A Joke: A New Supermarket Of The Future

Imagine this - a digital journey walking into a grocery store, being held hostage, consumed by robotic technology. Lured and seduced into a device that takes us back in time and to the future. Sound familiar? Déjà vu I say. What has this world come to? Are we all living in the same movie, or am I the only one that feels back to the future here? What’s next, flying cars and hover boards? Consider Carlo Ratti’s invention, a supermarket of the future. Suddenly there are bands of digital display screens, interactive tables of technology, ques of knowledge and data accessible all from a single image. Consumables projected on monitors delineated by similarity of produce and origin. Accenture, digital methodologies that subsequently cause a change to the world’s digital curve. This raises speculative question.

Does this supermarket set superficial and homogeneous notions of standardization for our future? In simple words, yes. Carlo Ratti, a tech savvy architect and engineer whose ideas are formalized around the notion of the ever-changing device of Technology, thus emulates the self-professed ‘success’ of his new supermarket as a reproductive chain. A technological invention and a creative social awareness scheme, yes, but success? I think not. The response is that this reproductive chain could destroy the city we live in. The average Australian visits the grocery store 1. 6 times per week and spends 43 minutes there. Do the math, what does it tell you? We simply do not have enough time; this chain could cause an unproductive environment. Whatever happened to the joy of going to the supermarket and picking your own fruit and veggies? Or speaking to an employee or to the person to our left. Getting lost and finding things you wouldn’t really find. I distinctly remember the time I needed an ingredient that I stumbled upon walking in the fifth aisle at Woolies. Call me old school but this technology that’s all tailored would fade the experience of a shopper and their chance to discover new things.

The fact that people trust augmented reality and sensor screens is far beyond humanism. This is wrong on so many levels. Consider how many jobs would be lost. All the individuals that provided a service to the business, gone. Is this what it’s come to? Relying on technology to deal with people. This is chaos, madness! I’m not having it. Streamlining the process of manufacturing becomes quantified and commodified and has upstream effects as well, can you imagine Woolies and Coles getting a hold of this technology? It would be terrifying! terrifying by the way they would slim down the amount of produce and inventory that are available to us. Count me out, I disapprove. Supermarket stores offer an online shopping experience that gets delivered to your door. In some ways this may be a convenient service to people that struggle to find time to shop in store. However, this too disturbs the shopping experience of connecting with people and being able to get lost. Amazon go, another technological streamline that produces a service offering a cashless simple walk – in – walk – out scheme. The fetishization of efficiency in this system indeed intrigues me. In some ways this technology leaves me dumbfounded at the engineering of such a powerful technology. Is it a push in a better technological movement? Possibly. I’ve analyzed hundreds of farms online and 35 in person. I bought a farm. This would come as a surprise but, not to those that know me. It’s not a hobby farm or for lifestyle, it’s a small property of pasture - it’s real, a working farm. It’s my most exciting project in years. People think it’s uncommon for a lover of the city to be also interested in farming. To me, it emanates as entirely natural. Farming and cities are flipsides. They complement each other. Cities need food and farms need consumers.

What does this invention do for a small, part – time farmer like myself? Do I have to change the organization and the operations of my farm? Do I have to prepare for the future and changed that technology implies to farmers? An excellent book that documents the how-to for Australia. Written by longtime farmer and turnedthinker. It tells a climacteric story interstitching with politics, history and farming lore. Call of the Reed Warbler by Charles Massy, is set south of Sydney, near Cooma. Essentially, he believes that soil is the most crucial ingredient of life; grass is its protection, hard-hoofed feeding animals can build and restore the earth, sequestering emission and increasing water supply. In all, ploughing is the opponent. Ploughing turns farming into industry, ploughing destroys soil. In much the same way. Consider technology to the reverse of ploughing. Penny pushers creating strategies for the destruction of our innocent city. A public ridicule I’ll say. Shall we consider being puppetries of this scandalous scheme? being submissive and controlled by top dogs for what? Monetary rewards for them and an above average service for us. Cupidity, more like stupidity. Imagine that.