Life in Digital vs Physical Form
I like technology, but I always treat it as a tool, not a way of life. When we don’t understand our tools, they will end up using us instead. Let’s take a look at the digitalisation of things. In a way, it’s good, as it makes things more efficient and convenient for both the provider and the client. However, when digitalisation is taken to the extreme, without considering its ramifications towards humanity, the machine can turn into a ‘terminator’.
Cashless Society
First example: cashless society. I don’t usually use cash, but I find it discriminatory to exclude cash from business transactions. For example, most retailers in this country do not accept cash anymore. This has become the norm, but at what expense? Does this practice give us better products or services, or better prices? What if I refuse to use eWallets or banking facilities or do not possess a smartphone? Is my physical money worthless then? Also, it’s hard not to give away your personal information when buying anything nowadays – this can be in the form of membership, loyalty cards, or two-tier pricing i.e., no membership = pay more. I cannot buy something without being tracked, and my spending habits are collected for marketing purposes or sold to the highest bidder so that they can make even more money out of me, but is that acquired wealth being shared with me as well? Where is my freedom to obtain something for no particular reason? Why do private businesses want to access my private life? What if someday, for whatever reason, my “money” cannot be accessed because systems failed or got hijacked, accounts were wrongly blocked, identity theft occurred, etc.? One point of failure can erase one’s entire wealth and access to the market. This is surrendering personal freedom and privacy for the sake of convenience.
Digital Driving Licence
Next comes this short-sighted policy of digital driving licences. The only official justification given was to save public money and to make licence renewals more convenient. But in the big picture, how much of that money is really saved compared to how much money the government wastes every year? Driving licences are frequently used as informal IDs, especially at private properties, since it’s much safer to hand over your driving licence than your national ID or smartphone. I have also used my driving licence to legally drive outside Malaysia, no questions asked. With a digital driving licence, if I wanted to drive in a foreign country now, I would have to apply for a physical driving licence with supporting documents such as flight tickets, offer letters, and travel itineraries, and I would also have to get a special “international driving permit” with extra fees on top of the licence fee. Suddenly, the Road Transport Department becomes the Home Security Department. Also, my application can be rejected if the documents are incomplete or the officer did not feel like approving my application for whatever reason (you know how public service works here). I would be totally at the mercy of another person. Won’t this open the room for even more corruption? So, may I know, when referring to the convenience factor, is it convenient for the people or for the ruling class? And if you got yourself into a serious accident, who is going to unlock your phone (if it still works) to access your digital licence when you are decapitated? People update their driving licences more frequently than their national IDs; wouldn’t it be easier to track the next of kin with physical licences? This is paying for convenience with stupidity.
Paperless Bills
Next are paperless bills. I saw this ad on a highway: “Paperless bills are convenient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly.” What a great way to gaslight consumers. Again, convenient for who? Typically, in order to access such bills, you need to download an app and register. Boom! Free personal data. For someone with a common name like mine, it’s very likely some idiot out there has already registered their account using my credentials. If you don’t download the bills, these companies will send you a physical notice to pay the arrears plus a late payment fee. You see the pattern: it is designed to take money from us. The second argument is cost-effectiveness. If I may ask: do these companies run their businesses under trees because they could not afford to rent an office space? Do the staff work on a volunteer basis, only given food when they come for work? Do the CEOs and board directors have to starve every month because they need to fork out money from their own pockets just to cover the operational costs? When your business is big enough, you will profit or be bailed out with public money anyway. Lastly, environmental reasons? Total BS. When people don’t pay up because they did not realise they had a payment due, these companies will still have to send physical notices anyway, sometimes more than once, so where is the environmental offset? Plus, these companies often have modern offices dotted throughout the country, and unless you live in a cave, data centres consume lots of energy and water. Digitalisation here means making money more efficiently for them, not providing better service to us. Some companies are better at finding excuses than doing their actual job.
Tale of The Little Mermaid
In Disney’s adaptation of The Little Mermaid, when Ariel desired to be a human, the sea witch Ursula granted her wish in exchange for her voice. Since she only had three days to make Eric truly fall in love with her, or else pay the penalty with her soul, Ariel asked Ursula how she could make it happen. “Body language”, said Ursula without hesitation. When Ursula realised that Eric really fell in love with Ariel and had almost broken the curse by kissing her, she capsized their boat with the help of her minions, Flotsam and Jetsam. Since Ariel could not fulfil the task in time, she had to surrender her soul to Ursula, but that was not Ursula’s true intention. Ursula knew that Ariel’s father, Triton, the King of the Sea, would do anything to save his daughter’s soul. The trident. The throne. To be the Mighty Ruler of the Sea. That was Ursula’s ultimate wish. The way I see it, our obsession with the digitalisation of our lives is similar to Ariel’s wish to become a human – to live one’s fantasy, longing for love, and boredom with life. The question is, are we really aware of what we have given up?
If technology makes life easier, why has there not been much improvement in quality of life? The roads are still full of traffic. Work still piles up, often incomplete. Purchasing power is decreasing. Pollution is still ongoing. Corruption is still ongoing. Business as usual. People possess more things than they can imagine, yet they are still unhappy. Ultimately, who is in control of our lives? As digitalisation becomes the new religion, we failed to pay attention to its perils. Human needs for connection have been commoditised in the form of social media, where individual life stories become a product for display. Our creative outlets, previously through poetry, writing, music, dance, painting, and photography, now have turned into industrialised content creation for the sake of climbing the social ranks. It is no longer about expressing our hearts and discovering ourselves but to seek a following and relevance in a perplexing world. We have surrendered our ability to create something from our hearts and minds. Now, our job is just to consume, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Because the digital world makes us feel that our creation does not exist unless it is being seen or engaged with.
Like how Ariel thought Eric would not love her so long as she remained under the sea, we see the physical world as a world we are forced to live in, but the digital world is what we live for. When was the last time you did something, ate something, got something, gave something, went somewhere, met someone, discussed complex questions, or discovered/ watched something without posting it to the ‘gram for the world to see? Though we may have a huge symphony of friends and followers (read: interests), deep inside us, we have never felt lonelier. Now with the advent of AI, our creative abilities are being taken away like Ariel’s voice. With no tools to create, no skills to connect with others, and no human touch – what is left of a human without love? When technology dominates our lives, we will end up becoming the slaves of the machine owners/ technology class, the new “Ruler” of our economic system. When the final stage of humanity is manifested in digital form only, our mere purpose of existence is only to view, to obey, and to consume. Interaction is only for transactions. Entertainment and recreation are only for profits, not enlightenment. Even our feelings cannot be expressed beyond symbols and emojis. And is this the utopia that everyone had in mind when they mentioned “advanced” human civilisations? Oh, poor unfortunate souls.