beak wrote:
I think there is a department in most branches of government, local and national in which sit several otherwise useless, disaffected *****ers whose job it is to comb society for things which have been working reasonably well for a while without being interfered with, and begin the process of interfering with them. There will always be some otherwise useless polly somewhere wanting a little scrap of notoriety to whom they can pass on the relevant file.
If by that logic, then I suppose we should take a look at typewriters for being the most notorious! I remember reading an digitally scanned newspaper article from I think around the 1880's or 90's in which pen manufacturers were complaining how typewriters were a "toy" and it was ruining their business because offices were using machines to fill out forms and not ink pens. They exclaimed on how stupid typewriters were, and that pens were perfectly fine, if not better because of the personal connection one has with the letter. Personally this sounds all too familiar to me, and the article made my blood boil (how dare they call my Royal a "toy"?!) to the point where I nearly broke my pen in favor if the typewriter. But I'm just saying, it happened then, and it's happening now. These people (the ones who root out the perfectly functional old and replace it with the new) were alive even then.