May I say something both profound and absurd at the same time? North Americans have lost the human impulse to change, evolve and be transparent to others. People used to be bored and unfulfilled in their daily lives. Then something happened that would break them out of the trance of boredom, a state of mind most people experience while living their routine lives. You see, people can know they are poor, oppressed, underpaid and lacking a future and yet do nothing about it. They continue on their merry way as they have been for weeks, months, decades. Known psychologically as “routine fodder,” this feeling, emotion, lived space gets a hold of someone and entraps them into a orbit of unchanging numbness. This state of mind can be lived forever and a day until something happens that sparks a change so profound that the numbness disappears.
A Russian Peasant at the turn of the century had four things to concern him, namely his family, community, his faith and his poverty as a laborer of farmer. Then in Moscow, a Revolution starts to brew. So too during the pre-revolutionary period in France and America. Once living in a routine of poverty and through their faith, a state of acceptance of their financial and social existence, a spark of revolution brought them out of their coma and presented them with the opportunity of bettering themselves, their community and their nation. The revolutionary life, like any conflict, gives young and old a chance to live out their boring lives by becoming heroes. Everyone wants to become a hero, right? So throw down the shovel or pick and pick up a rifle and a collective flag/banner.
Routine Fodder exists right here in our neighbourhood. We live an existence similar to that during the day, working at whatever job we may have. Day in and day out. Then a vacation breaks the monotony. The life of a worker is often plain and bleak. How do you feel about that? Are you living a life where yesterday was exactly like the day before? Some of us try to break this monotony by doing something different, but that excitement lasts only a while. We are bored,d and our life energy is depleting. We crave more sleep, less taxing things to worry about and even indulge in bad habits such as drinking and taking narcotics. All as a way to manage our state of mind, pain and depression.
Society saddles us with many forms of entertainment, digital pizzazz and promises of betterment. “Anyone can be a millionaire” is heard everywhere as private and public entities promise you the sun. moon and the stars too. The working person is always bombarded with highly positive energy as a way of distorting reality through misinformation and misrepresentation of the truth/reality.
We search for meaning in our lives through faith, our jobs/profession, our families and other emotional inspirations. Often, reality is simply something we do not want to consider, so we vie for more pleasant things. That is how our handlers manage the working class.
Are you a member of the working class? Well, do you work for a living, making profits for others? Then you’re a working-class citizen. I know that includes a lot of other people, normally not acknowledged as workers. There are not that many among us considered the 1-5percenter’s of the population that own much of this planet. Millions for sure. Managers are, in many ways, workers too.
With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in the financial sector, the truly wealthy will, in time, not have much need of many workers. A.I. will do that for them. A.I. will very soon from now teach our children, manage our Cities, Businesses and Farms. EV vehicles driven by A.I. will control and drive the transportation sector of business, the busing of children and the picking up of trash and garbage. The postal system will never be the same in the near future. Mail distribution will be based on A.I. management and email transmissions. Therefore, privacy may become a thing of the past and many employee’s a unnecessary cost.
For the working class, A.I. will become a tool of considerable harm. Mass unemployment, along with retraining. Unionists have not represented the working class well for some time, as have the so-called socialist political parties. A struggle to control and manage the Middle Class creates the fallacy that there are 3-4 classes within our social system. There are now only two, namely The 1-5 percenters and everyone else is a member of The Working Class. Class Systems exist. They have transitioned merely into a smaller category.
Routine Fodder will grow in influence as centers of employment will become more centralized and A.I. managed. I must sound like a Luddite, a 18th century group who opposed the horrible societal influences of the rise of new technologies. The Industrial; Revolution bore the creation of the Middle Class a super Wealthy Class and a Oppressed Underclass. Unionism and the Workers’ Struggle arose from the smog and refuse of this era. This struggle continues today with a new boogieman named…Unmonitored and Unregulated Artificial Intelligence.
Steven Kaszab
Bradofrd, Ontario
