gofer articles

Wait til computers really take over! Bid farewell to blank envelopes! They’ll be history. All those science fiction movies that depict a world taken over by computers show something really diabolical, but the reality of it all is much more prosaic (at this point!). Well, actually, for those thrown out of work by computer automation, it’s probably just about as sinister, if they really thought about it.

Now it’s true that technology has always changed our lives, often in a most disruptive manner, and blank envelopes won’t be made here again anyway – and even then, by machines. After all, papermaking used to be quite a skill, and yet machines have long taken over that trade. But even these overseas workers will be thrown out of work soon enough thanks to all the wireless communications that’s revolutionized just about every facet to how people interact.

Is there anything better than firing off an e-mail or text message at practically the speed of light? Nothing to be printed out, no postage to fumble around for, and never a necessary wait on a response – never mind having to go out and do a drop-off at the nearest mailbox! Well, not unless one’s corresponding with a sloth in Australia!

The need for blank envelopes is at an all-time low these days. It’s now hard to find them, even, and one must resort to dedicated stationary stores oftentimes. All thanks to the computer revolution that’s upended whole industries worldwide. It’s nothing like the first envelopes used by man, which would appear to us today to be more like pottery than anything else, made as they were from clay that were dried or even baked in order to be “sealed” – never mind the breaking necessary to be opened!

Changing technology has always changed our lives as a species. It is, moreover, dramatic in impact but not necessarily in that immediate, visceral way of fiction. Hence, the actual year of 2001 gives us unmanned drones and the worldwide web while the film 2001 envisioned moon bases, space travel, and artificial intelligence.

Ergo, no more blank envelopes. That’ll be one of the most prevalent effects of computers taking over even more than they already have by now. People won’t know what an envelope is in just another three or four generations!