Lo-Tech

Global harming is way overrated when it comes to things that can bring about the end of the world as we know it. I rank telephone gridlock high on the list. Mind you, it's still a few years off, but be forewarned, folks, it's coming. There are still a few pockets of the world with no telephones, and even some places with telephones but no call waiting, but the day is fast approaching when everyone in the world will be connected to everyone else by these evil, ubiquitous devices, and when it comes, look out. Someone in Ulaan Bator will have a problem with a computer and call tech support, which will be located in Chad. At exactly the same moment a housewife in Cleveland will be trying to reach her bank, while a Bombay businessman will be attempting to place an order with Hammacher Schlemmer. Simultaneously people all over the world will be placing each other on hold until from one end of the globe to the next everyone is glued to their phone, waiting. One by one they'll just drop off to eternal sleep. And they'll remain as they are until aliens discover the bodies, pick up the little devices they have glued to their ears, and hear a recorded voice saying over and over, "your business is valuable to us."