The System sucks. I don't know if we're better off now in the age of technology automated processes than we were thirty of forty years ago. Before we had The System there was a little flexibility and some discretion. Sometimes that flexibility could be abused, like a friend at the local police station might help lose your traffic violation papers or have a quiet word in the ear of the traffic cop that issued the ticket, or like when your cousin at the housing department would bend the rules a little and try to make sure that you got the best apartment available and ahead of others on the waiting list in front of you, and many more examples of how we used to be able to 'work' the old System.

Nowadays The System sees everything, its central computer's got a record of your traffic violation moments after you were stopped for having a faulty tail-light and its now only The System that decides who gets which apartment and when, all on its own. It follows rules to a fault.

"It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear." The Terminator

David Weinberger cites an example of where The System's devotion to accuracy can be interpreted by us humans as unfair.

But it's not all bad. Some people think that one day our refrigerators will be wired up to The System. So that when we're running low on milk it'll ping off a message to your local supermarket and a fresh order of milk will be added to your list or even delivered immediately depending on your preferences. Taking that a step further, the fact that you've run out of milk will be shared with the milk dairy's own system allowing them to gauge overall milk supplies to the stores. Or butter, bread, red wine or shampoo.

It's easy to envisage a time when something akin to chaos theory comes into effect; you have a hard day at the office, you lost a deal but you won another big one - the circumstances surrounding these outcomes are the subject of another chaos theorem altogether but anyway, you arrive home tired and decide to celebrate with a bottle of fine red wine. Your web-connected wine rack pings off a message to the store the moment you remove the bottle from the holder. This in turn pings off a message to the national HQ which has an arrangement whereby it shares this information with the wine importer who deals directly with the vineyard in Sauvignon, France.

It just so happens that your one bottle of wine is enough to tip that quarter's automated sales forecast calculation, this good news is delivered to the vineyard owner's mobile phone as an SMS message just as he's about to decide whether or not to sign a deal with some VC people to fund the expansion of his business. He's so happy with the sales forecast that decides to sign, securing employment for for a further 150 people in his local community. Just because you had a good day at work.

But that's a relatively simple and straightforward series of triggers after the event. What about the vineyards' systems pre-empting the fact that you were going to have a good day at work that day?

Pre-emptive supply chain management - that's the killer system.

It might run as an applet in your company e-mail system, monitoring your messages, searching for content that plots a discernable course directly to your mood that day. Or simply looks out for messages from your wife suggesting that you pick up some milk on the way home. It would scour your voicemails, looking for patterns, it would listen to your voice, is it dry? is he thirsty? Is she in a good mood? Is she depressed? If so, better bump up on the chocolate orders from Switzerland.