No Shortcuts, Only Trade-Offs
The industrial revolution brought with it great efficiencies in manufacturing and production; despite this, these efficiencies didn't translate to less strain on workers. In fact, in 1890, the first year the United States government tracked hours, manufacturing employees were working 100 hours per week.
In 1926, Henry Ford instituted the five-day, 40-hour work week we're accustomed to, also nearly doubling the pay of his workers. In the historical context, this was a net positive, but Ford's goals weren't entirely altruistic; he reasoned that better-paid, more well-rested workers would use their leisure time to buy things, including his cars.
Additionally, those taking this agreement needed to consent to inspections by Ford's "Sociological Department", where workers were flagged for reading pro-union material (as well as drinking on the job, but that's obviously a lot more reasonable).
The rise of computers and the internet - the technological revolution - enabled more efficiency for white-collar workers. There are genuine, tangible benefits - not just being able to do things much faster than we used to, but being able to do things we'd never dreamed of - but as with the industrial revolution, we're stuck considering things through the lens of velocity, despite it arguably not being a productive metric for white-collar work.
In order to keep up with the constant refrain of doing more with less, of needing to consistently shatter sales targets and smash performance metrics to satisfy the wheel of capitalism, we’re optimizing our humanity out of our work.
We tell ourselves we’re too busy to engage with social networks, so we set up bots to do it for us.
We contort our content to fit a rigid, ever-changing framework, because we want to appeal to search engines, not individual users.
We increasingly, whether by choice or edict, rely on a “tool” that famously invents details (alongside producing, at scale, the most mediocre slop ever committed to the internet).
But there are no shortcuts - only trade-offs.
In the short-term, who wouldn’t want better hours and higher wages?
In the long-term, by opposing unionization, the Ford Motor Company was protested by and involved in several violent conflicts with the United Automobile Workers. Amidst pressure from other automobile manufacturers and the US government, Ford was the final Detroit automaker to recognize the union, signing a contract with them in 1941.
Not knowing how to approach someone you want to meet is not a personal failing. Neither is not knowing what to say to someone, or how to say it. These are human experiences.
The more we try to optimize, the more efficient we try to be, the more performative our efforts become. We become simulacrums of ourselves; all of the rough edges are sanded down until we're virtually indistinguishable from anyone else.
Why would you ever pretend to be yourself?
Why not just be you?