What's something modern you won't miss when it becomes obsolete?

[LizzieMaine]

Cell phones. I have hated telephones of all varieties my whole life, and consider them to be a necessary evil. And cell phones have been the instrument that allows most humans to exhibit the most abhorrent social behavior, yet claim the rest of us are being "rude" when we point out how rude these cell phone users are being. I clearly have no idea what the next incarnation of this hellish device will be, but I sincerely hope that we as a society do a better job of figuring out how to balance the use of such a device against face-to-face interaction with the people around us in those moments.

Still holding out. Never owned any kind of a mobile device, and never intend to. They said "how can you live without it" twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago, and five years ago, and I'm still living without it just fine.

 

[tonyb]

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a coworker going on 30 years ago. He offered that he saw no reason to ever have a computer. Another coworker and I told him it would likely get to a point before long that he would need one, much in the way he needed a car — necessary to fully function in this economy and culture.

We didn’t foresee the smartphone, which is essentially a computer you carry in your pocket. It’s a world-changing technology. I pay my bills on it, order and pay for my groceries and all order of merchandise on it. I do my banking on it, look up just about everything I wish to know on it. I can’t recall when I last had to give or receive driving directions. Et cetera.

I got dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. I got an email address when it was necessary to my continuing employment. I got a cell phone about the same time, for the same reason (and others). I’ve had the same cell number and email address for nearly three decades now.

I’m not blind to the effects of digital technologies on our ways of knowing and thinking. Lots of superficial “knowledge” these days, and lots of people thinking they know more than they actually do. But I won’t go back, in no small part because I can’t.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

if I used my cel and its expensive long distance charges it might end up costing the same....so we keep it. Nobody phones me except telemarketers thought!

Wow! I didn't know that cell carriers charged for long distance. None I have ever used did. Is it a different regulatory regime in Canada that permits/requires this, or do you have the wrong carrier?

 

[belfastboy]

Wow! I didn't know that cell carriers charged for long distance. None I have ever used did. Is it a different regulatory regime in Canada that permits/requires this, or do you have the wrong carrier?

I think depending on your plan....some include a set number of LD minutes. I have a $10 a month plan that includes 50 minutes of local talk....that is it and most months I don't know where my damn is located and I can't phone it to find out as the battery is dead. I keep the cel phone as I use it when we travel....getting a local sim card so we have internet access and a GPS.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a coworker going on 30 years ago. He offered that he saw no reason to ever have a computer. Another coworker and I told him it would likely get to a point before long that he would need one, much in the way he needed a car — necessary to fully function in this economy and culture.

We didn’t foresee the smartphone, which is essentially a computer you carry in your pocket. It’s a world-changing technology. I pay my bills on it, order and pay for my groceries and all order of merchandise on it. I do my banking on it, look up just about everything I wish to know on it. I can’t recall when I last had to give or receive driving directions. Et cetera.

I got dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. I got an email address when it was necessary to my continuing employment. I got a cell phone about the same time, for the same reason (and others). I’ve had the same cell number and email address for nearly three decades now.

I’m not blind to the effects of digital technologies on our ways of knowing and thinking. Lots of superficial “knowledge” these days, and lots of people thinking they know more than they actually do. But I won’t go back, in no small part because I can’t.

For me it's a firm conviction that the place for a computer is on my desk, not in my pocket. There's nothing I need to do that I can't do at my desk or would be better served by doing while standing in line at Hannafid's. There's nothing online -- not a single thing -- that I need to know or do With Such Immediacy that it can't wait till I'm at my desk. And that's the gist of it for me -- the one thing I very actively resent about "mobile culture" is that it's created this sensibility that everything has to be done NOW, regardless of where or when NOW happens to be. No---it---DOESN'T. Whatever it is -- IT CAN WAIT. There's absolutely no feeling in life so completely liberating as knowing that.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Alas, there are things you just plain can’t do these days without a smartphone.

Over the past year or so I’ve done much of my grocery (and other) shopping on my iPhone. I could place the order(s) on a desktop, I suppose (but I can’t honestly attest to that), but the store communicates via their app, to ask my okay for substitutions, etc. On my iPhone I let them know I’m on my way, and on my iPhone I let them know I’ve arrived, and the store workers (unionized, I’m pleased to report) bring my purchases out to my car. Can’t do any of that on a desktop.

There are few circumstances under which a person ought be obligated to answer her phone or respond to a text. I frequently ignore my phone. If the matter is truly important, the caller can leave a message.

 

[MisterCairo]

^^^^^
Alas, there are things you just plain can’t do these days without a smartphone.

Over the past year or so I’ve done much of my grocery (and other) shopping on my iPhone. I could place the order(s) on a desktop, I suppose (but I can’t honestly attest to that), but the store communicates via their app, to ask my okay for substitutions, etc. On my iPhone I let them know I’m on my way, and on my iPhone I let them know I’ve arrived, and the store workers (unionized, I’m pleased to report) bring my purchases out to my car. Can’t do any of that on a desktop.

There are few circumstances under which a person ought be obligated to answer her phone or respond to a text. I frequently ignore my phone. If the matter is truly important, the caller can leave a message.

At the risk of sounding like a jerk, have you tried grocery shopping in person? I am 53, near 54, and even in the midst of a pandemic, I have never shopped for food using a phone.

Perhaps not the best example of why a smart phone is an absolute necessity.

 

[tonyb]

At the risk of sounding like a jerk, have you tried grocery shopping in person? I am 53, near 54, and even in the midst of a pandemic, I have never shopped for food using a phone.

Perhaps not the best example of why a smart phone is an absolute necessity.

You’ve never let it stop you before.

And yes, I know how to go into a store and make my purchases that way. I was doing that before you were born, and I did that very thing this afternoon. And I know how to make purchases online because I’m living in 2021.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
Alas, there are things you just plain can’t do these days without a smartphone.

Over the past year or so I’ve done much of my grocery (and other) shopping on my iPhone. I could place the order(s) on a desktop, I suppose (but I can’t honestly attest to that), but the store communicates via their app, to ask my okay for substitutions, etc. On my iPhone I let them know I’m on my way, and on my iPhone I let them know I’ve arrived, and the store workers (unionized, I’m pleased to report) bring my purchases out to my car. Can’t do any of that on a desktop.

There are few circumstances under which a person ought be obligated to answer her phone or respond to a text. I frequently ignore my phone. If the matter is truly important, the caller can leave a message.

My 'career' job in technical sales (flow control) started in the mid 1980's. The president of the Canadian operation was the best leader/visionary I ever worked under. He used to regale the salesforce about the coming day when we would all drive vans as mobile offices. We would have our car mounted cel phone and an attached fax machine so where ever we had a cel signal we could be in touch with head office and never have to report to the office in person. Little did he realize that his vision would come to reality and be exceeded by many magnitudes in a few short years. His vision seems so limited and quaint compared to present reality of having a computer in our pocket with a staggering scope.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
The Internet and the appliances we use to access it have made obsolete some occupations and made possible (or at least much more feasible) new ones.

Lyft and Uber won’t work without smartphones. It’s been poison to the taxicab industry, but it’s a much better way for the customers to get where they wish to be.

Artisans in niche fields find their customers online, and vice-versa. As our old friend Art Fawcett put it to me in a phone conversation well over a decade ago, you either get aboard that train or you get run over by it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They rolled out that shop-by-phone deal at my neighborhood store just before the pandemic, but the way I shop I don't see a lot of need for it. I usually hit the store once a day, on my way home from work, and just pick up the one or two things I need for supper that night, and living less than half a mile from the store, it's not that big a deal to just walk over and back.

As far as shopping online goes, most of what I do there is picking up used books or stuff I need to fix something eighty years old via eBay. I do next to no "retail" shopping online, because there's nothing I particularly need or use or am even especially interested in there.

I've never used an Uber in my life. Aside from the philosophical objections I have to the whole idea of the way the company does business, they don't exist here. So it's kinda moot...

 

[WonkyBloke]

I carry an old 3G mobile, but refuse to carry a smart phone. No apps, no stalker media, no payment systems, no GPS. My phone has a removable battery too, which is the safest kind of off-switch in today's world. I can call for help if I need to, but nobody is tracking me otherwise.

 

[tonyb]

They rolled out that shop-by-phone deal at my neighborhood store just before the pandemic, but the way I shop I don't see a lot of need for it. I usually hit the store once a day, on my way home from work, and just pick up the one or two things I need for supper that night, and living less than half a mile from the store, it's not that big a deal to just walk over and back.

As far as shopping online goes, most of what I do there is picking up used books or stuff I need to fix something eighty years old via eBay. I do next to no "retail" shopping online, because there's nothing I particularly need or use or am even especially interested in there.

I've never used an Uber in my life. Aside from the philosophical objections I have to the whole idea of the way the company does business, they don't exist here. So it's kinda moot...

In the Before Times I shopped much as you do -- I often dropped the lovely missus downtown and swung into a supermarket (a couple of them are right on the route back home) and picked up what I needed for that night's dinner. But she's been working from home for 14 months as of yesterday and has been quite clear in her view that I take as few opportunities to be exposed to the virus as reasonably possible. This was of more concern when cases were spiking and vaccines were not yet available. (I got my second Moderna on April 6.)

As to Uber et al ...

Yeah, it's easy to object to the model from a "labor" perspective, but it's really no more exploitative of the workers than the taxicab industry has been in most American locales for many decades now. I'm highly sympathetic to the immigrant fellow who paid some hundreds of thousands for a taxicab medallion a few years ago that's worth a very small fraction of that today. For him, that really sucks. Uber and Lyft were operating in clear violation of many cities' ordinances, but there was little political will to enforce because the riding public clearly preferred the service over the taxicab operations. Better vehicles, more timely service, and generally less expensive (a lot less, in most cases). It's much more efficient.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a lot of things the public prefers that I find morally objectionable -- Uberism, Amazon, the billionaire cult, consumption-driven society in general. So I don't give them my support or my money. Simple as that. Doesn't make any difference to them, but it does to me.

 

[crawlinkingsnake]

Facebook!!!!!!!!

 

[tonyb]

There's a lot of things the public prefers that I find morally objectionable -- Uberism, Amazon, the billionaire cult, consumption-driven society in general. So I don't give them my support or my money. Simple as that. Doesn't make any difference to them, but it does to me.

Ever ridden in a taxicab? Bought produce at the supermarket?

If so, chances are excellent you have supported that which you find morally objectionable.

Being of the struggling class myself (not a single wealthy person in my family tree), my perspective on these matters isn’t far removed from yours.

A few days ago I stopped into a Walmart, which I very rarely do. (Kroger and Safeway are both union shops, and as such they get 90-plus percent of my grocery budget.) But it was late and we were running out of milk and the Walmart is only six-tenths of a mile from here. The gallon of non-fat I bought there was $2.19. The two gallons I bought at King Soopers (Kroger) yesterday were $2.50 each.

That’s a significant difference, and for people living on tight budgets, a difference that truly matters. I can’t fault such people for shopping at Walmart. Are they agents of their own subjugation? I suppose they are. But their immediate needs trump such considerations.

EDIT: Seen a modern dairy operation? Getting that milk to the supermarket shelf at those prices necessitates what we now call “factory farming.” Some find that morally indefensible, too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

None of us can avoid the system one hundred percent as long as we're compelled to live in it, but you can also do without a lot you think you can't possibly do without once you realize most of it is merely habit that's been ground into you by incessant propaganda from The Boys.

It's pretty easy to avoid "factory farming" stuff around here, if you know where to look, and if you're willing to accept that you will not be getting certain things when they're out of season. And I don't mean buying into the bourgie "boutique grocery" trend, which, fortunately, has made only slight local inroads. The farmers' market is always a good spot to get what you need, especially if you only need small quantities. Everybody here knows somebody who has a few chickens, or does home canning, or whatever.

I actually consume very little milk. I might buy a pint bottle once a month or so to cook with, but I don't ordinarily have it in the house because I have trouble digesting it. I can't remember the last time I actually had a quart of milk in the refrigerator, but it was probably five or six years ago.

Willingly embracing a "lower standard of material living" than many here would find acceptable isn't something everybody can bring themselves to do, but it works for me. With my burden of medical bills, I would find it impossible to live a "modern standard of material living" anyway, so it certainly helps that I have no desire to do so.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
The Internet and the appliances we use to access it have made obsolete some occupations and made possible (or at least much more feasible) new ones.

Lyft and Uber won’t work without smartphones. It’s been poison to the taxicab industry, but it’s a much better way for the customers to get where they wish to be.

Artisans in niche fields find their customers online, and vice-versa. As our old friend Art Fawcett put it to me in a phone conversation well over a decade ago, you either get aboard that train or you get run over by it.

My wife and I have become big fans of Uber. We travel the US in our motorhome and don't tow a vehicle. When in a town (we avoid big cities) and if transit is not possible we use Uber. It works so well, the drivers are invariably interesting and are great tour guides. Works out cheaper than the expense of a second vehicle, insurance etc and the hassle of towing something.

 

[WonkyBloke]

@tonyb @LizzieMaine I can very closely relate to this conversation. Five year ago, comfortable and care free. Two years ago, I had to chose between eating and heating the house everyday. Now, I can have the occasional luxury, so long as I'm minimalistic elsewhere.

 

[tonyb]

None of us can avoid the system one hundred percent as long as we're compelled to live in it, but you can also do without a lot you think you can't possibly do without once you realize most of it is merely habit that's been ground into you by incessant propaganda from The Boys.

It's pretty easy to avoid "factory farming" stuff around here, if you know where to look, and if you're willing to accept that you will not be getting certain things when they're out of season. And I don't mean buying into the bourgie "boutique grocery" trend, which, fortunately, has made only slight local inroads. The farmers' market is always a good spot to get what you need, especially if you only need small quantities. Everybody here knows somebody who has a few chickens, or does home canning, or whatever.

I actually consume very little milk. I might buy a pint bottle once a month or so to cook with, but I don't ordinarily have it in the house because I have trouble digesting it. I can't remember the last time I actually had a quart of milk in the refrigerator, but it was probably five or six years ago.

Willingly embracing a "lower standard of material living" than many here would find acceptable isn't something everybody can bring themselves to do, but it works for me. With my burden of medical bills, I would find it impossible to live a "modern standard of material living" anyway, so it certainly helps that I have no desire to do so.

What’s feasible in small-town Maine plainly isn’t in the major cities and their metropolitan areas, where the large majority of us live these days.

Economies of scale are real. I’m guessing there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 million mouths to feed in this country, if we include the uncounted, and more than seven billion in the world. Are there ways to get adequate nutrition to all those humans other than agriculture on an industrial scale? Can we suburbanites plant food crops in place of grass lawns? I suppose we could, but I remain skeptical. My wife’s sister, who tends toward magical thinking, has an elaborate vegetable garden in her backyard in Tacoma — raised beds and all that. It’s pretty nice, judging from the photos. She says she’ll save lotsa money by growing so much of her own produce. I don’t wish to pop her bubble