Last week, BT, a large British telecommunications company, announced what was billed as the world’s first hybrid telephone. The phone connects to a landline in the same way that a cordless telephone does. But it can be taken away from its base and used as a mobile phone. Cellular charges will only apply if the phone is away from its base.
It wasn’t that long ago when the proliferation of cell phones gave rise to the fear that it would only be a matter of time before we ran out of telephone numbers. as mobile phones became cheaper and smaller, there was nothing unusual in a family of six having seven telephone numbers where only a few years before, they would have had only one. It seemed that it was inevitable that telephone numbers would have to be re-jigged to make them longer to accommodate the number of telephones that seem to be increasing in geometrically progressions. Now, with the invention of the hybrid phone, the number of telephone numbers will no doubt decrease as many individuals will have just one number instead of two.
This is an example, albeit a relatively minor and insignificant one, of how after doom and gloom scenarios are painted, technological advances come along and either solve or reverse a problem. During the oil crisis in the early 1970s, Sheikh Zaki Yamani, the Saudi arabian Oil Minister said, "The Stone age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil." What Yamani said was true then and is still true today. as the price of oil skyrockets, with predictions of americans paying in excess of $3 a gallon to fill up their cars, again we are subjected to the negatives of being dependent upon oil. This fuels (pardon the pun) rumours that society as we know it will soon be coming to an end. Long before that happens though, changes in technology will appear to allow vehicles and machines that are now dependent upon oil and gasoline, to operate on something else. But changes and advances in technology is something that the naysayers never want to consider.
Nowhere is the concept of technological change ignored more than in the predictions of the death of the "planet" due to climate change. Predictions that are made on what the earth will be like at the end of the 21st century are absolutely meaningless. It is virtually impossible to predict what society will be like 95 years from now. all it takes is a quick look back at the 20th century to realize this. automobiles, airplanes, rockets, computers and television sets are just some of the things that are such a part of everyday life that we take for granted that did not exist in 1900. Yet in making current predictions about the state of the world in 2100 practically no considerations are given to future advances in technology.
Part of the reason for ignoring change is due to our arrogance. It is easy to think that we have invented just about everything that can be invented and there is nothing left to come along in the future. another reason is the general pessimism that so many people in society seem to revel in. It makes many people feel good to give up driving an SUV to save the world as we know it rather than acknowledge that gasoline powered SUVs will be as common on our streets as the horse and buggy long before the present century comes to an end or the world ends in a fiery death.
With respect to BT, the invention of the hybrid telephone is a relatively minor one as is the problem of possibly running out of telephone numbers. But it serves to remind us that many if not most of the problems that currently plague us, will ultimately be saved by technological change.