File Transfers, Human Nature, and a Tragedy in China

The internet, as present, has a very interesting, very perplexing, inadequacy. In a world of cloud servers, drop boxes, and smartphones, there is, in fact, no simple ubiquitous way to transfer files.

To transfer files to a server, you use FTP. To send an image to a friend, you use email or MMS. To send a large file, you often physically load it to a thumb drive and hand it to them. To get an image off your phone, you sync it. To download large files, you torrent. There are literally dozens of ways that one must send and receive files and none are optimal over the majority–no wonder technophobes get frustrated.

There should have been an easier way, but it’s too late now and we’re too complacent. We should have a universal file transfer protocol to transfer files directly from device to device with an encrypted handshake using a unique signifier like a mac address to determine the appropriate parties. Basically, I should be able to send an excel sheet from my phone to my computer without having to gmail it to myself.

I also want to know why my iPhone doesn’t even want to store or access files besides music, images, and video. Blackberries were editing documents back when the world had to use a stylus, I don’t see why we had to take a step back on this one. Don’t get me started on jailbreaking, because as cool and nerdy as it is when the novelty wears off and you realize that, in actuality, you just gimped your $400 phone so that you can play three hundred versions of open source Tetris.

I don’t want a virtual assistant. I want to be able to transfer a goddamn file through wifi. Also maybe you should fix
your terrible calendar–or do yuppies not have anything important to get to? Also, the 4S is a gigantic blatant scam and anyone who buys one might as well be given a free “TAKE MY MONEY” bumper sticker.

I’m not in a great mood, clearly. I get grumpy in the face of my ever nearing mortality, and also MSNBC decided to show me a two year old being repeatedly run over while no one stopped to help. People are saying that the reactions were inhumane; on the contrary, denial, selfishness, fear and cruelty are the pinnacle of human evolution. We are survivors above all else, and to ignore that is to misunderstand our own very natures.

Despite the rapidly growing economy in China, most people are still walking a razor’s edge between relative wealth and starvation. It’s a country without safety nets, where a single misfortune can destroy you and your entire family, and where death is a visitor to your neighborhood, not your television. People ask “what were they thinking?”

They were thinking “that little girl is already going to die, and if I interfere, I could be fined so much money that my entire family will starve.”

Really. Those not aware of Chinese politics don’t realize that life is so harsh and unforgiving in China that its newly created legal system believes that helping a victim is a tacit admission of guilt. A few years back a man was fined over $5000 (a huge sum in China) for helping an elderly woman who fell. Why? Because the judge reasoned that he would only have helped her up if he had been the one who pushed her!

Humanity has survived as long as it has on the ability to look after number one. People at their most evil, selfish and corrupt are actually people closest to human nature. This is why we build cities and public health centers and protective legislation: so that we can be comfortable and safe enough to overcome this darkness and become something greater than what nature intended.

We like to think we’re better than them. We’re not, we’ve just been allowed to live better than them. The woman who finally helped that girl was a ragpicker. Do you understand? She had nothing left to lose.