THE WAY THINGS ARE
It’s fair to say humans have stolen from each other since the beginning of time. Thieves reap the benefits of other peoples’ labour without the slightest pang of conscience, seeing it as an accomplishment, an indicator of how smart they are.
I once shared a UK hostel space with an apparently pious Irish Catholic woman, who was also a petty thief. The day she unexpectedly vanished those of us she’d befriended discovered some of our belongings had gone with her.
I was brought up in a Christian family to trust. I don’t trust easily anymore, and when you live alone you grow cautious. Late in summer a child approached me outside the house and asked for water. I had seen her with an odd-looking woman who hung back. Going against all my instincts, I asked her gently to wait and closed the door until I brought her a bottle from the fridge. I’d heard stories of children forced to beg then, when a door was left open, an adult rushed inside to steal, which made me treat her with probably unwarranted suspicion.
In the UK, shoplifting has become an organised activity with small shops often suffering repeated theft, and CCTV-conscious thieves not easily traced. My wallet was stolen in a supermarket along with my ID card, the loss of which caused me inconvenience, taken by professional female thieves who were eventually caught.
Some ID theft, however, involves more serious problems when a person’s actual identity is taken over with criminal intent and their life is turned upside down. When a bank account is cleaned out, the shock and stress of being left penniless is tremendous, more so when scammers hit on gullible, elderly people, and the savings that came from a lifetime of hard-earned income vanishes.
The faceless thief is different to the thief we know. A dear friend’s wife has dementia, so he hired a carer who appeared calm and sweet-natured, her workload was easy, she was treated like family, trusted. He puts in a long day in the open for what he earns. He habitually puts his briefcase with the day’s cash take in his bedroom and deposits the notes in the bank on his way to work next day. When a small amount went missing, he blamed himself, absent-mindedness, getting older, tired, making mistakes. When, on a couple of occasions the sums of money grew significantly larger, he began to suspect the carer. His son installed a hidden camera, recorded her stealing and reported her to the police. She had betrayed the family’s absolute trust and left my friend with an abrupt care gap for his wife.
A teacher I know worries about youngsters’ addiction to fast-moving, internet content, ‘It steals their ability to absorb serious literature at higher levels; some find it hard to read a whole book now.’ And, that their future ability to absorb necessary study reading will be lost to brains constantly switching from one subject to another on screen.
On the plus side, high-tech precision aids the speed of medical diagnosis and research, AI is already capable of replacing office drudgery. We go through ages, each one preparing us for the next progression, horses gave way to cars, ploughs to tractors, compare the action-reaction judgment today’s fighter pilots require in highly advanced planes to the beloved Spitfire. Fast hand and eye coordination is tomorrow’s essential ability. The young gaining swift tech skills are not being robbed but gifted, the next stage is already in motion.
We can hope, however, that being able to savour the finely chosen and written words of a master poet or author will remain for some. It’s hard to imagine a time when being immersed in the joy of human-generated art or the pleasure of a book in the hand, may no longer exist.
Our rapid progression is systematically destroying the planet, we’re stealing future welfare from our youth. Nature has always been an incomparable inspiration and a mental comfort for people. Replication can’t replace it, some things cannot be digitised.
