The post-human world

The hairdresser’s mother needs a prescription, so her daughter goes down to the surgery.

‘Oh no, you can’t do that here, you have to do it online.’

‘She hasn’t got a computer.’

‘Well don’t you have a computer?’

[Thinking fast] ‘I’m only her next door neighbour, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to do that.’ [Data confidentiality, don’t you know.]

‘Doesn’t she have any relatives who can do it for her?’

‘How would I know, I’m only her neighbour. All I know is she needs her prescription.’

Pause, sigh.

‘Oh all right, but just this once!’

…………………………

The hairdresser receives a GP practice letter, saying she needs to check and record her blood pressure daily for a week. She calls the surgery.

‘You can do it yourself. You can buy a blood pressure tester for £30.’

‘Can’t you do it?’

‘We can do it for £10, but we’ll only do it once.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to do that for me anyway?’

She goes in. The practice nurse takes her pressure - it’s fine - and looks at the notes on the screen, says she doesn’t know why this was called for, there is no history of high BP.

I think I know, because my wife and I both had texts recently saying the practice needed to update their records and check our BP. It’ll be another government initiative, paying GPs £x a pop like jabbing us with mRNA mixtures (delegated to nurses at £x-y a pop); in this case the GP can cut out the junior staff and have us do it for nothing, or even at some expense for us.

Maybe it’ll end with GPs WFH, no nurses, premises sold off to developers, patients diagnosing themselves with kit bought on Amazon and receiving medications through the letterbox.

…………………………

This morning, I’m picking up a couple of items at the supermarket, with cash.

Nobody on the checkouts.

Six automated self-serve tills. Three are card-only; three cash-or-card, except two of those now have handwritten notes up saying card only.

One member of staff stands in the middle, acting as invigilator / machine minder.

…………………………

The NHS GP service is now run as a business. So the objective has changed to ‘maximise profits’ as with so many businesses.

When the market is saturated you can only maintain rising returns by reducing service; and quantity and quality of product. Remember shrinkflation in chocolate? Or the plan to start pulling teeth from Toblerone? Or replacing some of the raisins in Cadbury’s Fruit And Nut with cheaper sultanas? All in an area that is specifically about luxury.

It aspires to an ideal state: ‘just post us the money.’

When retail has become post-humanised and most jobs have evaporated, who will be able to purchase what is in the shops?

Will there be shops? Our local city centre is turning into a desolation of concrete canyons infested by electric scooters, beggars and muggers.

Will all our social interactions be via Skype, Whatsapp and Discord? Our exercise by following YouTube instruction? Our grocery shopping done online and brought to the house? Our eating-out home-delivered? Entertainment by Netflix and Spotify? Cybermedicine?

Never mind 15-minute cities; we won’t be allowed out of our front doors.

And since we won’t be doing anything productive, where will the money come from? Will they just put us down, like pets that we can no longer afford?

It reminds me of Matthew Arnold:

But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.