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“When we all have pocket telephones”

openculture.com

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Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#101

Post by nonameiguess »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #90
eesmith wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face" Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that there are other taxes. My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support their claim. Do you have better data?

This reminds me of the guy who lost his keys. He was looking by the street light when his friend asked him if he lost his keys by the light. "No, I lost them over by my car, but it's too dark to see anything over there." Here is a graph from wikipedia that shows that taxes in the US are in total about as high as they have ever been (which was 2000). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%... You…

This still directly contradicts the original claim, though. This graphic shows aggregate tax burden was at its highest ever in the late 90s and is currently on a slight downward trend. "About as high" isn't great if you hate taxes, but it isn't what was being disputed.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#102

Post by godshatter »

usrusr wrote: post #45

That blog post seems weirdly anachronistic: that cartoon might have predicted 2005 astonishingly well, but in 2022, how often do we really use our phones for two-way real-time audio? How often do you actually hear a ringtone begging for immediate attention?

> How often do you actually hear a ringtone begging for immediate attention?

More than I would like. Apparently there is a problem with my SSN and my warranty is about to expire.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#103

Post by mbg721 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #7

Lately, stand-up comedians have been saying they're out of a job, because the absurdity of reality is escaping parody. Nothing stays funny for long, because soon enough it's true, and then banal. In a world where all things are absurd, ipso facto nothing is absurd. An interesting question becomes what remains? What are the solid relations that underpin our humanity? Having a boss that tells you what to do? No, long s…

I'm not sure if it's related to or orthogonal to everything actually being absurd, but there has been a decades-long trend of America/the West taking longstanding elements of culture less and less seriously, just as a matter of fashion. That removes a lot of the low-hanging fruit for comedians.

Decades ago, acts like Monty Python or Allan Sherman were subversive; now they might still be kind of funny, but certainly not shocking. When you have generations that grew up on self-conscious irony, where the way to be cool was not to be seen caring about anything, it's harder to make comedy stick.

Politicians and religious figures may not be any more or less corrupt and out-of-touch than they always were, but now they can gain enough support to keep their jobs without anyone actually taking them seriously, and that's where the self-parody comes in.

I wouldn't say comedy is failing because the source material is too ridiculous, I would say it's failing because the audience is a tough crowd.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#104

Post by _thisdot »

I remember when I was young, my dad came out of a Parent-Teacher meeting and showed his flip phone which showed 40 missed calls from work. He worked as a lead programmer in a bank which was very new to Internet Banking.

He was clearly annoyed with the calls, but as a kid I was amused and a little jealous of the fact that in such a short time so many people wanted to get hold of him. I also remember signing up for all kind of email newsletters just to get more emails!

Have to admire the vision of this artist in an age when even land lines weren't in wide use!

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#105

Post by seydor »

bsza wrote: post #5
huseyinkeles wrote: post #2

what's more interesting to me is at the date of this comic, even the landline phones were not fully adopted :)

Yet it predicted the future more accurately than Blade Runner (1982) where people still use pay phones in 2019.

And rotary phones in the matrix. I mean it s not like people don't buy record players. The cities of our future will have payphones out of boredom

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#106

Post by a_wild_dandan »

trashtester wrote: post #92
jsrcout wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be stunned if there aren't well-funded groups working on this as we speak.

It's already deployed to some extent medically. As for the dystopian applications, I would not be suprised if there are some dr Mengele wannabies in some dark corners of the world experimenting with how to control prison inmates or similar "disposable" people using such tech.

> It's already deployed to some extent medically.

Can you say more about this?

I wonder what's feasible in the near future. I recall excitedly watching a Gabe Newell interview on BCI. Having struggled with major depression and anxiety, his speculation on using BCI to control sleep/mood/etc seemed like a mental panacea. Of course, with that level of control over one's brain, my delight about potential emotional stabilization feels akin to lionizing computers as a newfangled bookkeeping tool -- while true, it's comically myopic.

Here's a hard turn into wild speculation for ya: The Great Filter is either 1) endosymbiosis or 2) inventing BCI.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#107

Post by quickthrower2 »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #84

> Now, increasingly, cellphones are * day-to-day life* . Far from the literal “pocket telephones” envisioned a century ago, they’ve worked their way into nearly every aspect of human existence, including those Haselden could never have considered. It is now essential to be considered part of the society, to the point that someone who does not want to or cannot carry a cell phone is sneered at. Anecdotally, I was in t…

Joined a gym and they me to install an app and did a walkthrough. They way they asked was as if they were just asking me to pose for a photo, as if it was barely a request. I wonder what theyd say if I refused or said I had no phone.

Also during covid scares the inconvenience of not having SMS and QR would have been insane.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#108

Post by germinalphrase »

mbg721 wrote: post #103
nonrandomstring wrote: post #7

Lately, stand-up comedians have been saying they're out of a job, because the absurdity of reality is escaping parody. Nothing stays funny for long, because soon enough it's true, and then banal. In a world where all things are absurd, ipso facto nothing is absurd. An interesting question becomes what remains? What are the solid relations that underpin our humanity? Having a boss that tells you what to do? No, long s…

I'm not sure if it's related to or orthogonal to everything actually being absurd, but there has been a decades-long trend of America/the West taking longstanding elements of culture less and less seriously, just as a matter of fashion. That removes a lot of the low-hanging fruit for comedians. Decades ago, acts like Monty Python or Allan Sherman were subversive; now they might still be kind of funny, but certainly n…

“I wouldn't say comedy is failing because the source material is too ridiculous, I would say it's failing because the audience is a tough crowd”

We are certainly a more ‘educated’ crowd living completely awash in content.

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#109

Post by quickthrower2 »

darkwater wrote: post #9

I think the joke is still good, because it's still a bad manner to have your phone ringing and buzzing in many situations (a concert, at the opera etc). I mean, it's actually an impressive comic, it imagines a possible future tech and correctly identifies some real misuses, 70-80 years before it became reality.

It is great. I think they got there by extrapolating a home phone interrupting dinner table conversations, and similar. The urgency of a ringing phone dominating all else. Like a fire alarm alerting that this is the most important conversation to be had!

Re: “When we all have pocket telephones”

#110

Post by enedil »

Buttons840 wrote: post #100
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #84

> Now, increasingly, cellphones are * day-to-day life* . Far from the literal “pocket telephones” envisioned a century ago, they’ve worked their way into nearly every aspect of human existence, including those Haselden could never have considered. It is now essential to be considered part of the society, to the point that someone who does not want to or cannot carry a cell phone is sneered at. Anecdotally, I was in t…

I've wondered, as wealth inequality grows, perhaps the poorest among us simple won't have enough money to exchange for goods. "Sorry, you don't have enough money to make a haircut worth my time, but if you let me invade your privacy and show you ads until the end of time, that will be valuable enough to exchange for a haircut. Read and sign this 200 page contract and I'll go get a chair ready." See also essential sof…

I doubt that if somebody cannot afford a haircut, their data would be that pricey.
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