Ruminating on Future Past

We are a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and I STILL don’t have a flying car! I want my World Book Encyclopedia future back! We got all the Star Trek baubles and bangles to keep us distracted from the lack of Jetsons’ lifestyle.

When Zoomers see the little handset icon for “telephone,” they have no idea what that image is. They have never “dialed” a phone nor gotten a busy signal. The term “switch hook” is meaningless to them. Those are words and images without context.

When I was a kid, my father thought he could keep me from using the phone by removing the dial, but I was part of the “new tech” generation. I knew I could dial the phone by clicking the switch hook, with brief pauses between numbers. I was a junior in high school when Southwestern Bell introduced “kids’ lines” so dad never missed a call. Empire of Lies Craig Roberts, Paul Check Amazon for Pricing.

Now to play with dad’s phone, a kid has to get past the PIN, thumb print and face scan, until the kid spoofs dad into downloading a cloning app and gets past all the “parental controls”.

I’m pretty up-to-date with technology. I have a high-powered workstation (now called a “gaming rig”) with all the latest versions of Adobe and Corel and Office, and I even have Windows 11 version 24H2. I run my own AI using a customized LLM with 10TB of local storage. Despite all that, I still hold the phone up to my eye to take photos. I have a collection of great pictures of my retina.

For New Year’s Eve, we gathered the gang and went to some hip new Japanese sushi joint. For the menu, I scanned a QR code embedded in the table top. After ordering, a little choo-choo train delivered the food to our table. When we were done, I selected “Pay Now” on my phone and a little bill printed out at the table with another QR code. I waved my phone over it and the funds were automatically transferred.

We never saw a human employee, yet there was the standard 10% service charge on the bill. Who do I complain to?

I noted that I was charged a 200-rupiah Carbon Guilt Tax, because our drinks were delivered in plastic cups, with heat-sealed plastic lids and a paper straw wrapped in plastic that couldn’t puncture the lid and dissolved in my tea. For a refill, I had to repeat the whole ordeal with a phone order and the little choo-choo delivery system.

In the bad old days, a waitress refilled my reusable glass from a reusable pitcher. Is it just me, or does anyone else see how dysfunctional our 21st century world has become?

Of course, the clan all sat at the table in complete silence with their faces buried in their phones. They were taking photos of the food and snapping them to each other, while tapping jokes and occasionally laughing out loud for no apparent reason, at least to my eyes and ears.

It occurred to me that no one needed to talk, since they were all in constant communication with each other 25/8, and had no stories to tell that they hadn’t already blasted out to the universe.

I thought about the Dark Ages, when ATMs first came out. I remember being amazed that I could jump in my car in the middle of the night, drive half-way across the city to find the one ATM that accepted my card, and get cash anytime, day or night, holiday or not.

10-Minute Strength Tra... Deboo PT, Ed Check Amazon for Pricing. At some point in the early 90s, I stopped going to the bank altogether. I didn’t even remember which branch I opened my account at. I just popped into the nearest 24-hour Squat ‘n’ Gobble store and I was flush again, provided I didn’t get robbed on the way back to the car. I haven’t used an ATM in over five years.

I thought about the days when we dialed “0” and got a real human operator. We would tell her (it was almost always a her) that we wanted to make a station-to-station, person-to-person, or collect call, and through a complex process of switches and gears, we could pay outrageous sums of money for a “long distance call”. Now we can have free instant live video chats with anyone in the world from anywhere in the world.

I don’t see that it’s improved life much, and in fact now I have to get half dressed and brush my hair for every call. I liked it better when no one could see I was in the powder room, or not at the office.

To celebrate the New Year, Mrs. FarSide and I went to bed about 10p. I watched a movie until the phone fell out of my hand and hit me in the forehead. When the fireworks started in front of the house, I rolled over and pinched Mrs. FarSide’s nose until she stopped snoring, and then went back to sleep.

Not quite the party animal I once was.

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