Here’s an old rant, slightly updated, that I’ve posted before. Maybe now that I’m famous and influential people will finally listen.

Efficiency is the bane of modern life.

The efficient machinery of modern society is rolling over the world in the form of poverty, disease, starvation, wage-slavery, warfare, pollution, corruption, terrorism and mass extinction.

Instead of creating security, it has brought insecurity on a wide scale. There is a simple explanation for this, and a simple solution. There is an “off” button. And even if it is broken, the most efficient clockwork remains susceptible to a little sand, or a well-placed monkey wrench. Don’t just do something, stand there!

The efficiency trap

In the 1960’s school children were told that, before the end of the 20th century, technological advances would make workers more productive, which would in turn give them more leisure time to spend on education, relaxation, etc. Productivity, or efficiency has indeed increased, but it has instead resulted in longer hours at lower real wages for the employed population, while the additional leisure time created is consumed in the form of unemployment.

Efficiency, although a word with positive connotations, is not the blessing people assume it to be.

Efficiency is bad

Technology allowing individuals, firms and governments to react to changes more quickly enables them to make more mistakes faster. There is no guarantee that any course of action is the right one – faster reaction cuts the amount of time available to evaluate actions:

• Networking allowing more efficient communications permits mistakes to spread and amplify throughout a system faster.

• More efficient monoculture agriculture increases susceptibility to crop disease: ask anyone with an Irish surname.
• More efficient livestock production methods created mad cow disease.
• More efficient global trade has put thousands out of work.
• Economists in developed countries praise a globalized economy only because they are in no danger of losing their jobs to third-world professors. The day the University of Chicago Economics Department moves to India, they will change their tune.
• More efficient medical technology, while saving countless lives, has created a new class of super-resistant diseases.

Inefficiency as an ideal

Inefficiency creates security. All security measures work by increasing inefficiency:

• A lock on a door inhibits access. The tougher the lock, the greater the security.

• A password inhibits access to data.
• A fence inhibits movement.
• A parachute increases air friction.

Likewise, inefficient production methods increase the demand for labor, reducing unemployment:

• Inefficient management practices reduce mistakes.

• Inefficient communication reduces amplification of these mistakes.
• Slower travel reduces plague danger.
• Trade barriers increase employment.
• Inefficient agriculture (multiple crops, natural food for animals) decreases danger from disease and blights.

This is what you can do:

Less.
And do it more slowly.
Discover the “off” button.
Have unnecessary conversations, and look people in the eye when you talk to them. Especially children and the elderly.
Blog on company time (just don’t get caught).
Buy local. Remember that when you buy, your money is a vote supporting those production methods.
Leave the beaten path, ignore traffic signs, don’t be afraid to swim against the current, study pointlessness: what is the point of a sunset? Of music? Of a child’s smile?
Be sand in the machine.
Relax.