Anton's Ideas

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/going-obsolete/”>Going Obsolete</a>

obsolete technologies

EXTINCT TECHNOLOGIES

Oh dear, word press has done it again. I cannot think of a technology that has become extinct in the history of mankind and his ability to invent. Fallen into disuetude, yes thousands, but once something has been invented it exists and whether or not it is used is immaterial. It is still there and can still be used. So I shall approach this prompt from a slightly different angle. Which piece of technology have you used, at any age, which you find that today you no longer either use or need? I think this is what the prompter meant.

Well taken on these lines I think almost certainly the lead pencil. It was the only thing with which I wrote, and later used occasionally for drawing, or helping drawing, but that is all. Now, of course, the computer can do all the pencil’s tasks and so it is no longer needed at all. So the piece of technology I used from the age of one year and a month or so, is completely eradicated from my list of things I need.

What more can I say on this except to add that it is true of every age and the average useful age of any invented implement is probably the span of a man’s life, three score years and ten. Now wasn’t that blatantly obvious and frankly boring?

AWE