The most computer-oriented person I found was a gamer, who games
every single second they are not unconscious or dragging themselves
out of bed and to their retail job. Not serious gaming though- just
playing whatever they heard is fashionable, by themselves. They
thought they were A Computer Person in high school, until as an
adult they were put through Web Design Product Training (For Free,
meaning the money went directly from NZ's ministry of social
development to the Training Business with no input or opinion from
them). Now they say they Are Not A Computer Person, and have no way
of getting those years of their life back, and worse society acts
like the tax money that was given to the Training Business in their
name had been given to them. They use the computer every day to
play games, but they don't Use The Climate- what would that even
mean.
Another person
was a first generation migrant from a country whose high school
diplomas are not recognised by New Zealand. They were forced
("required") to do New Zealand high school through adult remedial
classes (For Free, meaning the money went directly from NZ's
ministry of social development to the Training Business with no
input or opinion from them). This person's brilliance shines like
the sun, and their English is far above average in New Zealand.
They seem to have developed a tic of simplifying and carefully
explaining anything they say so they can't be easily dismissed as
being from a country without even high school education. (This is
quite nice to listen to actually). They enrolled in the only
real-university (in some sense) program that accepted their adult
NZ High School qualification.
Of Course they never hear about what technical people like
university teachers think on modern issues- that's normal. And
there is no way to communicate ideas in the other direction either.
That's just normal.
I guess this person is climbing a decades long path from being an
adult migrant from a relatively poor country through a few decades
of mixed retail and Free and Student Loan education towards getting
to the aspirational university teacher class of NZ society.
Another person.
Climate- shouldn't you be asking an... Officer? A climate...
Officer? Seemed like a conversational dead end here, until they
kindly volunteered How They Just Waste Time when they are not at
their retail job. They showed me photos of the lego world they had
assembled with lego trains winding past clearly careful urban
planning of lego buildings. (Plus one for trains as public
transit!) Here I tried analogising computer software and lego, but
they remained adamant that the lego photos they were showing me
were not what people were talking about when they talked about
computer stuff. If I wanted to talk about computer stuff, they
recommended their friend (the gamer above).
Another person.
This person only used their iPhone to TikTok. Maybe an AI would be
better at doing their weekly rostering, but they would need to set
up a microphone to talk to the AI, install some AI software, and
learn how to get an AI to compute a weekly work roster for them...
So the roster is going to continue being done completely by hand in
Microsoft Excel as it has always been. They aren't going to become
an expert at AI. No, no opinions on the climate.
Well sure, paper straws, and customers hate the paper straws. And
paper bags, and bamboo disposable forks. Those were expensive, and
government requirements, and the government doesn't help pay for
them. It seems like it's just about raising a new tax, and that tax
money just vanishes into government employees.
Even if you do really good- it's like a class. Maybe some students
try hard and do everything right, but not everyone is, and some are
going to break the rules badly no matter how good the good students
are. It's like that with countries and the climate. So it is very
discouraging to try and do the right thing for the environment. And
blaming bad weather on not using bamboo takeaway forks- yeah right,
pull the other one.
