{"id":134275,"date":"2023-11-25T06:56:35","date_gmt":"2023-11-25T06:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluemull.com\/?p=134275"},"modified":"2023-11-25T06:56:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T06:56:35","slug":"fish-and-chips-delivered-to-the-beach-the-end-of-the-world-is-nearly-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluemull.com\/lifestyle\/fish-and-chips-delivered-to-the-beach-the-end-of-the-world-is-nearly-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Fish and chips delivered to the beach? The end of the world is nearly here"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here\u2019s a tiny gripe. Given the big claims about artificial intelligence \u2013 so smart, apparently, that it will soon replace all of humanity \u2013 could the lady on Apple Maps learn how to pronounce the town of Scone? The way she pronounces it, the whole town should be served with jam, cream and a lovely cup of tea.<\/p>\n

The other day, I drove from Bathurst to Scone, with the Apple lady giving me directions all the way. By the time I arrived in Scone, I\u2019d heard the town mispronounced so many times \u2013 maybe 20 or 30 times \u2013 I became wary during any interaction with a local.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say it, don\u2019t say it …<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Marcel Aucar<\/cite><\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you lived \u2026 in this town?\u201d I would ask. Or \u201cWhat\u2019s the best place to eat \u2026 in this particular location?\u201d I was so convinced I\u2019d end up saying it wrong that I was unwilling to chance my arm.<\/p>\n

The only relief was I wasn\u2019t driving on to Goonoo Goonoo, as that might cause a complete tech meltdown for the Apple lady and \u2013 who knows – another Optus outage.<\/p>\n

I know a mispronouncing satnav seems a trivial issue, but here\u2019s one of the realisations that comes with age: there is no such thing as a trivial issue. On any given day, we can find ourselves dismayed by climate change or global inequality, but also by a local council that lays a whole sporting field of new grass and then forgets to water it. Or a packet of peanuts with a label saying \u201cmay contain nuts\u201d.<\/p>\n

The annoyance that comes from Tony Abbott saying \u201cclimate change is crap\u201d is curiously similar to the annoyance caused when the supermarkets and fast-food chains continually expand the use of self-checkouts and touchscreen ordering \u2013 thus removing the sort of human interaction on which our collective sanity depends. All to save themselves a few dollars.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the interesting thing: the \u201ctrivial\u201d issues are wrapped around the \u201cserious\u201d issues.<\/p>\n

In this marinade of despair, there\u2019s a weird mix of war, Trump, shops that no longer accept cash, global inequality and traffic cones that shut off 10 kilometres of highway on which no one is working.<\/p>\n

The things that make people miserable, in other words, can be big, small and in-between. Here\u2019s one example. Every time I see a food delivery driver, riding through the rain, peddling hard to get up the hill, risking death for a pathetic rate of pay, I think of those who ordered the meal. My thoughts are not tender. I think: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you cook your own blooming dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n

(I may say a word that\u2019s worse than blooming.)<\/p>\n

I do this every single time I see them. Given the number of delivery drivers on the road, I could learn Latin if I maintained an even temper and instead practised parsing verbs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also hypocritical, since I have occasionally ordered a takeaway meal. And the hard-pedalling riders are presumably happy for the work. And perhaps the person who ordered the dinner is a shift worker whose dad has just died and who couldn\u2019t easily visit the supermarket to feed her kids because she\u2019s in an iron lung.<\/p>\n

So, what sort of bastard am I?<\/p>\n

All the same, I read the other day that the food delivery riders are now delivering meals to people on the beach \u2013 people who can\u2019t be bothered walking the three minutes from their beach towel to the fish and chip shop across the road. And the riders have to dismount, as bikes don\u2019t work on sand, and then try to work out which of the semi-naked sunbathers has ordered the fish and chips.<\/p>\n

At this point, I think: \u201cThis is not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides which, I\u2019m not entirely on the side of the delivery drivers, since they spend half their time riding on the pavements, and have never met a red light which applies to them. And they\u2019re often riding souped-up electric bikes which are like a motorcycle, except they are regulation and number-plate free, and you never see the police stopping them to check why this \u201cbicycle\u201d happens to be travelling uphill at 50 km an hour.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fish and chips, anyone?<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Edwina Pickles<\/cite><\/p>\n

Should I spend my daily commute shouting to the wind in this undignified way? Should I relax about even the beach deliveries, given it\u2019s a deal between two sets of people \u2013 one happy to pay for the service, however ridiculous, the other happy to provide it?<\/p>\n

Should I instead spend my time worrying about global inequality?<\/p>\n

Yet here\u2019s the interesting thing: the \u201ctrivial\u201d issues are wrapped around the \u201cserious\u201d issues. The food delivery companies are part of the degrading of Australia\u2019s long-treasured industrial relations system \u2013 a system that goes right back to the Harvester judgement of 1907 and its insistence that a worker be paid enough to support a family of five in \u201cfrugal comfort\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a judgement that expresses a valuable part of the Australian ethos, but then the internet came along and started to scrub out more than a century of industrial relations struggle and achievement.<\/p>\n

Maybe we need to bend the digital world to some local customs. Instead of destroying Australia\u2019s employment traditions, perhaps Silicon Valley could first learn how to pronounce \u201cScone\u201d.<\/p>\n

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