Here are the ways that I see society breaking down, in the course of my every day life. Today I was at work at the hospital, leading the regularly scheduled Monday morning treatment team meeting where the nurse, the doctor, myself (social worker) and others review some of the patients on the ward. I got a call on my cell and saw my daughter’s school in the display. Her teacher was calling me back in response to the message I had left for her in my daughter’s school agenda. I got up abruptly, left the meeting, and took the call outside. Derelict in my duties, I felt badly for leaving but I didn’t dwell on it, for I understood, if not how precious the teacher’s time was, that she wouldn’t likely try me again. We talked on the phone for about 10 minutes, while I looked anxiously at the time throughout. When I went back in to the meeting my coworkers were waiting and giving no sign of impatience, having inevitably filled the time appropriately or not. 10 years ago such an interruption would not have been technologically feasible for one thing, and even if someone came in to the room to say, “Brian, you have a call at the front desk…” it would have been for something urgent and business specific. Today, however, nothing seems to be as important as the minutia of the lives of our significant others. Especially when it comes to our children. Simple access makes it so.

That was only one of the events that brought to my mind the decay of social order in modern life. About 10 minutes back into the meeting I had to conference-call in another staff in another office. She picked up on the first ring, a good sign. I asked if she could talk now, never knowing nowadays whether one is driving or not. She said yes, so I put her on speaker and we all discussed the patient for several minutes until it was time for me to have the patient come in to the room, which was the most critical part of her telephonic participation. But she said, “Well, I really can’t stay on the line, I had to step out of my 10:00 meeting to grab your call, so call me later if there is anything I need to know”. And I said, without hesitation, “Sure, no problem, bye”. She did what I had just done, namely, break the professional protocol of staying until a job is done. I couldn’t help imagine a day in the future when everyone will be so hyper-connected to family, colleagues, friends, etc. outside the work arena that normal business will simply collapse because no one will be left who is “mentally in the presence” of any given business for more than a few seconds at a time. By that time, hopefully, nanobots and quantum computers will have taken up the slack of humanity and do all the tasks that we are no longer willing to do. And business can go on in spite of ourselves. I recently read of a futurist’s prediction (Ray Kurtzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines), that by around 2040 only 5% of the world population will need to be employed to serve all the needs of themselves and the remaining 95%.