Time goes on, with or without us

By Ralph Hardin

Michael, you’re not fooling me. You love to play with all these new-fangled gizmos and whatzits.

You’ve always got your music streaming on your iPad and you’ve always got the latest new smartphone, so don’t go boo-hooing the technological marvels we’re all enjoying here in the 2020s!

You do raise some valid points, though, you hightech redneck. Having computer skills in today’s world is an absolute must. I mean, you can survive without being “on the grid” but it is becoming harder and harder to live an analog life in a digital world. I’ll give you an example of something you might not even think about.

When was the last time you sat down to watch television and needed to pick up a copy of the “TV Guide” to find out what was going to be on the tube that particular evening? You didn’t, right? You just pushed the “Guide” button on your remote. You might have even pushed the little microphone button on your SmartTV remote and said “Show me movies!” like we’re all on Star Trek or something.

But not everyone is living that life. There are still folks who even depend on this very newspaper to offer them a TV listing. It’s the same for looking up a business. Remember when the Memphis Yellow Pages was big enough you could use four of them to put your car up on blocks? Nowadays, the white pages and yellow pages for the entire Memphis Metropolitan Area is about the size of a comic book!

Now, you and I remember when we were kids (30 years ago for me, 120 years ago for you), and you’d see all these science-fiction predictions about “life in the far away year 2000” or whatever, and honestly, we’ve seen some of these things come to pass. We still haven’t gotten our flying cars and jet-packs, though. And honestly, that’s probably for the best.

But “smart homes” and “smart cars” and automated everything is a reality. You mention Kodak.

For me, the biggest example of business models completely disappearing is Blockbuster Video. I worked at the West Memphis Blockbuster from 1991 to 1993, and it was always busy. You could rent movies and video games and even VCRs and game systems for those who didn’t own them. A few years ago, this little upstart company called Netflix offered to sell out to Blockbuster and they got laughed out of the board room. Well, they’re not laughing now… because they no longer exist.

I’m all about embracing technology, Michael. We don’t have to be afraid. The number one fear I hear about automation is that it will cost people their jobs. Well, that’s actually good news! And it has always happened. A hundred years ago, more than 60 percent of Americans worked on farms.

Today, less than 20 percent work on farms. Does that mean millions of farmers are unemployed?

No, now there are new jobs for them to do. In the 1900s, millions flocked to manufacturing jobs as industry boomed. Today, manufacturing is largely automated, yet we continue to see new jobs being created. Whenever technology makes jobs (like telephone operator, production line worker, trash collector) obsolete, it goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of new jobs. It always had and it always will.

And some of the advances you mention are just the natural evolution of the world we live in. If Uber is better then the taxi industry better step up its game. If Airbnb caters to consumers then property owners should embrace it (except in Marion, I guess). If a little machine can 3-D print me a cheeseburger, I want one (as long as it’s not plant-based) Yes, Michael, the future is now. Let’s enjoy it for as long as we can. Now, get on Amazon and get you some cool stuff!