Monday, February 24, 2020
I Would Rather Be A Dog on Social Media
A woman actually wrote on LinkedIn this morning that we should avoid the self-check-out machines in stores in order to make sure there are jobs for cashiers. People making such claims are the people voting in the primaries and general election. It’s frightening.
The Luddites couldn’t fight progress in the1800s, and taxi drivers couldn’t stop Uber in modern times. Technology which makes things easier, safer, more pleasant, and cheaper will always prevail, unless “high touch” is essential—think of a nurse or teacher or speaker.
The idea that we should keep people in unnecessary jobs just to give them a paycheck, as opposed to helping them obtain more necessary jobs with a better paycheck (and in a zero-unemployment economy desperate for talent) is ridiculous. But perhaps that writer is also giving up her iPhone to try to provide work for telephone operators and her electronic boarding pass to help provide tasks for airline agents. Or maybe she should just ride a horse to work—I hear cowhands and wranglers need the work.
This is the problem with social media, not that no one knows that you’re a dog, but that everyone can know that you’re clueless.