Nothing is Inevitable
AI can kick rocks
Every Saturday morning from May to October makers, businesses, farmers, all wake up early and set up a booth at the farmers market. They bring out sourdough, seedlings, fresh fruits and vegetables, handmade candles, homemade jam, a heavenly variety of cheese. Locals show up with their children, their dogs, their friends, and pick up their weekly loaf or treat themselves to a breakfast sandwich and a chocolate croissant or fresh slice of banana bread. Rain or shine, they continue to show up week after week.
Southern Ontario is a wonderful spot for craft shows and markets. Organizers often partner with local wineries and people travel hours just to be a part of things. Toronto has their annual One of A Kind show, bringing in 800+ Canadian artisans and 130,000+ shoppers. Thanksgiving weekend offers a variety of markets including ARTfest and Ball's Falls Thanksgiving Festival. A few times a year, especially enjoyed at Christmastime, is the Handmade Market, a juried show with give or take 300 makers ranging from fine art painters to potters to woodworkers and more. Add to that the growing popularity of other local markets, speciality events like the Guelph Potters Market, and regular farmers markets in other towns, and there is almost always an opportunity to engage with local makers/artisans any weekend you’re here.
Knowing this it makes me extra sad when I see this attitude of AI being an inevitable future—I get extra sad when I see AI slop at some of these markets now.
As the internet landscape continues to deteriorate, the path forward I personally envision isn’t adopting AI so we don’t get “left behind”, its getting off the internet entirely and pouring ourselves back into our local community. Spending more time getting to know our neighbours, connecting with your local town, and rather than gaining more ‘followers’ we spend time finding friends. Having done a few markets now I can see how valuable connecting with other makers is, but also how impactful it is for people to be well known within their community.
It seems like as long as people have been alive there have been markets. There are records as far back as ancient Egypt depicting organized and established open air markets where people were selling their wares. As humans spread out a built infrastructure and industry, even as large scale commercial farming was established, still small markets existed and were frequented by locals. Through the Industrial Revolution, the addition of the internet, the development of having a computer in our pocket 24/7 and next day delivery, still people take the time out of their Saturday morning and buy a loaf of bread from their neighbour.
What more and more people seem to be discovering through this age of ultra convenience is that ‘fast’ and ‘quality’ rarely go hand in hand, and if for some reason they do, it’s often at a substantial exploitation of someone along the way. Yes you can order a t-shirt off Amazon for $4 and free next day delivery, but a child probably sewed that out of fabric that is essentially plastic and your delivery driver had to fight for that route just to make minimum wage working a 10 hour day. The shirt will exist for 1000 years while somehow also falling apart after the 3rd time it’s washed. The $2 grocery store bread never goes moldy, the eggs are bleached and the chickens in cages 24 hours a day. A mug at Walmart is only $7 but someone across the world is likely breathing in ceramic dust due to unsafe working conditions just so you can pay that price.
I’m not trying to guilt you, I am an Amazon customer so I bear an equal amount of responsibility in this situation. The convenience has shaped a world where monopolies exist in so many different categories, finding items locally. or even nearby, is becoming increasingly difficult. We can trick ourselves into feeling better by not shopping online, but when the only other options end up being other mega-corporations like Walmart or Home Depot or even Michaels, how much better of a choice are we really making? It’s all still coming from China or India, it’s all still padding the pockets of billionaires, its all still exploiting families to keep the price down.
This fact alone is why it’s matters so much when someone chooses to spend their money on locally grown vegetables or a handmade mug or scarf. That money goes directly back into your own community, it puts food on the table for a family, it continues to keep this local market space functioning. The items you're purchasing were made with intentionality, with care, with love. You have the ability to likely talk to the person who spent the hours learning the craft to make the product. The price might come in a little higher, but odds are the quality will as well. The sourdough will go moldy in the cabinet, the mug will show ghosts of fingerprints left in the clay, the vegetables simply taste better.
The proponents of AI, and all the AI tech bros, continue to push the idea that this is the inevitable future. They’ve wrangled celebrities into promoting AI, often using fear tactics to convince us to jump on board before its too late, but then I go to the farmers market on a Saturday morning and simply don’t believe them. I continue to witness how much better things are when you connect with your community, how much of an impact it makes when you commission an actual human artist to make something for you, how purchasing from a small business means so much more than it ever could purchasing from a mega-corporation.
I don’t believe AI is inevitable because even after decades and decades, different eras and evolutions of society, convenience ebbing and flowing, people still show up to the farmers market on a Saturday morning.