About 20 years ago I was digging with a shovel to turn over the soil in a flowerbed in front of some people and a woman named Barb asked me where I bought that shovel. Which brings me to today. Either technology is moving too fast, I am living too long, or we have gotten too fancy for our own good. Can I operate my farm a few more years and not become a grumpy old man about technology?
It all started with my annual renewal for garbage service. They did not want a check mailed fearing mail theft/check fraud. They preferred credit card or bank ACH for payment. I despise using my credit card knowing that the vendors lose 2-3% of every dollar. There are other reasons too, no time to elaborate. The plan of setting up a bank ACH was a bust. After two attempts that wasted close to an hour of my time, (which at my age time is limited and revered) the bank informed me since I was not a business, I could not do ACH payments.
There are trends I do not like and understand. Mail service going backwards and everyone embracing credit cards, or worse yet electronic faux currency. Businesses that do not want to take cash usually do not get my repeat business. The water park last summer told me it was $20 to park. Claiming they are cashless, they refused my $20 bill and then took my credit card and swiped it and returned it saying, “$22.60 on your credit card.” The banks and credit card companies are getting rich on us, and we embrace it. I even wonder if they are behind the rapid movement for data centers so they can use all the mined data to figure out how to bleed more from us.
Follow this math. I work hard to make a dollar. The government gets the first 35 cents minimum (.15 for Social Security, .15 for Fed tax and .05 for state tax. My after-tax dollar is shrunk, and every business is charging me more to cover the credit card fees. You might think I am being petty, but remember, my parents invented copper wire on their honeymoon. They fought over a penny.
This causes me to wonder. If I pay cash on a bill where they do not charge the extra fee, am I subsidizing the credit card user? And vice versa, if a business does not offer a cash discount like many gas stations do, should I be using my credit card so I can get the 2% cash back with the attitude that if I don’t, I am only hurting myself. Am I a fool to willingly lose a percentage on every transaction because I get some of my own money back!?
Do not even get me started on gambling. I could not fully enjoy the recent Bears victory over the Packers with all the gambling ads. Let’s bleed all we can from the gambling addicts and try to coerce more to this wasteful spending. Do we more willingly accept our vices once we tax it? After all it is so easy, just swipe your credit card! Is our possible addiction to newer technology going to speed up our downfall as a society?
I am not saying that prudent uses of electronic payments or credit cards do not exist. The threat of stolen and misused information is so rampant that many easy tasks have become burdensome. I could not pay the garbage fee with a credit card because of the same prompt that frustrates most of my online work to access the accounts I created, “The username or password is incorrect.” I wish the doctor would just email the test results, not a link to some account I cannot hack into. It is easier for a 15-year-old lying in bed in India with a laptop to steal my identity and be me electronically than it was to prove to the State of Illinois I was John Kiefner for my Real ID. That is one thing the state is doing right; I suppose forgers have already learned how to fake the real ID and there are multiple John Kiefners. Ooh Boy!
Now for poetic justice. As I was writing about our reliance on modern technology, the wifi internet went down due to the intense snowstorm and Alexa quit playing 90’s country and I had to go turn on, gasp, a radio. I have been thrown back into the stone ages. How will I survive? Time to put a stamp on an envelope and mail my garbage bill, fingers crossed.
What does this have to do with farming and Barb in the first paragraph. Last summer’s weather, and I suppose our society’s reluctance to make hay, which is a more physically demanding job than computer work, has translated into another hay shortage this winter. My phone is ringing with prospective customers. Mike Rowe and I both want to see more people working with their hands, without a keypad, all the time. 20 years ago Barb asked where I bought my shovel so she could buy one for her husband, because it dug the soil so easily. My reply was terse, “Barb, it is not the shovel; it is the operator.”
To sum up this winded article up, I shall declare: “They can end my hay career and use my farm to build a data center over my cold, dead, calloused hands.” Wait a minute; AI is not going to be able to dig my grave. I better dig it first; perhaps I already have!
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