Are We Ready To Rule Over Convenience?

It certainly is already ruling over us.

a determined woman walks against the wind, through a hurricane carrying all sorts of useful home appliances, modern digital art — by DALL·E

Conveniently Good

Convenience rules our lives. It only takes a quick glimpse into past living conditions to realise this has generally been positive for most of us. Menial actions we don’t even think about now were once dreadful chores we would try to shirk. We flick the tap and clean water flows. We flush the toilet and the refuse disappears. We press a button and the flat becomes cooler or warmer. We touch a screen a couple of times, and food is at the door in half an hour. I could go on for hours. Anyone could. The thought of having to collect water from the well, chuck waste out of the window, bury ourselves under infinite blankets or hunt and gather for seasonal nutrients belongs in a different time.

Conveniently Bad

However, convenience has limits too, which we have probably reached by now. There is a moment when we do what is convenient even before we think about what we need or want. We could download books and music for free, but we choose to pay to have them swiftly delivered to our devices. Illegal downloads were most popular when they were more convenient than going to the shop. Now that it is even more convenient to pay a small fee and not bother with dodgy software and nasty viruses, we have mostly ditched digital piracy…