Posted on 04/22/2018 6:13:57 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime
1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television Revenues
To the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)
Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended)
10. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway.. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits.. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again and again.
All we will have left that which can't be changed.......are our "Memories".
Logic is dead. Excellence is punished. Mediocrity is rewarded. And dependency is to be revered.. This is present-day North America. When crooks rob banks they go to prison. When they rob the taxpayer they get re-elected
We looked at renting a house in Ocracoke and it had a Princess phone. I said that phone is so old, you can call dead people on it.
DoodleBob, my college student son bought a subscription to a loosely organized bunch of SoCal music clubs. In doing so, he can pop in for cheap (for “free” if he delivers food on the way or way home) any night he has a couple hours free and hear all kinds of new upcoming bands. They aren’t overly famous so he can even talk to them. The other week he showed me a new t-shirt he said was the first one a Canadian band (on their first USA gig) ever sold!!!! Music is created by Gd and it will never die.
Yeah, it seems these days no one answers phones unless they are stuck in traffic. Or see that it’s super important by who is calling.
FReepers saying there is no good music being made today is like saying sex was better in 1953. It’s absolutely ridiculous to be that dismissive just because you are not exposed to exciting new music in all genres.
We have to buy the disgusting LA Times hard copy newspaper every day. If we don’t, it is a safety feature for mom with Alzheimer’s who expects it and might try to get out to go find it.
Chess or Go play by very defined sets of rules.
I am not certain that driving has such a defined rule set. Between human behavior and random events, there pretty much needs to be a reactive intelligence to be able to drive. Do we really want to make intelligent cars?
I’ve read where self-driving cars need to have human intervention every 3,000 to 90,000 miles, depending on how well they are programmed. How likely is it that a human being is going to be paying attention at the exact time he needs to intervene to prevent an accident? And even if he is paying attention at that moment, will he even have the skill to avoid the accident, since he likely only knows rudimentary driving skills? I can also see car manufacturers getting hit with huge liability lawsuits, since accidents would no longer be considered the drivers’ fault, but the fault of the manufacturer.
As I said before, I do not think self-driving cars are ready for prime-time.
Another issue is societal. As “smart” devices do more and more that humans used to be trained to do, humans just keep getting more stupid. The brain needs intellectual exercise just as much as muscles need physical exercise.
Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
The USPS makes billions. But Congress requires them to siphon it off to union pensions. Their biggest job these days is delivering e-commerce.
I use a great deal of material that is not available on the web. It is necessary to comb through sources of rare books or cough up hard cash for print-on-demand volumes.
“The point is, none of these electronic devices will stay in service long enough to make information available even ten years later.”
I have loads of archived readable data from over 30 years ago.
Sex WAS better in 1953.... ;-D
How about from 100 years ago? I have books that are relevant right now from the early 1900s, with no modern equivalent.
I also have some pretty cool stuff from the 1970s, but with no way to read the media.
“And that landline puts out a healthy 40 volts DC. There are many ways to adapt that for 12 volt DC lighting in the house and many other 12 volt applications during power outages.”
NO WAY!
Got anything on 1600 BPI nine-track reel to reel magnetic tape?
You forgot the Democrat Party.
It’s demise can’t come soon enough.
Exactly my thoughts..... Thanks
Wow. Sheesh, glad I’m old, I got to enjoy the good parts.
Thumb drives are based on FLASH memory. Those will hold their contents for twenty years. External hard drives appear to last about four years or up to its first drop.
The point I was making is that electronic media changes about as often as we change underwear. Printed books are the only true non-volatile memory at our disposal.
You could add “common decency”, but I’m afraid that’s already facing extinction..
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