Part one....
Shortages of commodities, finishes goods, and even services will become a permanent feature [not a bug] as corporates restructure their supply chains to best fit majority choice. The expansive choice that we took as normal in 2019 [before the Covid-19 pandemic discombobulations] may never be seen again. Indeed as consumers move more toward online purchasing habits their range of choices will shrink dramatically.
One clear reduction in lifestyle comes via those who order online rather than shop in a face-to-face fashion at local stores [see photo]. Sure online shopping worked during the Covid-19 lockdowns with all those face-to-face activity restrictions; but, is this a "new normal" for life in our future? If this is to establish a "new normal" then life will be reduced because humans thrive on face-to-face commerce; and, Zoom sessions are in no way a quality substitution for them. This is the essential point of this riff. There is no point comparing our face-to-face interactions to those that are booming in our new virtual sphere of our life.
Part two....
Yesterday... I was down in The Old Town Square [Prague] waiting for the show that the Astronomical Clock puts on each hour on the hour. I should note that it was a stunningly sunny day. As usual a crowd was forming as the clock ticked steadily towards the hour. And while I stood there I spied two young women who I thought were also waiting for the clock show. As I watched them taking iPhone photos of each other I realised that they were not interested in the clock other than to use the clock tower as a backdrop for this photo shoot. I could see how staged, and false, this photo shoot was becoming so I strolled over and made some suggestions to the young women, holding the iPhone, about the stiffness of her beautiful friend who was acting as her model. "This is a video" she replied.... "Sure... but each time your model parades before you she stiffens and becomes more robotic." I said. "This is a video"... "This is a video".... The message was clear from the director of this shoot; so I walked away to watch the clock tower show which neither women watched. Later... As I was leaving I did note that their show got more spontaneous with the model twirling and putting on and taking off her sunglasses. But she was still very robotic....
Are we are headed into a world where humans become more and more robotic?
Richard.
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