@Puzzler You’re not being a cynic at all. In fact, what you said sounds like it could have been me saying it over and over again to countless other people on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. When I was about 35, my father (RIP) came over and was watching me whizzing around online and building websites (true, it was all html and minor java back then and what I didn’t know I just checked code on other websites to learn, html is so super easy) - and he was amazing, he wasn’t much older than I am today, he thought it was miraculous, what could be done and what I was doing (and I type well over 130 wpm, and back then could multitask so quickly online (no apps, no countless settings, everything was easier, including life), anyway… I said Pop, something wicked this way comes. He asked what I meant, my intuition was twitching, and I felt it so deeply. I said I can see the future, it’s so clear in my mind and entire being - there’s going to be a fork in the road (it was already there at that point) and if we go one way with technology it’s going to improve our lives, country and planet as a whole, if we go the other way, life as we know it will never be the same again and it’s going to be bad, I feel darkness with it, almost like a movie you watch where you see what’s left of Earth after a nuclear explosion. He used a beeper for work back then, cellphones were being used at that point, but largely ignored (I kept mine in the car for emergencies if I ever had one and never gave my number to anyone) - so he was intrigued by technology, and bless him that intrigue continued until he was 87, but by then he was unravelling over it and those many decades later understood what I had said so many years prior.
I remember talking to the newspaper delivery man who I used to see every day and him saying (those many years ago, yet not so long ago you know?), there’s really not a lot of people having papers delivered anymore, my route is getting smaller and smaller, and the pit in my stomach I felt as he said it. Then I moved to FL in 2003 and we were still having the white and yellow pages delivered to our doors and could still call 411 to ask to please have our numbers/addresses kept private and they did - could still call an operator - sounds like it was centuries ago, but again it wasn’t all that long ago, less than a generation ago - my 35 year old nephew started life without computers, cell phones and any of what I’m speaking about, I gave him his first computer when he was 12, it was my old Gateway when I bought a new one talk about a beast that was unbreakable!. I knew the newspaper delivery man there as well and met him early in the morning while walking my dog and asked… where’ve you been, I haven’t seen you in a while. He said the business was all but done, there were no customers left and within a few weeks he’d stop delivering the paper - soon after no more white and yellow pages being left at our door.
Fast forward less than one handful of years and the white and yellow pages no longer arrived. Maybe a year or 2 later there was no longer an operator or 411 to call. It was at that time I knew my intuition/premonition was right and we hadn’t only taken the wrong road, but we were now on it. Fast forward a little less than 20 years and here we are today. The world as we knew it all but gone, days go by like minutes, weeks like months and months like years. Technology sped up time. Being contactable 24/7 sped up time and caused unrealistic expectations (still does, annoys the heck out of me) and the pressure of all of it is carried within all of us whether we know it or not, thus our personalities and ways we live our lives changed, the way we connect and interact with others has changed. It just keeps getting worse and worse.
And truth (in my opinion only of course), there’s no to blame but ourselves. We were warned for many years that microwaves caused cancer, to be careful, take precautions, did we listen? Nope, we all wanted it, it was amazing and so fast. Then we were all warned about cellphones for years about the same thing - did we all listen? Nope, we all wanted it, it was amazing and so fast (now we all scratch our heads about how many people have or had cancer). We ignored the warnings; we ALL became addicted to it - and then our need for speed caused those now controlling “everything” greed. I coined that phrase decades ago “the need for speed caused greed,” I wrote a poem and that was part of it. Those controlling our world, countless corporations and more… quickly noticed how easily addicted we were to faster and newer things, how open to commercialism we were, and then they saw an opening and they all took it while we all stood by not realizing what was happening until where we are today, after the fact, now aching for a slower life, a slower world, a more personalized world, warm world, outdoor life and time and our anonymity and right to choices back. So many jobs lost in just 20’ish years alone, millions, possibly billions, globally, exchanged for technology, automation, the dreaded AI. Even though I knew it so early on and felt it like a nightmare within me, I was no different than everyone else. I think the only difference with me from the majority, not all, but the majority within my age group(s), is that I never felt or sew the need to get a new phone, new computer or new TV every year or every other year. If it worked, I didn’t need a new one. I was the very last person that I knew to get a flat screen TV lol. My TV’s worked great, they weighted 100lbs lol, but they worked great - so as long as I wasn’t moving, I had no problem with them. Eventually I fell victim to those as well… not to streaming though, but then I fell victim to that as well, though not until lock down. Now all I watch is streaming.
I am absolutely and thoroughly saddened and annoyed, frustrated and over it all and have been for years with worsening over the past few. Text messaging vs. calling someone, how know one visits each other at their homes much anymore, people assuming I should be contactable 24/7, automated systems no matter who I call forcing me to sit and wait for options to get a human on the phone, portals to contact my doctors and all else our society has turned into. Honest to my bones? If not for the fact that it’s now imperative I live near excellent doctors and medical care (and I’m young in my opinion, I don’t turn 60 for another few months and to be quite honest, in my mind, it went so fast that it doesn’t feel like a decade has past and I’m going to be turning 50 not 60) due to 2 doctors and a hospital team making a severe booboo 10 years ago leaving me quite young yet but in need of a lot of medical care and good care at that… Dead serious, I’d be living somewhere in the mountains (always my lifelong dream), surrounded my wildflowers the world now considers weeds, gazing and butterflies, dragonflies, birds and wildlife, in a semi-modern cabin type of home, with a main street small town a few minutes’ drive away but not filled with parking lots and hundreds/thousands of cars - would still want TV and movies to watch, but wouldn’t be living the life we’re living today. And, don’t even get me started on verification codes - “for our safety?” Ummm no, we’re literally giving out more and more of our contact information to more and more people/companies, who then share it. Not to mention how annoying they are. Verification codes aren’t for our safety in the least (I mean login verification codes, I do like being contacted my CC’s or my bank when charges are being made, but only because we’re living in a world where all of our finances are indeed now data to be found by anyone.
So nope dear Puzzler, you weren’t being cynical at all. And, since we both agree we shouldn’t be eating up the community threads with our conversations lol, you mentioned a private chat ability within the community? How and where? I enjoy talking to you - we have similar feelings and perspectives. It’s actually a breath of fresh air for me. 
