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Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Sir Bob Jones: Unintended consequences


“Warning to Government: Transport Goals Need 25,000 more workers” This was the NZ Herald front page heading last Thursday in a piece by Herald political journalist, Thomas Coughlan.

Thomas is one of our best political journoes but equally he could have been writing about say the Police, and most other sectors of society.

Here’s a quick solution to this perceived staff shortage problem.

Just as the world has woken to the problem with school children, ban bloody smart phones and suddenly the perceived personnel shortage will vanish.

The first nation to prohibit them in schools was France, since when most other countries have come to their senses and followed suit. However, France should not stop there and recognise this addiction is not confined to teenage girls but nearly everyone, everywhere.

Take their police. Outside my Parisian home, day and night lurk half a dozen machine-gun bearing, large black clad gendarmes.

They’re there supposedly to protect the Prime Minister’s Palace across the road. In fact whenever I emerge they never even look up from their total devotion to gazing and prodding at their ironically labelled smart phones, these in my view, inadvertently the greatest dumbing down device ever invented.

Does this nonsense go on with nurses and doctors? I don’t know but suspect their job pressures probably minimalises it in which event the medical staff shortage is real.

On my observation it’s most rife with road repairs and the building industry.

All of our remarkable human history of steadfast progress can be traced to a single behaviour, namely thinking. Gazing at and prodding at a so called smart phone is anything but.

It’s an amazing invention but its unforeseen addiction consequences are bearing a huge cost for outweighing its benefits.

Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE - where this article was sourced.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...


Sir Robert - I like your comment - [quote]- "They’re (French Police) - there supposedly to protect the Prime Minister’s Palace across the road. In fact whenever I emerge they never even look up from their total devotion to gazing and prodding at their ironically labelled smart phones, these in my view, inadvertently the greatest dumbing down device ever invented"[end quote] - can one assume that this "preoccupation, with a cell phone by French Gendarme's", is the reason why so many "immigrants" enter France and make their way into -
1/- French Cities, to join friends/ family or gain access to housing, becoming part of the rapidly establishing ghettos that become - "No go zones" for the French Police;
2/ - make their way to Calais to join the many who seek to cross the English Channel to England. Which it is noted that French Police have "aided & abetted" that movement.
The end result being - "what you do not see, will not harm you and if you do not see, hear, or become involved in, it did not happen". Sacre bleu.

Ray S said...

There are some talented people out there, why just the other day I saw a guy on the back of a council truck, looking at his phone while placing cones in the middle of the road as the truck moved along.
Cones where in a dead straight line, takes skill to do that, specially while looking at something on the phone.
Phone may have been displaying "place now" at timed intervals.

Vic Alborn said...

Smart 'phones - Dumb people. These 'devices' are, IMHO, destroying civilisation by reducing real-life interaction between people, especially young people.

Anonymous said...

What do people watch so obsessively on their phones? Clearly not life. The modern flâneur?

robert Arthur said...

The smart phone and its static brother the home computer have contributed to the demise of Bob's great love ; books. I personally lament the disappearance of technical books. Ordinary citizens with some library browsing could make themselves quite expert in a maze of subjects. But not now. The technical sections of libraries have evaporated. Any books which do appear are often compilations by keen amateurs with a little more than a mania for taking photos. Much information is available on the Net but it takes enormous effort to find and separate the truly authoritative from the pleb opinions and outright wrong. A classic example is lead acid batteries as used in cars. The peculiarities of the modern version and most appropriate treatments are very difficult to establish. A book by someone with a science or engineering degree can often be trusted but from the wealth of views now offered it is impossible to sort fact from hearsay.

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with Sir Bob. Smart device (phone?) is the biggest cause of Societies downfall, and it will only get worse when todays younger generation get older. We are destroying ourselves as AI and robots will eventually make most humans redundant, except as slaves to machines. Who knows how long it will take, but it will get worse before it gets better. Let's hope our future generations can end the decay before it gets too late