Technology and Scientific Knowledge are moving faster than our Legal Systems or Value Systems can adapt. The increase in conflict and strife on this planet is, in part, due to this. Would that we could adapt our Legal and Value Systems to the new knowledge peace would be ever so much closer.
Anxiety and stress of the old guard over the new ideas and knowledge reminds one of the time when Galileo Galilei was tried by the Inquisition headed by Pope Urban VIII and forced to recant his new knowledge and live out his life under house arrest.
Those things disappearing before our very eyes are:
THE POST OFFICE
Email, Fed Ex and UPS have all but replaced the Post Office. Just take a look at what you receive in the actual mail each day and then think back several years. Gone are the days of waiting for the Post Man to deliver some special news……now we can Facebook, Tweet, Email and Text all that news within seconds……..
THE NEWSPAPER
The younger generation simply does not read the newspaper. They certainly do not subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. Soon news will all be delivered on line…….for a fee. Newspaper and magazine publishers have formed an alliance that has been meeting with Apple, Amazon and major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
THE CHECK
Britain already has plans to do away with the check by 2018. Plastic Cards and on-line transaction will save the financial system billions of dollars the check processing costs. This goes hand-in-hand with the disappearance of the Post Office. If you did not receive bills by mail or pay them by mail, there would no longer be a need for the post office.
THE BOOK
I must confess that this one pains me the most. I love books, especially used ones that have passed through the hands of many readers. There is nothing that brings me more joy that to read on old cookbook and find notes by those who have prepared the recipe before me and added their own notations. It is apparent that the book is going fast. Whenever I travel, I am usually the only person who is reading from paper.
My dear blogger friend The Coastal Crone has written a beautiful tribute to the book and I invite you to go and read it ………and weep as I have. Click Here for Her Marvelous Story
THE LAND LINE TELEPHONE
The land line telephone really has no purpose anymore. I can remember when I was young and we had the marvelous party line. Our ring was “two short and one long” I still have the marvelous work and wonder of the crank phone that was installed in our farm-house that is now oer 100 years old. Were times simpler then?
MUSIC
The Music Industry is dying a slow death. Over 40% of music purchased today is “catalogue items”meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. The music industry is full of greed and corruption. Record labels and radio conglomerates are self-destructing because innovative new music is not being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.
Click HERE to watch a video documentary “Before the Music Dies”
TELEVISION
Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Revenues to networks are down dramatically. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.
THE “THINGS” THAT YOU OWN
Apple, Microsoft and Google are all finishing up their latest “Cloud Services” That means that when you turn on your computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies and documents. In the future these items will reside in “the cloud.” If you save something, it will be saved to the CLOUD. The good news is that you will be able to access any of your “stuff” from any handheld device; however, will you actually own it? Nostalgia will be remembering those days when you ran to the closet to pull out the photo album, grab a book from the shelf or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
I, for one, would like to go back to Kansas again……….
