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More E-mail, Fewer Mailboxes
mikesd81 writes "Over at the Baltimore Sun there is an article about the post office removing those blue corner mail boxes because of e-mail. From the article: 'As more people send e-mails and pay bills online, the decline in first-class mail is forcing the U.S. Postal Service to remove tens of thousands of underused mailboxes from city streets.' The article goes on to say that the boxes were an American icon: 'You recognize them in Chicago, you recognize them in D.C., you recognize them in Florida, you recognize them in Montana,' Pope said. 'It's a piece of American iconography that has a wonderful history behind it.'" What the article forgets to mention: they're like an American TARDIS for children.
I'm concerned about the physical world being subverted by the technical world -- and how the technical world is far less reliable. Let me explain. See, something in the physical world -- say information -- in order to be destroyed you need to burn it or maybe hide it or something like that. In order to destroy information on a hard disk and make it innaccesible to the lay man, all you need is just a fridge magnet. Information will never be secure on computers. Even if you're a cheez wizz tech analyst or whatever you wanna call yourself, the physical world is and will be here to stay forever. There will always be more information available in the physical world than online -- always. The Internet sucks. It's a crappy source of information, and frequently, people don't even exploit the vastness of the information that it holds this massive machine holds in it's bussom and simply go to maybe three or six website per session to find out that "there's nothign to do online". My ass!! See, the character of the Internet has destroyed our wits. I understand that many of us do have lives outside of the virtual reality, but many of you do not. This is my qualm. You aren't intelligent anymore, people aren't creative anymore. The Internet is shit. It's supposed to be used for speedy communication, which was it's designed intent, and instead being used for information and entertainment. If you want information on how something works, read a book, if you want to send an SOS signal, get a telegraph, a telephone. The Internet doesn't mean that we can start burning piles of books because they're useless, the Internet doesn't mean that everything older than 5 years is now absurdly 'classic', and it doesn't mean that we can forget our lives. You're abusing the Internet and computers. It's not reliable. And as long as 20% or so of your GDP is being lossed to this fact, and viruses become more fruitful everyday, and people's computers continue to crash and and stop working after a year or so the Internet and the Information age will always be shit. Go out, experience the real world, experience something else than the fucking internet for fuck's sakes! It's going to kill humanity and our respective human qualities. And that's my sermon of doom for today. And yes, doom does exist in reality and is more than a fantasy, just in case there was a mix up. This article itself is a part of this long series of events, that is intended on destroying the importance of the physical world, that we've driven ourself into blindly and with happiness that 'progress is happening' and that we're really advanced. A Jetson's like future is not something I want, I don't want segways, they're useless pieces of metal and plastic that go about 20 kph and you could knock over with a swift kick. I don't want any of this shit. We've destroyed years of technological progress with the Internet and computers, we've stopped using typewriters and now use printers only to discover that printers jam and that ink is fucking expensive. We had it perfected, the typewriter, and then we just threw it out as if it was a piece of trash. Eventually, too, pencils and pens will be obsolete, and that obsoletion will bring more economic turmoil since these fucking mini-computer PDAs will fuck up on us and cost hundreds of dollars apiece -- in the name of progress, of course. No, ultimate technological nirvana and affinity is not and will not be desirable for the human race. We need postal systems, we need physical mail, and we need to experience reality before reality ceases to exist and the world is a suburban desert.