Monday, December 4, 2017

Technology Has Changed Social Life Style? Old is New Again

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-in-cars-working-amazon

The link looks at a social segment life style shaped and defined by the Information Age.

Maybe it is like fishing a stream.

Some will stay in one place and catch fish as they go by, if they go by.  Usually they do.  Sometimes more or less but enough to remain in one place.

Others beat a fisherman path along the banks of the river.  There were not enough fish in one place to sustain them or they lacked sustenance simply because the fish they caught were pass thru and not a meal.  Maybe some simply had the same desire to be footloose?  Others were running from something rather than to something, somewhere.

A multitude of reasons but at rock bottom for an increasing number?

Survival.

I retired at 43 and joined a footloose group.  Bicycle tourists.  Adventurers mostly by choice.  I had a small trailer and then a larger one.  Now I have a 25 ft. RV as well as a home of 27 years.  I migrate to warmer areas in the winter.  I will go to Hawaii on 12 December on a one way ticket.

Maybe some live the lifestyle of the link by choice.  A rejection of the social norm perhaps.  No doubt the greater majority would choose a life of more want than need satisfaction.  I can identify with those that choose life on the road a function of choice but can only empathize with those for whom it is dictated by circumstance. They are the "other half"  of life on the road.  Actually more than that compared to me, a 1%er.

Technology is a displacing thing as well as an enabling thing.  Historically its function is as old as wandering hunting compared with static gathering to satisfy needs and wants.  The range of wandering has increased while the means to wander have increased mobility speed and facilitated movement.

Technology elevates the quality of social life.

On the other hand technology perpetuates old social problems as well as introduces social problems of a new nature and state of being.

"Grapes of Wrath" was required reading in American Thought and Language first year university study in 1961.  It remains a social system functional model pattern applicable in the current time.

This are the new Pickers and Packers of the modern age Grapes of Wrath.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/amazon-bosses-give-exhausted-staff-11629106
After five weeks undercover our ­investigator told last week how “pickers” at Amazon’s newest warehouse, in Tilbury, Essex, were given targets of processing at least 300 ordered items per hour.
And we photographed “packers” asleep at their stations where, if they achieve 120 boxes an hour, they earn seven pence per box. Ironically, seven pence is also the cost of a Celebration.


Another view of "Life on the Road":
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache-uber-driver/
UBER DRIVER: “Oh, it’s pretty good. On a good day I’ll make a hundred bucks, sometimes even two hundred if I really work it and stay up late.” MMM: “Is that your profit after subtracting the cost of driving?”
UBER DRIVER: “No, that doesn’t include gas. But I’ll only use, like, not even a full tank – maybe thirty bucks”
Mr. Money Mustache is worth bookmarking and following: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Globally there are more people on the road every day.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-03/europes-migrant-crisis-millions-more-still-come
They are headed for the cities.  In the Great Depression they were dispersed to the countryside with jobs in the woods.  That political move avoided blood in the streets and probably rich hanging from lamp posts.  Roosevelt had something to say to the rich about pitchforks.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/04/how-the-deal-went-down

It is simply another example of catching fish and passing them thru while on the verge of marginal starvation.

Total stats for the day:
4 Rides
1:51 hours
18.6 miles unpaid
17.2 miles paid
$32 including tips
~$18 of car costs
roughly $7 per hour net

 
Subsisting on a starvation diet.  Let them eat candy bars.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/amazon-bosses-give-exhausted-staff-11629106 
Amazon bosses try to raise morale by giving exhausted staff two 7p chocolates each after shocking working conditions were exposed.







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