Grease

Forty or more years ago I learned perhaps one of the more important lessons about life. Of all places I learned it in a Navy training film about machinery repair. Now when you hear the lesson you may ask yourself why this is so important but bear with me and I will attempt to explain.

The lesson I learned was that no machine can run if it has zero tolerance between its parts. What this means is that if the clearances between load bearing surfaces such as gear faces or bearing surfaces and other load bearing surfaces such as other gears or shafts is reduced to zero the machine will quickly fail. A machine needs lubrication, be it oil, grease, water or even air.

So what does this mean to anything but machinery? Good question, let me explain my reasoning. In the early days of our industrial growth messages passed slowly. The most common form of messages where letters which would take days, weeks or even months to go from point A to point B. As a consequence, letters were things of importance, especially in business. You had to think about what you wrote and make sure it was exactly what you wished to say since the person receiving it would have to live with what you said for weeks after while they sent your reply and waited in return for yours. This space between communications was the space between the gears of industry that allowed heads to clear, careful planning to be done, and mistakes to be avoided.

Then came the telegraph. Now what took days or weeks could be done in less than a day. Telegrams where usually short so again you had to carefully weigh what was said and since folks were used to the previously long waits, waiting a day or two to respond was acceptable. This reduced the space between the gears of industry, but not to an unacceptable level. It was easier to make snap decisions and of course more mistakes. However, most important business was still done face-to-face, requiring a long journey by horse, train or steamboat, so again the time factor allowed for the lubrication of the gears of business.

Next the telephone came along. Now what would have taken days took hours, overseas still required letters or at best telegraphs in many cases and much business was still face-to-face. The space between the gears was reduced, less time came between information and decisions based on that information, whether the information was correct, or completely bogus. Transportation still took days to cross America, a week or more to Europe and even longer to further points.

Finally, transportation caught up with Marconi. Airplanes put you within a day or two of even some of the farthest places. Telephones now reached to all major cities and telegraph even further. The space between the gears of industry was further reduced, introducing less thought time and even more errors. Businesses became less forgiving as bills now moved more quickly through the pipeline.

The last, and perhaps the greatest reduction of the space between the gears of not only business but virtually every facet of our lives came with the computer age. Computers have reduced the distance between the gears of industry and the gears in our personal lives to almost zero. Gone is the space for the lubrication of manners and tact. You can instantly send an inflammatory email to almost anyone, your congressman, your senator, even the president. In a moment of anger, you can send an email that costs you your job, your spouse or even your freedom. Computers have reduced the tolerances in business to critical levels. Computers decide when bills are overdue, when credit is good or not, even when stocks should be bought or sold. Gone is human compassion, understanding and the lubrication that prevented the overheating of the gears of life.

A man gets call after call, triggered by computer messages to soulless boiler room clerks whose entire purpose is to hound payments out of people. Driven to the brink and beyond he kills his family, a cop or two and then himself. His gears overheated and then seized throwing his machine into destruction. Another soul attempts to outmaneuver the computers buying and selling stocks, losing his family savings and finally, his mental gears seize up, the result more death. A computer analysis shows profits are down, men and women are laid off to increase profits based on a computer formula, destroying their lives, their careers and families.

More and more we hear the catch all phrases. The computer did it. The compute makes that choice. The computer is down, the computer is being upgraded. There was a programming error. Essentially phrases that free that person from making a choice, from taking responsibility, who can blame them if the computer does it? Add to this potent lack of space, the ubiquitous encrouchment of artificial intelligence and soon there will be no room between thought and action at all.

Computers should provide analysis, do calculations, provide for storing and retrieval of data, not make decisions that affect people’s lives. By allowing computers to make decisions about people we remove all of the space between the gears of society. Our human frailty has become our strength.