May 23 2011
Gradual Backlash: The Society that Doesn’t Own Anything
When change comes too fast, the human instinct is to rebel. To fight back. To go against the change. The same thing happens on a much larger scale as well. Even on the scale of entire human societies.
For example, when location services like foursquare came out, I was (and still am) paranoid about letting people know where I am. My privacy is gold to me and I was ready to Alt+F4 the whole thing if I could. I couldn’t stand the way all these online companies know so much about me. Many others in the online community felt that way too. There was a backlash. This backlash was fast and more of a reflex.
But I think there’s a weird version of backlash that has come at a much slower pace. So slow that we didn’t even notice it. We had a backlash against owning too much.
Should I have more stuff?
I’m thinking, actually, of how 50 years ago we had very little stuff. Then the Industrial Revolution came along and now we have a lot of stuff. But we’re slowly starting to realize that a lot of this stuff is holding us down and making us unhappy. We now have to care for and maintain a lot.
I see many who rent apartments, order food, cater at parties, hire tax people, and generally outsource as many things as they can. Heck we even keep our photos online and videos on youtube instead of in our own computer. We’ve found that owning something (which is something we are instinctively proud of) also means caring for it (which is not so much fun).
The thing is that, 30 years ago, you would care for what you had at the time. But that same Industrial Revolution made everything so cheap that it wasn’t worth it to repair your old stuff no more. It was cheaper to throw it away and buy a new shirt instead. And so we keep getting new things and having backlogs of old things.
Predicting the future
Two generations from now, we’ll probably have societies who only rent apartments so that they don’t have to worry about maintaining their gardens or hiring security or having to clean out the pool. Oh wait! That’s already happening. I meant that 2 generations later we’ll have societies that don’t use a kitchen but instead eat out all the time. Oops too late. I meant societies that would put all their information and photos and videos online on computers they don’t own so th—
Hmm…. I guess I’m a bit too late.
What about this: some won’t even own furniture but will rent it instead. *sees the ad: Furnished Apartment for rent* Darn it!
But what is true is that these trends will become even more pronounced over the next few decades. As much as possible, people will want to own less so that they have to care for less. We’ll want to use public services if we can, or rent if we can’t. We’ll outsource as much as possible so that we have more free time (that will be used to finish up more work).
“Please sir…”
If Oliver Twist were here in this day and age, we’d probably hear:
Please sir, I don’t want some more.
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