This week I found a book called “let’s go all around the neighborhood” and read it to my 3 & 4 year old sons. It’s from 1982. A girl and her mother walk around doing errands. Mailing a letter at the post office. Buying shoes at the shoe store. Playing at the park. Eating at a restaurant. Going to the library. Buying an eggbeater at the hardware store. Stopping at the fruit and vegetable stand. They interact with humans at most stops.
I thought - in 2026, we can instead text, buy shoes and eggbeaters (?) online, stream / scroll content on devices, order restaurant food on DoorDash and groceries on Instacart.
We’re told “you’ll no longer have to” and “now you’ll be able to” with each new technological development. But there’s always a hidden “now you’ll have to” and “you’ll no longer be able to”.
A bit tangential, but I think something similar to what we see here happen (time saved by modern convenience does not result in pursuit of "personal interests" other than wasting time with technology-enabled entertainment.
People think UBI will unleash creativity and people will engage in their true calling in life. I don't see that happening. I see people sinking more of their lives into things that are at war for their eyeballs.
The people using it probably assume everyone else is also using it all the time. Probably explains the memes you see about it online. I discovered after installing my doorbell camera one of my neighbors gets door dash virtually every single dinner. I wonder if they cook for themselves at all.
You still interact with the delivery persons of Amazon / Getir / Uber Eats. It will likely not be a very meaningful interaction as they will want to quickly move on to the next job. And thanks to globalization the delivery person sometimes doesn’t speak any languages you do. It’s not like old times where you would casually chat with the store owner.
An egg beater is a manually operated mixer. Typically a crank connects to a large gear, and two smaller gears interface with it, operating two interlocking whisks.
You'd crack eggs into a bowl, stick the whisk in, and turn the crank. The end result was a homogenized mix of yolk and white, good for cooking with
The move from “now you’ll be able to” to “now you’ll have to” is unfortunately often corporate-driven, and I wish it could be regulated somehow. I feel like we are all in some giant lab experiment, being coerced (can't quite say "forced") to use technology for things that are much better without technology, just so technology companies can thrive.
Even in 1982 you could mail a letter from your house, order shoes from a catalog, and order delivery food to your house. Admittedly, your choices were basically pizza, subs or Chinese for that type of delivery, but still, DoorDash mostly competes with cooking at home not with going out to restaurants (in fact, it has become more common to dine out than it was in 1982).
I do lament the decline of brick-and-mortar retail somewhat, but I think it is holding on stronger than what I would have assumed in some cases.
At some point UPS / FedEx became much faster. I recall ordering things in the mid 90s and it taking weeks or months to arrive. That definitely tilted shopping toward retail brick & mortar.
I've always found the concept of mailing a letter from your house really interesting. My understanding is that it's common in the US (which is why they have the little red thing on their mailboxes I think?), but I've never lived in a place where it's a thing. For such a capitalistic country, the way the US historically treated the USPS as a common civic good is really cool.
USPS is run as a federally owned business. It was traditionally self sustained by postage fees not by taxes, but it is nice that it was from our country's earliest days, a key piece of infrastructure.
Nowadays mailing any letter is pretty rare as most people communicate via text, email, etc but it is still absolutely possible to do so.
And yes the red flag is to indicate a letter needs to be picked up for delivery.
Hah, that's very interesting to learn. I've always thought the little flag was lifted by the mailman, so that the homeowner could tell from a distance that they got mail. Cool that it's actually the other way around.
I think that's mainly because the mailman might not notice that the mail in your box is not your mail being left over from when he dropped it off the day before. The flag lets him know what's remaining in the box is to be delivered. He could read the addresses but they have very busy routes!
I thought - in 2026, we can instead text, buy shoes and eggbeaters (?) online, stream / scroll content on devices, order restaurant food on DoorDash and groceries on Instacart.
We’re told “you’ll no longer have to” and “now you’ll be able to” with each new technological development. But there’s always a hidden “now you’ll have to” and “you’ll no longer be able to”.