Smartphones and idiots

Most of my readers, I’m sure, can recall the first portable phones they had.
For those of you too young to remember those days it consisted of a 10 pound bag of batteries and electronics with a corded handle plus cost a fortune to use. Carrying around a black bag over the shoulder was a shortcut to losing your man card too, if you were not careful.
Of course, technology marched on and soon we had smaller handheld devices about the size of a regular phone hand piece and then marched right on down to the magical flip phone.
Now we all could envision ourselves as Captain Kirk or Spock as we flipped these open with abandon just to show off. It was still fairly pricy to use so that forced people to limit their talking time on the phones and not a few found out the hard way that talking a lot gave them massive bills at the end of the month.
One thing about technology is it never stops moving and soon the legendary “smartphone” was born. What a miraculous thing that has been as now we can use them just like a computer only mobile in nature.
With these new tools we can find our way to the bakery, get the cheapest gas, call a distant relative in China, read the news, shop ‘til we drop, play games, text friends and enemies and even talk once every two weeks or so.
But like the comedian Jerry Clower once said, “too much of anything ain’t good.” And the same can be said of these infernal phones.
We have become dependent on them to the point that we can’t even do simple daily functions. I recall being in a meeting with a bunch of engineers and some math problem came up. Instantly out came the phones to use the calculator on a problem that all of us used to do in our heads. Now that is dependency right there.
The same with finding stores or items we need. Gone are the days of searching for the cheapest gas in town by driving around until you find it. And gone with that are the times we found something else of interest thereby losing ourselves doing something we had no idea about when we started the day.
Gone too are the excuses that we men had for getting lost or not getting the gallon of milk which prompted our journey in the first place. Now men are required to stay available 24 hours a day and losing oneself for a day of personal pleasure is just not excuse-able anymore to the female of the species.
Miss Trixie is an expert with that phone and can find anything, anywhere and for the best price possible. And Ol’ Dutch certainly does appreciate her staring into that tiny screen when new arrows, bullets or hunting clothes are needed.
With the advent of these tiny devices, the advance of artificial intelligence, AI for short, is beyond belief. They even have male and female robots that look and act a lot like real people and Ol’ Dutch got to thinking how wonderful it would be to have one for menial chores and skinning out big game.
But like anything, political correctness raised its ugly head even in this industry and just this morning I read where the robots themselves will be able to give consent to any commands issued even to the point of refusing to be turned off.
So, there goes Ol’ Dutch’s dreamed of opportunity to not only have a woman that you can turn on but also turn off.
I guess I will keep Miss Trixie around awhile longer after all and realize that no matter how good technology gets, there will always be someone around to ruin it for me.
  Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.