“Don’t abandon homeless relatives,” charged Desmond McKenzie, minister of local government and community development. He has asked us not to kick our elderly, destitute, and mentally challenged kin to the curb so many times that I have lost count.

McKenzie entreated us again last week while he was addressing the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) Wellness Day of Care to commemorate World Homeless Day at Marie Atkins Night Shelter in downtown Kingston. Among other things, McKenzie said: “Many of our homeless friends and families, they come from homes, but some of their families have abandoned them, turned their backs on them, and turned them out. I call on Jamaicans to take personal responsibility for your family.”

He indicated that just over 3,000 homeless people are living on our streets.

We continue to be suffocated by huge deficits in personal responsibility. I have been discussing the debilitations of those deficits here for some years. Admit it or not, but our big deficiencies in personal responsibility are very powerful obstructions to Jamaica’s national growth and development.

Not so long ago McKenzie related the horrific story of some family members who routinely deposited their elderly relative in the hospital during a certain holiday season. Why? The senior was a hindrance to their merrymaking.

I have heard Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton talk repeatedly about the immense challenges associated with accommodating scores of elderly individuals who are fit to go home, but are living in the hospitals.

Why? Their relatives cannot be found. Many of these relatives are deliberately making themselves unavailable. They are shirkers and slackers. They are hiding from their legal and moral responsibility.

I frown on the behaviour of these cruel and uncaring personal responsibility dodgers. Many of these unfeeling and heartless slackers conveniently believe that their elderly relatives are the responsibility of the State, charitable organisations, the Church, and/or other individuals.

To be sure, I am not here asking for anyone to do anything that I have not done for my own parent. Soon after I graduated from The University of the West Indies, Mona, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 thoracic cancer. Some days after her diagnosis I was accepted to London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) to do a postgraduate degree in media and communication. I received a half-scholarship regarding my tuition.

My mother’s diagnosis massively shifted my emotional and financial tectonic plates. I had two younger sisters in high school at the time, also.

Understand this, when the main breadwinner loses his/her job, or has to stop working, especially in the country parts, certainly in rural St Mary, it means the eldest child becomes the main breadwinner.

My mother had sacrificed her best years for her children. I was taught that there is an obligation to take care of your parents if they took care of you. That my mother did with all her might, even to the detriment of her own health.

I gave up the scholarship to LSE. I have no regrets.

I worked hard to ensure that my mother got the best care possible, while also taking care of my sisters.

My mother died within three years of her diagnosis. A ‘successful operation’ to remove a lung and a cocktail of 11 different tablets every day seemed to have delivered but temporary relief from excruciating pains, almost 24/7.

I watched her take her final breath. I aim to say more in a book.

Consider these headlines. They speak to the high levels of failure to accept personal responsibility in this county:

* ‘More people abandoning relatives at Sav hospital’ (Jamaica Observer, August 17, 2023)

* ‘Don’t abandon relatives at hospital this Christmas’ says Dr Tufton (Jamaica Information Service, December 16, 2022)

* ‘People who abandon relatives at hospital to face civil suits come January’ (Jamaica Observer, November 10, 2021)

I could list scores of similar headlines from other credible media.

We must condemn able-bodied men and women who don’t accept personal responsibility for their parents, when they get old and cannot work to support themselves for one reason or another. Those guilty of this grave transgression are classified as reprobates in the “good book”. I agree.

Who is responsible for parents and grandparents?

The Maintenance Act, section 10, is crystal clear on the matter:

“10 (1) Every person who is not a minor has an obligation, to the extent that the person is capable of doing so, to maintain the person’s parents and grandparents who are in need of such maintenance by reason of age, physical or mental infirmity or disability.

(2) In considering the circumstances of a dependant who is a parent or grandparent, the court shall have regard to whether, by reason of age or infirmity, that dependant is unable to provide for himself or herself.

(3) The obligation of a person under subsection (1) in respect of that person’s grandparent only arises in the event of the failure of the grandparent’s children to do so owing to death, physical or mental infirmity or disability.”

Moral suasion means nothing to those who throw their parents to the curb. We need to stop sugar-coating the language we use to address these slackers and shirkers of personal responsibility. If your economic means allow it, you must be compelled legally to take care of your elderly, sick, and/or destitute parents.

We must stop babysitting the excuses of those who abandon their parents, parcel them off to the State, and/or use others as a crutch for their obligations. Fail to do so and we cut our own throats. The great danger before us is easy to see.

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING?

On the subject of great danger, in recent days there has been a lot of discussion on the subject of whether evolving technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), are going to result in what some term as global and catastrophic unemployment.

There is a pastor on local radio who preaches daily that ubiquitous, powerful, and evolving technologies are a sure sign of the fulfilment of scripture, end of the world, and the return of Jesus Christ. There are thousands of fanatics like him all over the world. From time immemorial there have been thousands who see change, and especially technological change, as tantamount to one and/or all of the biblical, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We best are weary, very weary of these types.

“Higgins is an atheist!” I expect some to make that giant leap from what I have said here. No, I am not. I am an unapologetic believer in God. I believe God gave us a brain for us to use to solve our problems. God warns us that we must be very suspicious of merchants of superstition and conspiracy theorists.

I am a technology optimist, not a blind one, though. I fully recognise that there are serious negatives related to the misuse and evil abuse of AI and related digital technologies. I accept that millions, globally, will lose jobs and related livelihoods as AI and related technologies are increasingly and rapidly embraced by especially the giant corporate establishments worldwide.

Relatedly an insightful editorial in this newspaper noted, among other things, “ …. data from a McKinsey Global Institute study which found that, by 2030, almost a third of jobs worldwide could be taken over by automation”.

To me, this does not mean the sky is about to fall and/or crash. In fact, the same editorial also opined, “…the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023, which stated that some 69 million jobs will be created in the next five years, driven by new technologies and the green transition. These will also be counterbalanced by another 83 million jobs which will be put at risk due to economic pressures and automation”. (Jamaica Observer, October 6, 2024)

Like American writer Mark Twain, I believe that, “History often rhymes,” this means, while details change, circumstances change, settings change, names change, similar events will essentially recycle. A very noteworthy recycling is happening with evolving technology right before our eyes.

There is a mountain of evidence that shows that, while technology has always been disruptive, it has simultaneously always created more individual wealth for more people globally. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, hundreds predicted catastrophic job losses. The Industrial Revolution (1760 to 1840), which began in Britain and spread throughout the world, in fact, created far more jobs than it destroyed. This is a fact.

Alongside advances in technology, there has always been the accompanying fear that human labour will be made redundant. This has not happened. I seriously doubt it ever will. “History rhymes.”

The mentioned editorial noted, “Advancements in modern technology since the 1970s have been nothing short of amazing. In fact, after January 1, 1983, which is widely regarded as the official birthday of the Internet, the world has not been the same, as mankind has more and more leaned on technology to improve efficiency and make life easier, at least for most people.”

Access to high speed Internet has helped to create not just more jobs but also millions of new jobs. The app economy, for example, was valued at nearly 500 billion at the end of last year. Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft, these are examples of what are called the sharing economy. They have helped to provide employment for thousands, globally. Online marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba, plus many others, have created thousands of jobs, globally. People, especially in the creative industries, have new and quicker ways to distribute their products. These new avenues of commerce have helped to emancipate thousands of creative people from the grasp of monopolies and cruel middlemen.

If you produce something which solves a problem, these are the best of times. Evolving technology, to me, means opportunities for humans to create and capture new and better frontiers. What’s to fear?

“Singularity, Higgins, singularity, we must fear singularity, like the plague,” some will shout.

Some have theorised that, by 2050 or so, we humans will become indistinguishable from robots. This is called singularity in the tech world.

“Sophisticated artificial intelligence, owned by big companies, will not only make human labour redundant, it will make human beings themselves redundant,” some tech, pessimists have argued. I disagree.

Robots are computers. They operate on algorithms. Humans create these algorithms, as I understand it. Human have cognitive intelligence. Computers do not. Additionally, the most far-reaching technological innovations of the last 50 years have come not from big companies, but individual innovators and small groups. Yes, many, maybe most, were later bought out by big companies, but that is the nature of business since time immemorial.

There is an unfortunate and long-standing notion that advances in technology invariably benefit a few, not the many. Well, just look around where you live and work today and you will realise that that notion is patently bogus.

I understand the concerns of the technology pessimists. Some predict “ruination by the Second Machine Age”. They say robots and related digital technology will usher in the end of human dominance and/or render us mere pawns and bystanders. This is a great flight of fancy in my view.

Robots and digital technology have helped doctors make faster and more precise diagnoses. Technology has enabled faster and more efficient communication, transportation, manufacturing, and trading. These are global pluses.

Uncontrolled human greed is man’s greatest Achilles heel, not evolving technologies. Small islands developing states (SIDS), like Jamaica cannot afford to adopt the position that technology is the Antichrist.

Technological hermit-ism is suicide. We need to fear technology less and adopt helpful technology more.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education and youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.