The Importance of Manual

WHY DO WE AUTOMATE?

This is a particularly controversial question for me to ask given that my field involves continuing to push the envelope of what is possible with automation. However, I still think it's an important question, and I think the answer lies in the concepts of "problems" and "patience".

In his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson suggests, "Problems never stop; they merely get exchanged and/or upgraded." Time is a finite resource, whereas there appear to be no shortage of problems that need solving. It would seem that the entire point of computer science and software engineering is to identify common problems that can be automated, so that we need not spend any more time on them, and the subsequent problems that take their place are "upgraded".

Personal finance is a great example. Let's say you're using a checkbook to track your transactions. The problem is easy enough to understand, record the transactions so that you have a financial record to refer to. However, this presents other problems. What if you lose the checkbook? What if you write a 0 that looks like a 6? How much time does it take you to go through each individual receipt, read the number, write it down, etc? So, we automated it. Tools like Quicken came about that turned the checkbook into a digitized spreadsheet with features that included integrated budgeting, spending habits reporting, etc. However, problems still remain, they are simply "upgraded". What if you lose the file? What if your computer dies and you don't have a backup? Recently, we have gone a step further and added integration directly with the banks, so you don't even have to record the transactions anymore. They are simply pushed to your personal finance software. We've gone from a pen and paper solution that would take a couple hours every weekend to a button click on our phones a couple times a month just to make sure we're staying in budget.

AUTOMATION IN MUSIC

Let's look at music. I truly believe that Spotify is the pinnacle of human achievement relating to music. I can be anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, pull my phone from my pocket, and search for almost any song that has ever been recorded. That is simply incredible; no other word for it. I recall being a kid and being so happy when I got my first CD walkman. I was able to take an entire CD with me and listen to whatever I wanted anywhere. The problem was, I almost never took more than one album with me at a time, because CDs are fairly large and difficult to carry around with you. I remember my first MP3 player. I think it had about 4GB of space on it. That's just over 500 songs in your pocket. To put that into perspective my "Liked Songs" on Spotify alone is a collection of almost 3,000 songs, and those are just the ones I have saved.

However, there is a certain impermanence with a service like Spotify, or any service that provides digital goods. You don't own anything. If Spotify goes down (or worse, the entire Internet), I have no music. This is part of the reason I jumped on the vinyl resurgence bandwagon. I used to subscribe to the idea that vinyl "sounded better". I don't think that's actually true. I can't remember the details, but I believe the resolution of a sound wave and the frequency spectrum that can be represented digitally actually ends up creating a more "perfect" digital experience. Perhaps that's the appeal to vinyl; the "warmness" that comes from an imperfect analog signal. There is also an extra level of connection to the music that occurs with vinyl. Something about owning the physical sound wave of a piece of music that I have particularly connected with is far more rewarding than clicking a button on an app to call up a digital file. With vinyl, it's not something you just throw on in the background for 20 minutes. It takes effort. You have to actively decide to listen to an album, carefully remove it from its sleeve (I have carelessly dropped vinyl before, it is not a good feeling), and be intentional with where you drop the needle so as not to scratch the disc. It engages you. I think this is where the problems of automation start to become apparent.

PROBLEMS OF AUTOMATION APPEAR

For the reasons just mentioned, I don't actually listen to vinyl that often. I don't usually make the time necessary. Listening to vinyl requires patience, where Spotify gives you instant gratification. With vinyl, you choose and listen to an entire album. With Spotify, you can choose to switch from artist to artist, song to song, and you can do this as many times as you want in as short a time as you want. This creates an entitlement mentality, and an illusion of "perfection". If you can have literally anything you want as it relates to music at the touch of a button, you're going to get used to that and it's going to start to become the expectation. Extrapolate to the rest of the services you use. Ask yourself how many times you've gotten frustrated that you had to enter a password with a remote control to get logged back in to your Netflix account. We live in a world where everything is instant, everything is available, and there is an abundance of digital "stuff" that we have on demand.

We've freed up time sure, but what have we done with it? We've just filled it with more "stuff". If I don't spend an hour listening to one vinyl album, I can spend that hour hopping between a handful of various artists and tracks. However, I'd argue that that hour is actually better spent with the one album, really listening to it. What is the artist trying to say? What is the bigger cohesive theme across the parts of the whole? The reason pop music is popular is because it's usually highly accessible. You _can_ just throw pop music on, and you can easily switch from track to track and have a lot of fun, because it's easy.

The problem with easy access to everything is that "everything" becomes disposable. Need a new song? Start a related "radio playlist" and find hundreds. Need a new show? Netflix's recommendation algorithm has you covered. Need a new date? Dating apps are the Amazon of modern "relationship shopping". This isn't anything groundbreaking. These problems have begun to come to light over the past few years, but I think the point people miss is that when you can have anything you want, it doesn't mean as much when you get it, and so by extension things become meaningless far more easily.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MANUAL

Let's look at driving. I remember the first time I saw a manual transmission. I believe I was a kid at an auto show, and I remember seeing the gear shift in an orange, early-2000s-era Mitsubishi Eclipse. I thought it was so cool at the time. It didn't have a "P" or a "D" on the shifter; only numbers. I had no idea what it meant. As I grew older, of course, I began to understand what a manual transmission was. Growing up, it seemed like only the coolest people knew how to drive one. I was (and still am) into racing video games, and I began to practice virtually with those. Of course, it wasn't an accurate simulation, but I began to understand the fundamentals of how shifting gears works. The cool thing about an automatic transmission is that, for the majority of people in the world, who only care that their car takes them from point A to point B, they never in their lives have to consider how their car is shifting gears (unless of course it shifts erratically). However, I'm a curious person with a strong math and science background, and I find the mechanics of an automobile fascinating. From the minute I could drive, I wanted a manual transmission. I had the opportunity to learn the basics of operating a clutch a few years ago, and this past year, I was finally able to make that dream a reality when I bought my most recent vehicle with a six-speed manual transmission.

It was humbling in the best of ways. I had become a lazy driver, engaged enough, but not fully present. When all you have to do is press down on a pedal to go forward, it's not hard to let your mind wander and stop paying attention. How many people have you seen on the highway in rush hour with their heads down? They're bored, because we've automated driving to the point where we almost don't need people anymore. Driving an automatic has become so automatic for people that they're really not even driving anymore; just steering the car as it drives them.

I mentioned the "illusion of perfection" earlier. There is no "perfection" with a gearbox and a clutch. My first few months of driving were messy. I was jerky, bucking the chassis every time I would take off at a green light, and I was frustrated; easily frustrated. However, I believe the tendency to become so easily frustrated so quickly stems from the root of all these other problems relating to impatience. I was used to driving a car that couldn't make mistakes. However, suddenly the car was no longer in control. I was. If I didn't drive it right, it didn't drive right. I was also highly stressed out in other areas of my life at the time, and I found that the more stressed I was, the worse I drove. However, what this car taught me was the perseverance I didn't have before. I knew deep down that this was what I had always wanted. I knew eventually, if I kept going and refining my skill, it would become second nature, just like playing the saxophone.

It also required absolute presence. To learn how to drive a stick and make sure you don't kill yourself or anyone else, you really have to pay attention. I began to notice things I hadn't before. I was more in tune with slight variations in the topography of the roads I was on. I began to recognize the necessity to think ahead and shift into a gear that would set me up for optimal acceleration in whatever conditions I was about to enter. Over time, I began to understand the car, what it liked, what it didn't. Gradually, the shifts got smoother, and today, every time I go out on the road, it's just pure joy to drive. Something about having that much control, and that much presence in the driving experience, for me at least, makes it so much more engaging and fulfilling. It was one of the only things that could get me out of my head when I needed it most, and driving is one of my favorite things in life.

Automation isn't going anywhere. The problems automation solves continue to propel humanity into the future. There are so many good things going on in the field. However, I think the challenge for us is that we have to remember that just because everything is done for us, doesn't mean there's nothing worth doing. Spin a record. Shift a gear. If we automate everything we ever found fulfillment in doing, what would there be left to do to bring us fulfillment?