Happy New Year

So another year begins, gilded with optimism and ambition. Huge life changing resolutions have been considered, sincerely made or rejected, and many already broken. We live in the hope that things will get better, but experience teaches us that this is an illusion, and that in reality, things are likely to deteriorate for most of us. While the haves are feathering their nests, and continue so to do even in the bleakest of times, the have nots will continue to struggle, fighting for the crumbs handed out in the name of charity. Nothing much has changed in the post war era. Balances of power have shifted and technology has advanced far more speedily than people’s ability to cope with it.

I once had a Scooter. It was an old Lambretta, that I bought for two pounds from someone who must have felt that they had done really well. It worked, though never manage to break any speed limits. It was for me the greatest technological item that I owned. It was a foothold on a new kind of freedom, and I loved it. I even understood how it worked. I was familiar with pistons, spark plugs, gearboxes and brakes. I could even do routine maintenance and could recognise faults and manage basic repairs. Ok my knowledge and abilities were at a basic level but there was no sense of mystery.

When I open the bonnet of my car, to check the oil or refill the windscreen washer, I know that the underlying propulsion system is fundamentally the same as my old scooter, I recognise little that is packed so neatly into that space. Should anything go wrong under there, I am completely at a loss as to what to do. The same applies to virtually every mechanical device that I use today. Even a toaster has become impossible to maintain. No-one is interested in repairing and so we just replace anything that fails.

I am of course sitting at my computer and always grateful for the fact that it is a Mac and therefore more reliable than most. For the majority of us the workings of these machines will always remain a total mystery. While I do understand the basic principles of memory chips and the logic systems of programming languages, I have about as much chance of repairing a computer as I have of doing an oil change on a Jumbo Jet. Most people have no understanding of binary notation and some will never manage denary either. Computers left the man in the street behind, decades ago, just as we were coming to terms with BBC Basic or the Sinclair ZX80. Technology rules the world and the technocrats of course have absolute power.

This year, technology will zoom forward yet again and the helpless humans will wallow in the wake, making use of what we are given and becoming increasingly more reliant on systems and programs that we understand less and less. People will continue to kill people, others will destroy the environment for their own personal gain, cities and towns will become more crowded and retail traders will continue to fail, draining the high streets and enhancing the prospects of the Amazons and other online businesses. The poor will get poorer and the wealthy won’t care at all. The status quo for some will be maintained but one day, this fragile entity that we call society will fall apart. All we can hope is that this is not the year.