Do you have any job skills that are now obsolete?

[Jeebo]

267. Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about that.

It was set in a far future time when nobody knew how to perform arithmetical calculations with pen and paper any more, or in their head either. Instead everybody had calculator-like devices strapped to their waist like a belt that they punched problems into and that then showed the answer. These devices had been around for so long that everybody was utterly dependent on them. Nobody could solve these problems any more at all without their calculating devices.

Then, one day, some guy re-discovered and re-invented the skill of writing down arithmetic problems and solving them on paper. Everybody thought it was some kind of magic trick! Nobody could believe that anybody could do that! What's the trick?! Where's the hidden device?! Who's secretly communicating the answer to you?!

It's been decades since I read that Asimov short story. I'd like to read it again. It's kind of prophetic in that it makes me think of cell phones. People nowadays are becoming way too dependent on cell phones. Wherever you go, everybody seems to be trying to memorize what's on that tiny screen in their hands. Some day, I tell you, there's going to be a price to pay for our technological and psychological dependency on cell phones.

-- Ron