Things That Will Soon Disappear?
The other day I read an article on msn.com about 10 things they believe will soon disappear forever.
One of them was power outages. They said that our electrical grid will become increasingly intelligent and resilient, and that blackouts for homes and businesses will become a thing of the past.
After nearly falling off my chair in shock, I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.
I hate to break it to MSN, but the electrical grid is not going to become more resilient. It gets weaker every day. And blackouts are not only occurring more often these days, they are lasting longer than ever before.
As if the grid weakening was not a huge problem in and of itself. But now we can add an increasing number of threats to this situation.
The vulnerable grid is being hammered every day by cyber attacks. Occasionally it gets hit with physical attacks. And the increasingly extreme weather we experience all across the country is doing a slow but steady number on the grid.
No, power outages will definitely NOT disappear in the near future. They will get worse and only those who have prepared for this scenario will be able to survive it.
So, what else did the writer of the article say would disappear? Well, some of their predictions were a little more realistic that their misguided power outage suggestion.
For example…
- Fast food workers. They will be largely replaced by machines, especially as fast food restaurant owners try to deal with the rising minimum wage.
- Manual transmissions. They seem to be on the way out. Very few young people these days are leaning how to drive a stick shift vehicle.
- Physical books. More and more people – especially younger people – are showing a preference for reading digital text on their phones, electronic readers or laptops rather than carrying books around.
- Who writes letters anymore? Seems like almost all non-face-to-face communications these days are via email, texting or phone.
- Incandescent light bulbs. This is a no-brainer. It’s illegal to even manufacture most of them anymore.
- Don’t get me started on this. Unfortunately, it’s already gone for most of us.
Welcome to the 21st Century. There are changes happening everywhere for various reasons, some good some bad. That is progress.
I went to a store to look for a Bic pen. They are cheap, dependable, long lasting. But, they are hard to find, and if you do find them, they are no longer cheap. LET GO OF MY WALLET!!!
The art of conversation has changed. No one wants to listen to you because they already know what you are going to say before it leaves your lips. Most young people prefer for you to text them. This way they can go about their business without having a conversation about a specific topic. As an old fart, I rather say what I want to communicate than to text what I meant to say. I have a hard time seeing the screen and spelling words when the cell phone tries to interpret I what I really wanted to say.
My kids and their kids all have cell phones. I still have my good old telephone attached to the wall. (Also known as a landline). Their phones take pictures and a 5 – 10 second video movie. I use my old 35mm camera. Now it costs me as much to have the film developed as it does to purchase new film. Yet, I get beautiful pictures that I can put in a photo album. With a cell phone, it can be lost, stolen, of damaged before you can down load your photographs to your computer.
With my photograph album I get to share the stories behind the picture. The grand kids love that.
So with a leg stuck in the 20th Century and the other in the 21st, I can see how the changes will be good as well as missed.
NO SHIT!
I think it’s sad that many young people don’t know what a “stick shift” is. I’ll bet less than 10% know what “3 on the tree” means.