9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime…….

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. e-mail, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s because innovative new music isn’t being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is “catalog items,” meaning traditional music that the public has heard for years, from older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, Appetite for Self-Destruction by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

 

 

 

Music as an industry will never disappear. It will continue to adapt to the things that have put it in jeopardy since the early 20th century. People will always love music and plenty will still buy it. Physical music is definitely on the way out. Which is why I buy C.D's and Vinyl's at every opportunity. It's more satisfying to own physical music than digital music.

TV could definitely be on it's way out. At our house we didn't have the money for Satellite last month so we got rid of it and sold our TV the other week. I now live in a Televisionless house and thanks to the internet i've barely noticed.

Privacy is more at risk with Facebook etc. now, but as long as you're careful you can keep information safe

 

You´re that old?

 sorry,

 

Its eggs were eaten by pigs and rats

 

Most of the change I've seen in music is for the good. Small artists much more opportunity to successfully do music on a small scale. You can create an album, perform locally, manage it all yourself.

 

The "Rock Star" is going away, and has been for awhile. It's just "pop star" now and that shifts with the winds of taste. Justin Bieber, Frank Sinatra, Leif Garrett, etc etc.

 

Are DVDs going to disappear? Blu Ray may not replace them after all....

 

 

2. CD's (video)

3. CD's (music)

4.  The stupid idea that "ain't" isn't a word.

5.  The idea that two gay people can't be married (unless you happen to be Catholic or Evangelical.)

6.  Cussing on TV programs (except for the F word and maybe the two C words)

7.  The idea that Huckleberry Finn can be great literature even though it refers to black people as N's

8.  The idea that the world will end because the Mayan calendar stops in 2012

9.  Any love for either punk or disco.

Obviously, all of this will happen in developed countries like Australia or the US. Don't include developing countries here where some of these things are still 99% popular. It will happen in those two but much later. 

1. It will happen. And the world will not collapse because of it. 

2. It will happen. And the world will be a better place (the demise of the check has some relation with the demise of the Mail service after all. 

3. It will happen. I like newspapers (though they are ful of sh*t), but I can survive without them. The world? Instead of a few focused opinions, people will have access to all types of perspectives in the internet. 

4. I don't think books will ever disappear. They will remain for people who want them. Their market share will be surpassed by that of E-books, but physical books will remain. A world without books is a serious problem. See most American youngsters who have never opened one and see why. 

5. It will. And good. 

6. ???? Even if only stupid music remains, there will ALWAYS be music. 

7. Television as an industry will not disappear. As a home appliance it might, though TV makers are adapting to the changes. 

8. No. Unless some people have their way, private property will always exist. Now as you are mostly talking about "ownership" of Intelectual-property-protected items, "ownership" is a bad word (you never really "own" anything). You are talking about physical media. It will remain a collector's thing. I will miss it. I will not join the digital train wagon. But the world will not suffer. 

9. This is more worrisome. If some people have their way, we'll have cameras everywhere, from apparently-innocent red-light cameras to actual activity-recording cameras. 

I'll kill the humour here but obviously an economy doesn't disappear, it just collapses. Maybe you are confused with other related things that WILL disappear: 

Americans savings accounts

Americans 401ks

Americans power to purchase anything for less than 100 dollars

Americans ability to put gas in their cars

Americans ability to buy a house. 

(Apply that to many other countries of course)... 

1. The Post Office. Ironically, all that junk mail is both a revenue source and a fact of postal customer life that it may hasten the demise as no one will really care.  I still like getting my paper copy bill, but I am slowly and surely paying more stuff online.  You can pay at the last minute and not have to worry about it getting there on time.

2. The Check. I still get my paycheck hand written at that.  I do expect resistance. Without hard copies it boils down to your word against the computer.

3. The Newspaper. I have a subscription, but then I'm not all that young.  The local paper keeps shrinking, first in size and now in content.  I still prefer it to reading the online version.

4. The Book. Will be diminished but will hang around for a quite a while past our lifetime.  Level of appreciation for the hard copy will increase as they become more rare.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Cell phone signals still suck.  We're going to need some major improvements here and no areas where you can't get a signal without an accompanying big jump in price.  Don't expect that to happen.  There seems to be more collusion than competition in the cell phone industry.  I recently tried to get into a cheaper plan as we weren't getting close to using our minutes each month.  No flexibility.

6. Music. The industry will diminish no doubt and no one will care.  Music itself ain't going anywhere.

 

Also, I just don't care for physical media anymore.

Maybe you misunderstood me? Your OP is chain mail, and like all chain mail it is neither insightful nor interesting. It does not need to be discussed on a forum and, honestly, really should not be shared at all. If you don't believe that it is chain mail, well, here are some links:

 

http://www.rense.com/general92/goodbye.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.rense.com/general92/goodbye.htm (It appears this is the original source. It is the oldest dated copy I could find, and Clark McClellan is cited http://libertynewsradio.com/wire/articles3/2011//00237_How_the_US_will_Look_in_the_Next_Decade_103045.php" rel="nofollow - on this website for the list as well[/url]. It appears that some people, like your principal, cut off the part about the collapse of America and others did not. I guess it depends what your motive for sharing it was.)

http://www.putnamlive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205:december-letters-to-the-publisher&catid=82" rel="nofollow - http://www.putnamlive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205:december-letters-to-the-publisher&catid=82 (it appears someone plagiarized this for a letter to the editor shortly after Clark wrote it, lol)

http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2011/01/fw-big-changes-are-coming-no-turning.html" rel="nofollow - http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/2011/01/fw-big-changes-are-coming-no-turning.html

http://www.ldsradio.ca/surviving.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.ldsradio.ca/surviving.html

http://horne.vplp.org/2011/06/changes-that-are-coming-like-it-or-not.html" rel="nofollow - http://horne.vplp.org/2011/06/changes-that-are-coming-like-it-or-not.html

http://xenohistorian.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/9-things-that-will-disappear-in-our-lifetime/" rel="nofollow - http://xenohistorian.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/9-things-that-will-disappear-in-our-lifetime/

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2011/05/9-things-that-will-probably-disappear-in-our-lifetime.html" rel="nofollow - http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2011/05/9-things-that-will-probably-disappear-in-our-lifetime.html

http://forums.locogringo.com/forums/printable.asp?m=1353124" rel="nofollow - http://forums.locogringo.com/forums/printable.asp?m=1353124

http://www.4to40.com/fastforward/index.asp?p=Things_That_Will_Disappear_In_Our_Lifetime&c=India" rel="nofollow - http://www.4to40.com/fastforward/index.asp?p=Things_That_Will_Disappear_In_Our_Lifetime&c=India

http://www.independencetimes.com/?p=1914" rel="nofollow - http://www.independencetimes.com/?p=1914 (plagiarized again :()

http://talesfromthelou.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/changes-are-coming/" rel="nofollow - http://talesfromthelou.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/changes-are-coming/

http://blog.adw.org/2011/06/nine-things-that-will-disappear-in-our-life-time/" rel="nofollow - http://blog.adw.org/2011/06/nine-things-that-will-disappear-in-our-life-time/ (ouch, even the Catholic Church wrote about it, that's how you know something online is really old)

http://support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pbgt&action=display&thread=387858&page=1" rel="nofollow - http://support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pbgt&action=display&thread=387858&page=1

http://ellisonchair.tamu.edu/2011/02/16/get-ready-for-the-future/" rel="nofollow - http://ellisonchair.tamu.edu/2011/02/16/get-ready-for-the-future/ (appears to be claiming credit for the list, not positive: do people on the internet have no integrity!?)

http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2011/06/22/main_line_suburban_life/opinion/doc4e02036e6e0f1045886764.txt" rel="nofollow - http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2011/06/22/main_line_suburban_life/opinion/doc4e02036e6e0f1045886764.txt

http://forum.xcitezone.com/showthread.php?14459-Things-That-Will-Probably-Disappear-In-Our-Lifetime...&p=52614" rel="nofollow - http://forum.xcitezone.com/showthread.php?14459-Things-That-Will-Probably-Disappear-In-Our-Lifetime...&p=52614

http://www.thoughts.com/Publicist/things-that-will-disappear-in-our-lifetime" rel="nofollow - http://www.thoughts.com/Publicist/things-that-will-disappear-in-our-lifetime

http://publicdiplomacycouncil.org/commentaries/change-does-anyone-see-it-coming" rel="nofollow - http://publicdiplomacycouncil.org/commentaries/change-does-anyone-see-it-coming

 

Sorry for the lazy links, but with so many I didn't feel like shortening all of them into text hotlinks.

 

Incidentally, the memories do not remain. Your brain is very lazy, so your memories of past events should be considered unreliable at best.

I failed to notice that. Oh yes that negates the entire novel and makes it garbage. 

Swallow us? The sea level won't rise that much, jeeze. And maybe we'll be f**ked in the future, but I very much doubt humanity as a whole will go extinct any time soon.

I have no idea why I felt it necessary to post all those links when a link to a Google search probably would have been as illustrative, but I already did it so I'm not going to delete them.

Yeah this is really pissing me off. I ordered In The Land Of Grey and Pink on vinyl a week ago without knowing about this retarded strike. Oh well, It should be over in a week or so

I've always though this to be a rather ridiculous notion. How can every single human be destroyed? Won't there always be pockets of humanity no matter how devastating the event? We will be thrown back to a simpler time long before we are wiped out completely.

There is only one definition of progress - it just means to move forward (in time), so views of positive and negative progress are in the main subjective and dependant upon the destination of that forward movement being somewhere you want to be. Progress in that sense is an inevitability - just as putting one foot in front of the other and shifting your body-weight to that leading foot will inexorably result in forward movement. Progress can never die, it can just result in a change you like, don't like or don't give a hoot about (then, indifference is as likely to permit progress as it is to halt it).

 

I have conjectured a number of times that invention is in decline, but invention does not fuel progress as much as innovation does: Apple did not invent any of the products they sell, they innovated previous inventions in their application, how we perceive them and how we use them. All the "progress" that may (or may not) result in these 9 things (plus a myriad of others not listed) disappearing is an inevitability of invention finding an application through innovation - as long as mankind exists to find those applications technical progress will continue unabated. So while I believe that invention is in decline, innovation is not - a missile is just a spear with an engine after all.

 

Cloud computing is where networks started back in the 1950s & 1960s, be that a central computer linked by dumb terminals, or a network of intelligent terminals sharing processing over a wide geographic area, the concept is as old as computing itself and the Internet grew from that, married to the pre-existing telecommunications networks and fed by innovation of relatively minor inventions. Progress in this case was/is a product of doing those things that made networks work in past better and faster in the present, allowing more bandwidth so the application of those inventions and innovations can be used by more people simultaneously - how we use that in the future is not necessarily something we can control or predict with any certainty, and neither can Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or Google.

 

The Luddites weren't wrong, they just faced a product that worked all of the time - this time around the techno-luddites are up against a product that only works some of the time, so the result is a lot less certain.

 

You completely missed my point , but it doesn't matter. ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I wasn't  talking of technological "progress", even that is probably one of the least-dark  aspect of the progress I was referring to, even if technologies generally widen the social gap between the affluent and the less fortunate) 

 

 

 

Then I didn't miss the point, you simply failed to make one in the few words you used.

 

 

But yeah, whatever

 

I thought it was quite clear I spoke of social progress  (despite not implicitly said, it was much more than subliminal) not of technological progress.... and right now we're in phase or social regress and the technological advances are used against the people's overall well-being... just for a few chosen's private interests or profits.