Samantha Thompson
@harchivist
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Brit-Canadian archivist-librarian, trad-classical musician, post-academic philosophy PhD, and other hyphenated things. Can't help it: so much to learn.
Ontario, Canada
Joined January 2015
My mother has been told to install Teams so she can go to meetings where they'll tell her how to access physiotherapy after her surgery and how to get a ride. She feels old and stupid. I told her it's not her. Tech is somehow adding more and more steps to get anything done.
I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network. I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive. I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels. I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu. I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results. I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite. I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software. I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax platinum plus audit protection. I don’t want to install the Webex plugin to join the meeting. I don’t want to share my car’s braking data with the actuaries at State Farm. I don’t want to text with your AI chatbot. I don’t want to download the Instagram app to look at your picture. I don’t want to type in my email address to view the content on your company’s website. I don’t want text messages with promo codes. I don’t want to leave your company a five-star Google review in exchange for the chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card. I don’t want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse. I don’t want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn. I don’t even want to be on LinkedIn in the first place. I just want to pay for a product one time (and only one time), know that it’s going to work flawlessly, press 0 to speak to an operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone and treated with some small measure of human dignity, if that’s not too much to ask anymore.
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It's a bit of a running joke that Americans know nothing about the history of Canada (or anything else about us for that matter). I received some amusing comments during my year of Junior High there. It no longer feels like a joke. Maybe we should have been louder and prouder.
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@2Philosophical_ Once you leave academia you often don't have access to anything else, so you realize this far more accessible to everyone. People will fuss about peer review though. I suppose they have a point.
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@TheEconomist I'm forced to play dumb games regularly in work and and am judged on how happy I am about it.
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@JohnWrightLive Even if the subsidy thing wasn't a falsehood, he didn't explain cause and effect as to why we'd be better off. "Canada would be better off as a State" *because* "they're screwing us [me] over" is not an argument.
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@TheEconomist Right now it's the few still schlepping to work who essentially got a pay cut when their coworkers started staying at home.
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@librarythingtim @Ajprescott But who says so? The constitution? What if no one with the power of force at their disposal cares about that? Things already don't seem to functioning with due process and normal guardrails.
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@GenxRB @CaitlinPacific Yes, this sort of thing can make some of us feel especially bereft. I sometimes think to myself that some of them go so far in that they can't reach back here anymore. That is best for them.
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@acnewsitics Imagine being a 19-year-old with that much lack of humility and that amount of overconfidence.
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@gunsnrosesgirl3 @EllenLuxnova1 Pretty sure they open if you just leave them on the plant where they belong.
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@C20Society @Pastpreservers This is happening regularly in and around the Toronto area along with fires of convenience and demolition by neglect.
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