Tabby’s Decision; It Just Keeps Getting Better!

The benefits of Tabby’s decision just keep rolling in.

I come from a long line of country people.  Tabitha’s studying Outdoor Education for which camping is an essential part of the course; camping in a tent.  As country people know; due to our close kinship with the Earth; why on Earth would anyone in their right minds want to sleep outdoors when they don’t have to.

I mean houses, beds, ovens, etcetera are the result of years of research and evolution.  Humans have improved their lives, now we have comfort and efficiency.   So let’s throw all that away and roll around in the dirt and mud.  Let’s face the climate as is; rain, hail, lightning, heat, or freezing cold.  Why bother being in the perfect temperature?  Next we’ll be rubbing good, solid, reliable dirt into our open wounds instead of taking the coward’s way out of using soap or antibacterial gel.

In case I’ve been too subtle; I don’t like camping.  I can’t see the point!  I don’t mind occasionally walking into the outdoors, looking at things, roughing it.  But I’m not going to sleep outside; weather, bugs, creatures, a complete lack of mattress and fine linens.  Why would I?  Why would anyone?  Eating outside; no table, weather, bugs, creatures; clearly only an idiot would actually choose to eat a meal outside.  Yes I am including barbeques and picnics; they are stupid and pointless.  I am not including a chocolate bar; safely wrapped, or a bag of snacks, safe in their bag.  If it doesn’t take long to eat and can stay safely wrapped until it actually pops into the mouth, it is probably not completely whacko to eat outside.

Camping is insane!   Clearly; so how on Earth did it become part of the curriculum.  Well so did sport, we have some pretty crazy loons running education.  I think these are just another example of the ‘we had to do these terrible, torturous things so kids have to too’.  Honestly, have we not progressed at all?  Why are young people allowed to have computers we didn’t have computers when we were young?  Why do kids get medicine when leeches were good enough?

So Tabby has finally been released from this truly, terrible trap!  No more Outdoor Education.  Hooray, no more camping, no more dirt, regular medicine when you’re hurt!

And the news keeps getting better!

What will little Tablet be doing instead of Outdoor Education?  Career and Enterprise!

And we all know what that means.  Yes, little Tabby will be taught how to function in a normal modern workplace.  That’s right; she is going to be taught how to get along with her future mechanized workmates.

More and more jobs are being taken over by machines and or computers.  Artificial intelligence is just around the corner.  It is important to keep the workplace atmosphere harmonious.

So Tablet is going to have to learn how to get along with others; namely robots.

Why am I so happy about this?  Am I secretly a robot?  OMG, am I?  How would I know?  It would explain a lot of things; like why so many people behave in such an irrational way.  I might be a robot.  I am sick a lot, but I could be a broken robot.  Mum would have told me, wouldn’t she?  Have I ever asked her the question directly?  I have to remember to ask her!

Okay, lets assume for the moment I am not a robot.  So why am I happy about this?  Imagine Tabitha is going to have to learn to be pleasant to be around.  I will be so proud; neither of her sisters even toyed with the idea of being pleasant to be around, I don’t think the idea ever even occurred to either of them.

Don’t worry, I haven’t got unrealistic expectations!  I know that as a teenager she will not actually be pleasant.  And as her mother I am unlikely to ever see any pleasant behaviour.  But just knowing that she knows the principles of being pleasant will be an incredible feeling.

Tabby is going to have to change her conversation.  Imagine if she tried to talk to her future colleagues about the Hardy Boys, her usual topic of conversation.

‘Which department is Mr Hardy in?’

‘No department, they solve mysteries?’ Tab would reply.

‘We have mysteries, perhaps they are in the research department or personnel.’

‘No they live in Where ever It Is!’ Tabby might say.

‘That place does not appear in any of our inventory or invoice records!’

‘Bayport (I remembered) is in the book;’ Tabby would explain.

‘Which book?  I am programmed with many address books!’

Cut to an hour later.

‘Another robot down in Sector 3!’

‘Why are we losing so many in that one section, its 10 times as many as the rest of the plant put together!’

‘I have no idea, I’ll ask the Sector 2 Supervior to look into it!’

‘Who is that?’

‘A Miss Holt,’

‘Don’t bother, I know why!’

Tabitha will have to behave in a sensible and logical way and stop randomly saying odd things.  She will learn that robots can’t read her little mind, she will have to use her mouth to form words that are explicable to others.  I know this Utopian situation is years away.  Indeed common sense suggests this is a miracle and miracles don’t happen very often.

Although if I am dreaming I’m going all the way.  There is no way any employer is going to expose his delicate robots workers to the corrosive and volatile auditory toxin that is…Night Core.  I mean it’s effect on the human system is bad enough but at least in your average human it can bypass the logic centres of the brain.  Robots might try and compute, understand and analyse the music; a sure pathway to destruction.

A pleasant offspring and a cessation of the noise she believes is music; I can dream!