Do you really think charities and organisations welcome cheques? They are the most expensive to process, slowest and least reliable way of making a payment. This is why organisations hate them and would far rather have a standing order or bank transfer. They are as useful, financially, as horses are for transport, with most north European countries having abandoned or even abolished them. Calling out TSB who had huge problems for a few of weeks and not stacking it up against the billions of transactions worth trillions of pounds every year that happen electronically, instantly and with a near zero transaction cost is a little unfair to technology. It sounds like making the perfect the enemy of the good, and therefore sticking with the awful.Technology does indeed disrupt, as old jobs disappear and people move onto new different and previously undreampt of ones. If it did not, over 95% of the UK would still be toiling in fields, illiterate, in extreme poverty and with desperately short lifespans.I do not think you are a Luddite, as you post on this forum often enough, so you clearly like using the internet, a massive technology that has and is having huge benefits around the world. I think you are just a bit picky about some technologies. I agree that it also forces people into new jobs, and that is the one bit we really need to pay attention to, as we do it so badly at the moment. At its best, technology frees us from the dirty, dull and dangerous jobs, and allows people to do something nicer instead. As to mobile phones, having all the information on the planet in your pocket is amazingly useful. Perhaps you confuse addiction with utility. Nobody will force you to use one. Likewise Steptoe and sons had a horse drawn cart, but I think nearly everyone has given up on horses as a useful transport method.When it comes to automated phone systems, I also hate them. I just send an email instead, asking them to call me back. That way nobodies time is wasted.I am sorry that you are so down on technology. Not all of it works well and therefore goes they way of the Sinclair C5, but in the medium to long term, technology makes our lives safer, easier and longer, while saving time, allowing us to do stuff that was previously impossible, and is therefore to be celebrated, while keeping a much better eye out on how to manage change, and improve skills, so that we are not the last country in the world still stuck with using awful cheques!Be Well!:-)
Christopher Gillie ● 2608d