is leading me toward a few thoughts about the inevitable march of technology to replace so many, oh so human things we do with our bodies - physical offloading [the practice of using external tools to reduce the physical effort required for a task.]
Of course, physical offloading is for the most part a good thing. It saves us time to think, enjoy, love, be. I’m no advocate for the return of the Victorian sweatshop nor coal mining with a shovel. I do see the benefits of the snowblower over a shovel (I’m Canadian, I’m experienced).
Machines have helped remove us from so much drudgery. Think of the elevator - cities wouldn’t be possible. The stove - how much time it saves collecting wood and starting fires. The car, you can go far! A combine makes harvesting into a few days affair.
But there are trade-offs. It’s those I’d like to discuss in a personal vein. My thesis is that we are on the edge of taking physical offloading too far. Putting a damn motor on anything and selling it as “progress” - at the risk of losing our own bodily selves.
It seems these days, if you can stick a motor on it or electrify it or make an app for it - you’ve got a business idea and can sell it with “it will make your life easier”. And so many suckers will buy it rather than use their own sacred body/self.
The other day I started mashing the potatoes for dinner. My wife screamed, “What are you doing!!?” Then, she pulled open her special drawer and rifled through her gadgets to pull out the electric potato masher. I kid you not. I didn’t continue with my wooden spoon - it’s a fight I’d never win. But you see my point. It goes too far. Same with electric knives. I’ll spare you my thoughts about vibrators (hint: use your hands).
Soon one day, we’ll be sitting down to read one Sunday evening and turning on one of these to read more efficiently …
My mother often said to me, “If you can do it with your own two hands, then do it.”
I’ve always taken it to mean that you should be self-sufficient but it might just have another meaning. One about the miraculous and magical thing that is our body. Use it or lose it. By offloading our physical activity, we lose touch with things, the world. As well, our physical offloading is destructive to our own health. We might live many years as a blob, but most likely those years, held together by technological electrical glue, won’t be pretty.
Maybe there are two kinds of people in the world. Those that use an axe and those that use a splitter. Which are you?
Electric bikes. They are everywhere, here where I live. And I reserve the right to be wrong but I detest them. With a capital P for passion. As AI is to our thinking, electric bikes are to our bodies. It’s an oxymoron, imho.
Not only will we be causing graveyards of toxic battery waste when people “tire” of their use — we will also be losing the opportunity to enjoy, nurture, tune, energize our precious bodies.
I love cycling, I love bikes because they are the perfect machine. They don’t do the work for you. There is no physical offloading. You must do the work! In essence, you meld with the bike and you and the bike become one thing, moving along. We don’t have a name for this thing but it exists.
I have a number of friends who have ebikes. They tell me all the time, all their excuses for using them. “You really do get a good workout!” “You hardly ever use the electric motor.” “They are the future, inevitable. I’m just ahead of the curve.” Yadda, yadda, yadda, balderdash, bla bla bla …
If you can do it with your own two legs, do it.
Just another thing we’ve stuck a motor onto so we can sell it to people that don’t know any better. It’s not a bike, an ebike — it’s a motorcycle, people!
When it comes to technology, we have to think deeper, further about all its affordances. Not just the good things it does for us but also the trade-offs, the horrible things. And often, the negative is that technology takes us out of this world, away from people and the joy of our bodies.
IT uses us rather than us using it. Truly. Think more about the tech you use … or you might unknowingly become an electric bump on a log.
Go for YOU over IT when it comes to technology in YOUR life.
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