Eliminating Humanity

It’s been growing for years. When it really began I’m not exactly sure and no matter when I decide it began there will be much disagreement. With help from Google, I will easily be proven wrong which will be accompanied by dates and data. Even this is evidence of eliminating inhumanity.

So, I will address it this way: I remember exactly when the process of eliminating humanity began for ME. It was January 1^st, 1975. During a slump in the construction industry, I had recently begun selling new cars and not just any new car. I’m talking about a car that at that time was one of the most sought after vehicles on the planet………Cadillac, Porsche, Lamborghini? ….No! …..the Volkswagen Beetle because at that time gas was beginning to skyrocket and the economy was in the toilet. Toyota, Honda, Datsun (Known as Nissan) now by the younger generation had not exploded onto the market yet…..List price for a shiny new Beetle? A whopping $2,475 I was at the right place at the right time for once.

But most of that has nothing to do with my story except, on that date January 1^st, 1975 I sent my first “fax”. It was great! Before that, if I needed to communicate information to a bank about a car sale I had to dial them up and verbally give them the information or in many cases actually go there and talk face to face with the banker.

The fax machine consisted somewhat of a giant box with a big roller thing. You first stuck the sheet of paper containing the info (data) onto the roller thing, then you dialed the phone number, and when the annoying EeeeYeeeEaa screeching sound came on the line, only then could you cram the large phone receiver into the large modem.

It took 6 minutes to transfer information from that sheet of paper to the number you called. At the other end of the line, the same giant fax machine set up “sometimes” received a legible copy. 

Well, you would just sit there watching that little pointer slowly travel across the paper for 6 minutes then call and make sure they received it, could read it, and answer any questions about legibility.

Or you could skip the fax, call, give the information in 2 minutes, and move on.

After the fax machine, it was just a matter of days before my first “computer” arrived.

That first desk top computer showed up as a flickering 10-inch (mine was green) monitor with little blurry green letters and numbers and would render you blind if stared at more than a few minutes. It did have a relatively normal keyboard well, normal as a typewriter.

The hard drive? Well there was an actual cassette player (at least it wasn’t 8-track) the portable type with large play/record, stop, and rewind push buttons. This you plugged into the back of the little green monitor, then put the proper cassette in, closed the top, and pressed play. Most times “LOADING” would appear on the screen in flashing blurry green letters. If it did not, rewind the cassette tape and start over.

Once you get “LOADING” to appear and stay on the screen, go to lunch. When you get back the program should be loaded and you are ready to slog through 30 minutes of vague (on-screen) instructions and information so you can then use the resulting information to fill out your form. (There was no printer yet)

Or you could have just filled out the form by hand and skipped all that, but hey you were excited to use technology.

Those pieces of technological marvel would be laughed at today and are probably on display in a museum somewhere, but as I see it, this was the birth of eliminating humanity for me. It was the beginning of the end for face to face and verbal human interaction.

Soon after, the fax machines began to get smaller and the computers began to get faster. Later we combined copiers with our faxes and phone lines. Then we combined faxes, copiers, and phone lines with our computers. We did these things in the name of efficiency.

Our telephones became wireless which made them very convenient. We could move around (without dragging a tangled 12 ft. cord) while talking to people as we worked. Everyone thought this was the beginning of “multitasking” but I beg to differ. My mom could grocery shop, hold me by the collar, carry my brother on her hip, gossip with other shoppers, and write a check all at the same time.

Then someone invented cell phones. It was inevitable. Over the years many predecessors had been working on the idea but in April 1973 Martin Cooper (Motorola Eng.) made the first cell phone call.

The early cell phones were also huge, weighing in at 2 pounds, and there were no cell phone towers so they were pretty useless.

It wasn’t until the late 80’s that cell phones were being used by a number of people.

This bit of cell phone history is important because it is such an integral part of eliminating inhumanity.

In the last 20 years, cell phone use has exploded to the point that landlines are becoming a thing of the past and now look what’s happened? The phones are smart and becoming smarter all the time. With people walking into things, walking off things, or running their cars into other cars because of these phones, I think the phones have now become smarter than us.

Today, communication and much work is accomplished through computers and email. There are people where I work who have been here a year or longer that I’ve never seen but “communicate” often through email. I feel like I know them, but sometimes they leave before I ever meet them. That’s definitely eliminating humanity!

In cafés, people are unaware of others and are occupied only with their phone while eating.

We all know the problem with texting and driving, a very bad multitask.

I have seen young people sitting on opposite ends of a couch or at the same table texting each other. This is inhumanity.

I’m feeling very old, maybe nostalgic when I say I miss the old ways. I miss the connection, the conversation, and the emotion that computers or cell phones cannot accomplish even with their emoji’s, stickers, and sound effects.

Where will it end? Who knows? But we are combining all this technology with robots now. Robots are doing many tasks that humans used to do. Other “smart bots” are now being designed for military and personal use. They can walk, talk, and even adapt to their surroundings. These (smart bots) will continue getting smarter and stronger than humans in the future.

Maybe the day of “The Terminator” is really coming and they will get serious about Eliminating Humanity.

“I’ll be back”

King James Bible
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,