Wait til computers really take over! No more blank envelopes! No way, nohow. All those science fiction movies that depict a world taken over by computers show something really diabolical, but real life is at once more imaginative and less exciting (so far!). On the other hand, for those thrown out of work by computer automation, it’s probably just about as sinister, if they really thought about it.

Now it’s true that technology has always changed our lives, often in a most disruptive manner, and blank envelopes are often made overseas these days anyway – and even then, by machines. After all, papermaking used to be quite a skill, and yet machines have long taken over that trade. But even these overseas workers will be thrown out of work soon enough thanks to all the wireless communications that’s revolutionized just about every facet to how people interact.

Why write a letter and stick it in an envelope when e-mail and the like can transmit your message so much faster? No printing required, no postage to deal with, no trip to the corner mailbox, and absolutely no waiting whatsoever for an answer! Well, at least not unless one’s correspondent isn’t interested in communications anyway!

The need for blank envelopes is at an all-time low these days. The situation has gotten so that they are often hard to find, and one frequently has to resort to a specialty store in order to obtain some. All thanks to the computer revolution that’s upended whole industries worldwide. It’s nothing like the first envelopes found in Mesopotamia, which would appear to us today to be more like pottery than anything else, made as they were from clay that were dried or even baked in order to be “sealed” – not to mention a right ol’ cracking in order to be opened!

There is nothing new, then, to the impact of technology. But it isn’t often as visceral and immediate as those found in fiction. Hence, the actual year of 2001 gives us unmanned drones and the worldwide web while the film 2001 envisioned moon bases, space travel, and artificial intelligence.

Ergo, no more blank envelopes. That’ll be one of the most prevalent effects of computers taking over even more than they already have by now. People won’t know what an envelope is in just another three or four generations!