Thought about laundry | It takes me ages to get round to doing laundry, even though it's just a matter of stuffing it in a machine and popping back after an hour (I'm not disgusting; I have lots of clothes). Imagine how much worse it would be if I had to manually soap and scrape and mangle every garment. I would have smelt terrible - but now I don't have to since some genius invented the washing machine.
I've realised: The ultimate purpose of progress is to render the stupid or lazy people indistinguishable from the intelligent and efficient ones.
That, from feeding my pants to a robot.
Thought about microphones | It would be great if they used directional microphones in football matches so you could hear what the players were shouting. But better still would be if everyone in the world was mic'd up, all the time, and you could listen in to anybody's life, anytime you wanted to. Who would you listen to? Film stars? Politicians? Certainly. Most interesting would be normal people.
We'd swap tips about people who have great conversations, people who have great ideas. We'd eavesdrop on teenage sex kittens we'd find by randomly trying members of the lists on a Friday night, hoping to catch something exciting. There would be people with cult followings who led incredible lives.
Some people would play to their unseen audience, talking up their audible life sotto voce while sitting at another desk in another office in another city. And we'd spend so long listening in, hoping to catch something fantastic, we wouldn't say anything anymore.
This didn't start as a parable, btw.
I'd listen to Carl, because he's my stalkee and so I must.
Thought about laundry | It takes me ages to get round to doing laundry, even though it's just a matter of stuffing it in a machine and popping back after an hour (I'm not disgusting; I have lots of clothes). Imagine how much worse it would be if I had to manually soap and scrape and mangle every garment. I would have smelt terrible - but now I don't have to since some genius invented the washing machine.
I've realised: The ultimate purpose of progress is to render the stupid or lazy people indistinguishable from the intelligent and efficient ones.
That, from feeding my pants to a robot.
Thought about microphones | It would be great if they used directional microphones in football matches so you could hear what the players were shouting. But better still would be if everyone in the world was mic'd up, all the time, and you could listen in to anybody's life, anytime you wanted to. Who would you listen to? Film stars? Politicians? Certainly. Most interesting would be normal people.
We'd swap tips about people who have great conversations, people who have great ideas. We'd eavesdrop on teenage sex kittens we'd find by randomly trying members of the lists on a Friday night, hoping to catch something exciting. There would be people with cult followings who led incredible lives.
Some people would play to their unseen audience, talking up their audible life sotto voce while sitting at another desk in another office in another city. And we'd spend so long listening in, hoping to catch something fantastic, we wouldn't say anything anymore.
This didn't start as a parable, btw.
I'd listen to Carl, because he's my stalkee and so I must.