Has Somebody Been Kidnapped?!

A few days ago I was watching the newest Louie C.K. special on Comedy Central. It was okay; not nearly as good as some of his previous ones, but he did briefly touch upon something that was interesting to think about. The point was about how impatient people are with cell phones and how you can communicate with people hundreds or thousands of miles away almost instantly. It's not just with phones either; think about how many different ways you can talk to someone one who may live in a different state than you in the blink of an eye. You have cell phones, landlines, text, instant messaging, Skype, etc... That's pretty good damn incredible, especially if you stop to think how far and how fast we have come with communicating over distances.

A few hundred years ago if say the King of England wanted to communicate with the governor of New York; it would take weeks to get the message to him and weeks to hear back. Around the same time you also had things like horse back, which was kind of faster. Then Morse Code, telegraph wire, the first phones, and I'm sure there are more I can't think of. The incredible thing is that even as technology has advanced it hasn't advanced as evenly. I just finished reading this awesome book about the Cuban Missile Crisis called One Minute to Midnight, and in it the author talks about how slow communications were between Washington D.C. and our own Navy. They were able to communicate faster with Moscow than they were with our own ships. What's the deal with that? (My inner Jerry Seinfeld)

Once you start going down the line from the 1960s', things start to increase at an incredible rate. More and more satellites were launched and technology leapt at increasing rates. Next thing you know the affordable portable phone is developed, the Internet gets going and changes how we communicate. Gone are the days of handwritten letters, no matter how cool or touching they are. Your first thought is something along the lines of what Jim Gaffigan said: "What the hell? Has somebody been kidnapped?!"

Now we can talk to anyone anywhere at anytime in virtually anyway. You want to instantly message them? Done. You want to talk to them? Done. You want to see them while you talk to them? Friggin done.  Plus it's not like this is going to stop. Smart phones are taking for example the very computer I am typing this on (Mac Book Pro for those wondering) and shrinking it down to a hand held device. Who knows where it will go next. Also it is cool because around the time that I was writing this my fiance was visiting South Korea and I was able to talk to her. How cool is that? Seriously. She was on another continent separated by the biggest ocean on Earth and I could talk to her.

I guess I just thought if you stopped and really thought about it for like a minute, this is sort of cool. Something that took weeks to months or even years, is done before you can blink. Plus it would be really funny to see some of those people who probably die if they didn't have a god damn cell phone and had to wait on some dude showing up on a horse.