Small incident, small village, big insights

Monday morning, after dreadful terrorist attacks around the world.

Walking in a small village, noticing someone lying on the floor.  Possibly a drunk person.

Walking back, now there is a small crowd, providing some encouragement to the person and asking questions.

I join the crowd and ask the person how s/he feels.  S/he looks back and asks for us to call his/her partner.  

One of the crowd member says we have to wait for an ambulance to come.  The person in question reacts angrily.  Other members of the crowd say it is better for this person to let the paramedics check him/her.

I offer to buy a coffee, the person refuses.  It seems we are not listening to the individual in question. 

And then the interesting bit (that motivated this post):  Someone else joins the crowd and asks if we can give a mobile phone number.  So the paramedics can call directly.

At this point I leave the crowd.  Not because I become disinterested.  But because the crowd dissolves.  The person walks out, asks to be alone, no apparent injury noticed.  

But also because now all of us feel we need to stop being a crowd and become what we are: individuals.

The paranoid data seeking state in which we live in (you can check my previous post) breaks crowds, dissolves masses, it can make us rethink our own values and walk away. 

Yes, health/ social services needed a mobile phone, they need the individual to stand out from the crowd.  My previous experience with health and social services in the country where I live is that data requests will come after the individual(s).  

A log has to be created.  A record needs to exist of the incident.  So that someone in distress (or with criminal behavior) enters our sophisticated data systems. So that someone who also reported the incident can be contacted later.

I am not an expert on health or social services.  But what I see is that data is taking over common sense, if it has not done so already.