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I was talking with my 8 year-old son and said that the whole world had just stopped. He asked what do you mean? I replied that everything stopped. Airlines, banks, shops, trains, hospitals and more. He asked what happened? I said that an update from a company to the core of the computer systems of the world had broken all of the computer systems, and nothing worked anymore. He replied but my brain and my heart still works.
His comment stopped me in my tracks.
So, old news today, the whole world was grounded by the CloudStrike update to Microsoft systems. In case you were sleeping:
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.
CrowdStrike is a security system used in Windows and other providers, and the update brought down most Microsoft servers, resulting in the media initially blaming the whole problem on Microsoft.
Microsoft IT outage live: recovery from ‘largest outage in history’ may take weeks
This was a huge branding damage moment, particularly as it was not Microsoft but their partner CloudStrike that caused the issue. So, I spent most of yesterday talking with people about how Microsoft was down. But then, whether it is Microsoft or CloudStrike, what got me about yesterday's outage is that life came to a halt for many. We could not pay bills, board flights, share social updates and more. But then that’s what got me with my son’s comment. As long as our hearts are beating and our brains are thinking, do we need this digital life?
In fact, it made me reflect on the fact that a lot of our digital lifestyle is just stressing us out. It reminded me, for example, that some of the poorest nations are the happiest because they are not digital. This is from Big Think:
The Melanesian people living in the Roviana and Gizo regions of the Solomon Islands are some of the poorest in the world. They live a subsistence lifestyle, fulfilling their needs by fishing and farming. Occasionally, they sell their goods at the local marketplace to buy processed foods or pay their children’s school tuition fees. The luxuries of modern life — smartphones, the internet, TV, memory-foam mattresses — are hard to find. But despite this materially simple existence, the Melanesians express higher life satisfaction than residents of Finland and Denmark, who regularly make headlines as the happiest in the world.
And it made me reflect upon the fact that all of our modern lifestyle – flying, banking, shopping and such – is so dependent on a digital world of connectivity that, when it goes down, we cannot cope. Our lives are lost and our stress levels max out.
But, when my son said the world has not stopped because my heart is beating and my brain is working, you come down to Earth and recognise the reality. The reality is that most of this digital stuff does not matter as long as you have food to eat and air to breathe. The problem most of us have is that, to get food and air, we have to work digitally these days … apart from those who can do this naturally.
Maybe that’s why the poorest are the happiest … or maybe not.
In a deep data dive, Our World in Data finds that the wealthiest nations are the happiest but, more interestingly, finds nearly the whole of the rest of the world is pretty happy … except those involved in a war.
#Truth ... oh, and meanwhile, my heart is still beating and brain is still thinking.
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