Air Conditioners: The Bane of Neighborly Relationships.
It’s an absolute fact.
Air conditioners, those humming devices that are seemingly invisible to us as we walk down the street, have destroyed American society as it has existed form the days of the Founding Fathers up until just several years ago.
Remember what houses used to look like? old houses used to look something like this:
Old Time America: Man Sitting and Reading on His Porch
With a porch, a place where the kids and parents woudl sit outside in the summer months to relax and stay cool in the late afternoons and evenings.
And what do houses look like today?
Most newer houses look something like this:
Today's Houses: You Go Home and Stay Indoors!
Why?
What has happened is, we have been invaded by the wicked and wonderful invention of Air Conditioners, those in windows and those whole house systems, that make the inside of the house so cool and comfortable, making sure that no one stays outside for a moment more then necessary, if they don’t commute by car directly into the garage and enter the home without setting foot on the street.
Which, in turn is why when we see an ambulance stop on the block, we wonder “what happened to those people? I wonder what their name is…”
There are many applications of this example and how it related to the way we and society have changed, the way we do business, and the way things will change in the future as technology advances.
My Question to You:
What do you think the future holds, and how do you plan to be ready for it… and to take advantage of coming changes and trends in society?
BS”D
I think that social media and remote employment will make people even more physically isolated, the difference being that at least there will be communication via the Internet and corporate networks. And because so many offices will go remote, and so many more virtual social networks will be formed, which in turn may lead to actual meetings, you may well not know your neighbors at all, but you may instead meet a group of people in India, or Nigeria, or Belize, through your work or your social media usage.
It is true…you see more people in your neighbourhood (well up here in Canada where we go from freezing to hot and humid in what seems an instant) in the few nice days of spring and fall between our two main aforementioned seasons. Since we’ve moved out to the country where the houses have windows on all sides and we can get nice crossbreezes, we’ve turned the a/c off except for 1-2 days each summer. Feeling the heat and humidity of summer is actually preferable to sitting in cool air 24×7. At least we think so…