I remember sophomore year when Ms. Armstrong introduced me to the strike situation going on with the grocery store clerks. I was very sympathetic. Yet, during one trip to a grocery store (after this was over, I think), I thought, “Wait a second, all of these people aren’t going to have jobs in 5-10 years anyway.” The grocery store clerk was going to disappear. I thought they would perhaps be replaced by RFID.

Well, it didn’t happen quite the way I thought it would. Self-checking is so prevalent these days. Half of the counters were self-checking at a grocery store I went to today.

It’s taking less time than I thought it would.

Isn’t it odd? Does anyone notice these things? Does anyone notice how in the span of a few years we went from practically no self-checking to so many self-checking stations? Does anyone not take these things for granted?

It looked so odd, so foreign to me. I felt like a time traveller in a futuristic world. I saw a young infant watching his parent use the self-checking thing. Beep. It recited the price in a robotic voice. I thought about how this child will take this kind of thing for granted. Since he’s been alive, the internet has always existed. He’ll grow up in a world where grocery store clerks will not exist.

I, for one, still refuse to use self-checking. I want someone to wait on me.

Regarding the riots in France, I think the main question is: Do these people want to be French?

The mythocrats on both sides assume an answer based on their ideology, but no one is taking the time to really think this thing out. This question matters because it determines everything about how you should go about solving the problem. It says whether you need a heavy-handed approach or not. It says what you need to do about immigration and assimilation.

It’s a legitimate question to ask. And it’s a legitimate question to ask all immigrants of all countries.

You can run in little circles all you want about how this problem came about, but you’ll never solve the problem until you answer that question.