Regression planning

During our reindeer sledding tour in Tromso last year, our guide, who was a Sámi, gave us a glimpse of their way of living. A semi-nomadic life, built around their reindeer herds, which involved them traveling for several days twice a year across hundreds of kilometres. She told us how the capture and nurture of reindeers, and the lifestyle itself, has changed from a means of livelihood to a tradition that only very few are interested in.

In Fahadh’s movie Njan Prakashan, there is a hilarious, yet poignant moment, when he is asked to help the other workers plant rice seedlings in a field in Kerala. The workers immediately start off and are soon singing in gusto. Fahadh, who has never done any of this before, stands with his mouth agape, and then asks what the language is! His boss explains how most of the paddy field workers in Kerala now are Bengalis, and they’re singing their customary song. “We’ve forgotten our job, we’ve forgotten our song“, he says (roughly translated).

I don’t really have to go to Norway or watch a movie to understand the converse relationship that “progress” and tradition usually share, but it definitely brings things into perspective, and made me think about the subject. Around me, I can see the volume of things that are either getting outsourced or automated, pockets of “resistance” and revival notwithstanding. We are well on our way to autonomous vehicles, cooking and household chores are increasingly outsourced, most of my bill payments are automated, and so on.

Some of these were life skills in the recent past. Sometimes directly, and sometimes, through the interactions with the world, they facilitated a learning experience that taught one how to navigate the world and the different kinds of folks that made up its systems. But we are increasingly creating a world of abstractions.

Optimism suggests that as the world changes, it also creates new systems that help its citizens interact with others. Swiping a screen or an emoji that conveys a thought is probably one such. Pessimism centers around something different – through history, and at a general  species level, as we have abstracted our way out of direct interactions, we have never really had scenarios where we have had to re-learn things. But that’s not a guarantee for the future. One black swan event, and it does not even need to be at an armageddon level, can change that. For instance, imagine the levels of disruption that a mobile network or electricity outage can cause.

Pragmatism says that we are highly adaptable. Whether the adapted life form will be exactly the species we are now remains a question.