The sincerity of computers

"Dear Mr Wenham,..." (sic) So begins an undated letter to me about renewing my blue badge, or as the letter prefers, my Blue Badge. Its ending has been puzzling me.
"Yours sincerely
 Oxfordshire County Council" (sic).

Can a county council really be sincere, I wonder, writing to me about my old blue badge, telling me to cut it up and post it back to them? I suspect not. When I was first eligible for a blue badge, I received a letter from a polite young, I imagine, lady, whose name I still recall. She could be and, I'm sure, was sincere. However, there's no longer any name anywhere in sight on the letter. So what am I to conclude?

My conclusion, as a former RSA Basic Clerical Skills moderator, is this: that the polite and literate Ms Cundy has been replaced by semi-literate automated computer software. Clearly the letter is generated from a database (possibly programmed by the said Ms Cundy before her removal). And some oaf has created a standard letter format with inconsistencies of punctuation (decide whether you will use commas or not in the address and signing-zoff lines) and the most inappropriate of signing-off phrases.

So now, I receive a letter from a machine which tells me it is sincere. Harrumph! In the words of Victor Meldrew, I don't believe it. What next? xxx at the bottom? A series of emoticons? Leave out the pretence at sincerity, please. That would be at least honest. Or how about employing another young person who needs a job?

The Paralympian and the Professor

I was very glad to read in this article, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Stephen Hawking, that the professor's advocacy of assisted suicide has been intelligently challenged.  Having ALS/MND like him, I'd been disappointed to hear he'd changed his mind about it, and had thought I should write some rebuttal. However I suspect her comment carries more weight and certainly will be more noticed.

One hears all too often the "I'd put my pet out of its misery" comparison propounded by the pro-euthanasia lobby, as an example of compassion. In fact, as Dame Tanni points out, it's all too likely to be the reverse, an example of objectification. Our dog, Jess, whom we like very much, is in her sixteenth year now. Reflecting on our decision to have her put down, whenever we'll choose to make it, I reckon it will based on factors such as her becoming incontinent and incurring increasing vets' bills and probably ceasing to give us pleasure. Those are all issues to do with us and our feelings and convenience and wallets. The dog has become an object - which, to be blunt, is the relation nearly every pet has towards its owner. Human beings are different.

Dame Tanni in her racing days

I suppose a physicist may be forgiven for regarding his body as no more than a sophisticated machine or computer, to switched off and scrapped when it goes wrong or no longer serves a useful purpose. But it appears that an athlete knows better.

Human beings are not merely animals or machines. They are subjects, not objects.

"So why not allow them to choose the time of their death?" I've been asked. "Why not let them say, 'I've had enough. I want to end it all'?" I hear that question, but the professor's comparison and the paralympian's answer provide part of the answer: it opens the way to the reduction of life to something we own rather than something of which we are a part. It pushes the door ajar for others putting pressure on us to euthanise ourselves, when we get messy to care for, expensive to treat, and not good company. When that becomes the way we think about ourselves then we have lost sight of the fact the life is our greatest gift, "from life's first cry to death's final breath".

(Do read Dame Tanni's article in which she also writes about Lord Falconer's approaching House of Lords' bill, his latest attempt to legalise assisted suicide, and if you have a tame peer you might write to her or him to say what you think of it.)