The Optimist’s Guide to the Present: Pineapples Are Involved

The complainers speak in all caps sometimes.

“AMERICA IS FALLING APART,” they often say. “THINGS ARE WORSE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.”

But just because something was typed in capital letters doesn’t make it true.

Actually, things are not worse than ever before. Less than 100 years ago, in 1933, nearly 30 percent of Americans were unemployed. Over 2 million children abandoned schoolhouses for factory jobs. About 150,000 families were starving, eating weeds and roadside scraps to combat malnutrition.

Whereas today, the unemployment rate is 4 percent. Meanwhile, we’re more educated than ever—federal law mandates free K-12 education for all youth. Also, over 86 percent of households are food secure.

“WHATEVER!” the angry people type while compressing the Shift key. “THIS IS STILL THE WORST PERIOD IN HISTORY.”

Is it? Let’s talk Earth history for a moment. Millions of years ago temperatures were approaching 150 degrees, which is almost as hot as a Porta-John at a bluegrass festival. Earth creatures retreated to polar regions, en masse. They starved, of course.

Mass extinction was the norm. Acid rain burned plants, killed trees, and destroyed animal eyesight. A super-volcano spewed enough lava to cover North America in a layer of lava half a mile deep. Meantime, here comes an asteroid. Whereas today, you have Starbucks.

“OKAY, MAYBE THE WORLD ISN’T LITERALLY FALLING APART. BUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS DESTROYING OUR WAY OF LIFE.”

This is exactly what they said about machines during the Industrial Revolution, but we survived.

“WHAT’RE YOU TALKING ABOUT? MACHINES HAVE RUINED US! THEY MAKE LIFE SOOO COMPLICATED.”

Complicated?

“YES!”

But machines make your life easier.

“NUH-UH!”

Yes-huh.

“NUH-UH!”

Okay.

Do me a favor. Go to your pantry. Select an item from your shelf. Any item. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Great. That can of pineapple you’re holding didn’t just land on the shelf by itself. And YOU certainly didn’t pick the pineapple with your own two hands. You were too busy fondling your caps lock key. I’m going to tell you how that pineapple got to your shelf.

“NO. PLEASE DON’T.”

First, tractors somewhere in Hawaii dragged mechanically intelligent implements across the soil, unrolling plastic onto soil beds to control weeds and retain moisture. Pineapples were then planted by machines, then watered by automated irrigation systems.

Whereupon, self-propelled farming equipment harvested each pineapple, placing them into cargo trucks. Next, pineapples were dumped onto conveyor systems where automated circular saws sliced off their leaves. Fruit then passed into industrial baths of high-pressure water jets which scrubbed away soil, debris, pesticides, and mammalian excreta.

“GROSS! YOU SAID MAMMALIAN EXCRETA!”

Next, high-speed digital cameras inspected each pineapple, calculating diameter, then routed each pineapple to its correct processing area.

Then, the fruit was ushered into the “Henry Ginaca machine.” The Henry Ginaca machine was invented during the Technological Revolution, in 1911, by a guy whose name was… Well, I can’t remember.

In one lightning-fast swipe, the Henry Ginaca machine topped, tailed, and punched out a perfect pineapple core, while simultaneously carving away the tough outer rind.

“PLEASE STOP TELLING ME ABOUT PINEAPPLES.”

Afterward, the fruit was dropped onto rotary blades that chopped it into uniform slices. While this was happening, a depalletizer was pushing empty tins off pallets with robotic arms, flipping them upside down, and blasting them with steam.

Pineapple slices were then stacked into cans and sent to an automatic “syrup injector.” Then came the automated vacuum sealer. Then the lid crimper. Then the quality-control machine, then…

“I’M BEGGING YOU.”

Sealed cans then traveled through a massive, multi-story intelligent pressure cooker to heat them, cooking pineapple inside the tins, which destroyed dangerous microorganisms. Hot cans then passed under a machine, spraying them with cold water to stop the cooking process and prevent fruit from becoming mush.

Then rapid-fire rollers labeled each can. Then, cans were robotically packed. A mechanical palletizer then wrapped the shipment in plastic. Then came a forklift and…

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I GET IT! MAYBE MACHINES AREN’T SO BAD. BUT I STILL THINK THIS WORLD STINKS.”

Wrong again. Before the late 19th century, nearly all cities featured open street gutters overflowing with raw sewage, rotting animal carcasses, and mountains of mammalian excreta. Whereas thanks to modern sewers, daily bathing, and municipal trash collection, our lives are less stinky than ever before in the history of civilization.

“OH MY GOD.”

I know this is hard for you.

“WHAT ABOUT KIDS? THEY’RE LAZY! THEY DON’T WORK AS HARD AS MY GENERATION DID!”

Well, I hate to be the proverbial mammalian excreta in the punchbowl. Even though today’s young workers might not be driving steel or traversing the Oregon Trail, studies show they might be working harder than any generation before them. This is because they carry their workplace in their pockets.

Smartphones, emails, text messages, and project management apps have made the cognitive burden heavier than ever. The unspoken expectation to respond to quick questions, late-night texts, or over-the-weekend emails breeds a state of chronic, low-grade alertness. Today’s workers no longer operate in shifts. They are on the clock indefinitely.

 

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILY UNIT? WE’RE SEEING THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY!”

Are we? According to studies compiled by organizations like the World Economic Forum and the University of California, Irvine, parent-child time has skyrocketed since the mid-20th century.

American children now receive an average of four hours of daily face time with parents. This might not sound impressive, but only 50 years ago, the same child would have gotten 17 minutes.

“REALLY?”

Really. During the Industrial Age, for example, kids could expect an average of two minutes of face time. Likewise, only 50 years ago an average mother would spend 40 to 56 weekly hours on housework. Today, the American mother spends 18 hours.

“OKAY, MISTER SMARTY-STATS. IF THINGS ARE SO GREAT, WHY ARE AMERICAN DIVORCES HIGHER THAN EVER?”

Well, that’s the thing. They aren’t. In 1980, U.S. divorce rates peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women. That number has dropped and is currently hovering around 8. This means—and believe me, I know this is difficult to hear—Baby Boomers have 40 percent more divorces than Generation Xers, Millennials, and Gen-Zers combined.

“BUT WHAT ABOUT CRIME? WE HAVE MORE WEIRDOS OUT THERE. CRIME IS WORSE! THIS WORLD IS MORE DANGEROUS!”

Nope. You might be confusing this era with the 14th century, when annual homicide rates in cities like, for instance, London, were around 110 deaths per 100,000 people. Today, the average homicide rate in Europe is around one per 100,000.

On a global scale, however, things have changed more dramatically. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that worldwide homicide rates—even in just the last 30 years—have dropped sharply. In the United States alone, violent crime fell by more than 50 percent since 1993.

You might want to read that last sentence again.

 

“I STILL DON’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU’RE SMOKING CRACK.”

Of course you don’t believe me. This is because whenever a crime is committed, anywhere on Earth, the crime is immediately displayed on your phone screen before the crime is, technically, even finished.

In turn, your brain—which is still wired with prehistoric wiring—interprets this hi-def video as a threat existing in your own yard. Which causes you to exhibit physiological symptoms of fear. Symptoms such as stress, anxiety, elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, sudden interest in reality television, etc.

“GIMME A BREAK! THIS WORLD IS A SICK PLACE. YOU CAN’T CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!”

I will agree with you there. Because negativity is definitely a disease.