Now I think most of my efficiencies, my peers’ efficiencies, organizational and government efficiencies are built on (“dependency”) some technologies. Dependency and efficiency might be the two sides of a coin.  In economics, another team for efficiency is productivity, largely correlated with technology. In this blogpost, I choose to focus on a specific theme “efficiency^dependency”, to avoid creating a vague, boundless blogpost.

Economics is about choices. If a /resource/ provides a new choice to achieve a goal, vs an older choice, then we compare the two choices in cost and benefits. I propose an acid test — A dependency is an _unhealthy_ choice if either
– costly .. more costly than alternatives, in t$
– or not dependable .. [including unavailable] in some important contexts

Q2: does it matter if no one else depends on this thing?
A: not much beyond my 2 criteria. The self-learning endeavor is slightly resource intensive.
.. Jolt: Most people in my community are not serious about this endeavor so they make do with a tiny screen ! This is similar to my attitude on cooking — I make do with simple healthy food as I don’t care about taste.

Q3: does it matter that the dependency tends to weaken our self-resilience? Walking stick is low-cost but not always available.
A: Yes I have seen it throughout my life and I try to reduce the weakness. But ..
.. Jolt: Consider King’s speech.. his dependency on his speech therapist makes him resilient rather than weak. The King is a symbol of fortitude. Costly and imperfect availability, but he has no better choice.

• eg: 5-laptop set-up .. (all active). It sounds like over-dependency, but I would argue that the incremental benefit/cost is favorable at each acquisition. Cost and dependability both acceptable.
• eg: dependency on office/McDonald/MRT as /harbors/ .. enhance my self-care, well-being. Cost tolerable. When unavailable, I was coping with some difficulty.
• — blogging, learning .. See Q2
• eg: printout for work/learning .. (in general). It does enhance my efficiency, proven over 20Y. When availability is a non-issue, this dependency is tolerable.
• eg: 2-printer home set-up… does enhance my efficiency. See separate blogpost
• eg: printout for paper-blogging .. does enhance my efficiency. (In this example, I want to focus on printout for _blogging_.) Consider the cost and reliability of basic printers, I feel this dependency is lower than the online-blogger’s dependency or the offline blogger’s dependency.
• eg: my dependency on books .. inexpensive but not always available. I functioned well without books.
• — wellness, where (jolt –> ) the “cost” of managing ill health is much higher
• eg: yoga studio. See separate blogpost likes [21] 3M$450 PlatinumYoga reboot
• eg: see the blogpost on $7.50 salad
• eg: With dental hygiene, I rely on frequent dental scaling to compensate for flossing. The t$cost@scaling is tolerable in SG but will someday become less available, and resemble the yoga situation.
• eg: The jogger backpack enhances convenience at a small cost. The purist can say it is an unnecessary convenience, but I disagree. See also Q2.
• — economies
• eg: SG and many governments rely on e-gov technologies .. efficient. Not costly when you consider the efficiency benefits.
• eg: many economies have a serious dependendency on fossil fuel. Questionable Dependability. However, the alternative solutions are often more costly and less dependable.

— eg: tuition centers… Many say “unreliable” because sooner or later we must become self-motivated. Well, how about dependency on school?
Many adults still choose to go back to school and learn something, including me, Rahul, 金庸. The alternative of self-learning is neither efficient or effective.