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All Systems Will Require Downtime

Brendan McCaughey
5 min readMar 22, 2019

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Digital and Biological Systems Require Downtime.

No system will run forever.

Things that we build and create, our bodies, and the very planet we live on all have cycles of uptime and downtime. This is a necessary feature of the way things are organized, and quite logical when explored. Yet, most of our reactions to downtimes in the convenient systems we use regularly are more frequently outrage rather than acceptance or understanding.

Most of us in the informationalized, and hyper-globalized world experienced some ripple effect ranging from highly significant to mild disinterest in the huge techno-glitch as Instagram and parent company Facebook experienced significant unscheduled downtime last week.

The range in reactions of the internet crowd was a wide spectrum from the hilarious to the horrifying. Many people flocked to Twitter (which was unaffected). #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown became trending topics. Countless people chimed in their dismays, despondencies, and delusions.

“Life is over!” one proclaimed.

“What do I do with my time?” another pondered.

These tweets, and online conversations, also included a self-aware voice rising up from the crowd questioning its own dependence on such systems. We mock ourselves and how much this…

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Brendan McCaughey
Brendan McCaughey

Written by Brendan McCaughey

Renaissance Man pursuing my full potential. Grew up in kitchens & hospitality, driven to ignite positive change for that industry. I love writing & creativity.

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