Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 20, 2023

And sometimes you accidentally forgot to put on a stamp.

When a comic strip predicts the future.

To some degree, i agree with his dad. Not in all parts. but some

This aged like a fine wine. Computers, telephones, and TVs ARE all hooked together to bring instantaneous, interactive communication right into our homes (along with everywhere else)!

Al Gore was right! He never claimed he “invented” the Internet. He just laid out how everyone in the near future would be connected via the “Information Super Highway”.

If Calvin could have seen the future, he wouldn’t be as enthused as he looks in the second panel…

The bad thing is that we’ve reached a point where various devices are spying on you. Maybe I’m just paranoid.

When people could stand to be alone in their own heads on the bus, on the street etc.

It did usher in the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s called texting……

Was Calvin on the right track when this comic appeared in the late 1980’s.

Where do his parents keep their horse and buggy??

The internet has done some good, but also has damaged quite a lot as well. @mazon for example, has destroyed many businesses.

I wish we had stop at three channels on the TV and wall phones.

Calvin would love the 21st century!

Considering that I met my wife through the internet, I am quite happy with the new way.

Today’s strip reminds me of my Dad’s attitude to credit cards. He was against them as they helped people to get into debt and helped fraudsters to rob people of their savings. When I was at Junior School, I read that some people were predicting that credit cards would ultimately replace cash transactions. Early in 1979, my English class were instructed to write a story set in 2009 and I used the idea that credit cards had replaced cash transactions in my story. My Dad told me that was nonsense and that credit cards will never be any use without cash. Now that we are in 2023, some places only take card payments and it is very likely that card payments will replace cash transactions altogether this century.

You can’t go back, but you can adapt some older technologies into a healthier future. The bicycle (and I’m not talking about those spandex-wearing cyclists who run people over without so much as an “on your left”), can and maybe should replace much of the harmful car traffic. Some countries, like Finland, have invested a lot of money and land to create bike streets which receive priority over car streets in maintenance and snow removal (which is important in Finland!). People there ride bikes to school and work year-round. And they are much healthier for it.

He’s a 21st century kid from the late 20th century (1993, according to the copyright notice).

I agree with dad.

30 years later I’m with his dad.

I was a network admin for a long time. We early on adapted using phones and tablets to extend the capabilties of folk out on the field.

What’s next? Electric cars that cost a fortune and burst into flames that cannot be put out with water for no reason filling the air with thick, toxic smoke polluting the air more than 500 gas powered Countmobiles. Bwaaa haaa haaa!

The information super highway = the surveillance state.

I would still like to have a horse. Talk about energy efficient.

Boy I grew up and relate to the dad more and more

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

(Isaac Asimov)

I actually agree with Dad on this one.

This strip is from 1993. What Calvin read very accurately stated what was to come.

First appearance September 22, 1993. Nice to see it 30 years later.

I’m a 19th-century person forced into the 21st-century “dream?” of a technologically controlled populace. I’ll gladly trade Calvin. Very gladly, as I watch what this technology does to my grandchildren, friends, government, and people’s relationships. js ……….. ps see the Drabble strip by Fagan today

Just saying, the seeds of the information highway were already a sparkle in a technician’s eye long before 1993. In 1968 my mom swapped our old desk style rotary phone for the modern sleek “Trimline” phone with pushbuttons. Still corded, but it included in the light-up keypad were two new mysterious buttons: Star and Pound.

The fellow from Northwestern Bell putting in the new jacks waxed rhapsodic about how in the future, using those buttons, we’d be able to do all sorts of things. Put a call on hold, add multiple people to a phone call to have a group chat, and shop. But what mom was most giddy about was when he said maybe even vote! With our phones!?

Of course, she imagined it would be for president, not just which stooge gets booted off the island, or win a recording contract… sigh.

Those who want to interact are probably few and far between.

I think it is now called the IOT, Internet of Things. Now my refrigerator can be hooked up to my wifi. Why? So I can be alerted to the fact the power went out and yes, there’s a refrigerator app for that…sigh.

Wait until the spam calls and emails start, kid – you’ll soon appreciate Dad.

Yep, this was back in 1993 when the “electronic superhighway” was in its’ early stages, along with Bill Watterson basically expressing his disdain for modern technologies. But it’s a little scary how Calvin’s prediction in the second panel turned out to be true! And of course, his line in the last panel is funny as always.

Wow! How eerily prescient!

Wait 30 years, kid, you’ll be wondering what the heck happened.

That’s okay, I’m the opposite!

Team Dad. sigh…..

There are definitely certain situations where having no expectation of a rapid reply can be used to your advantage.

Calvin the future isn’t what you expected. Yeah we’re all connected and this thing called social media has divided everyone and everybody have gone tribal. Become a Luddite and stay off the grid

Return to the days of carrier pigeons.

Being in a 19th century family would put you well ahead of many social media users, who’s Neanderthal DNA is clearly evident.

It’s kind of funny seeing all these people on the Internet complain about the Internet.

I’m with Dad on this. I started work just before email started to be used where I worked, in 1995. We got email (such as it was) in 1996.

It had been the case, depending on the time of day, that to send a message to someone at head office, it might actually be faster to send it by mail (mail was delivered to desks in the morning) than to send a fax (faxes were delivered in the afternoon).

Now everyone can do it instantly, instant responses are also wanted.

Still though, when I get official letters from companies or government, they still manage to arrive only a week (at least) after the supposed date the letter was sent…

Remember pre-internet when everything was about the “information superhighway”?

Count your blessings Calvin.

And as a direct result, Big Brother has now taken up full-time residence in every home with anything IOT including a “smart speaker” or even a “smartphone.” Better still, Big Brother sees all, knows all, and, most importantly, he never forgets.

And this is why they don’t teach cursive is schools anymore. Nobody uses it

Yes, imagine that!

Calvin’s dad makes Luddites appear as First Adopters!

You never had to update your pencil, upgrade your paper or pay a subscription for stamps.

I did IT support (among other things) for 20 years before retiring. I retired this year and thought life would get simpler. All my devices are still nagging me about their latest and greatest features, software is still buggy, and updates are a never-ending nuisance.

I see we changed that to 21st Century.

This electronic superhighway will never happen. You heard it here first.

Death seed, blind man’s greed. Poets starving, children bleed.Nothing he’s got, he really needs. 21st century schizoid Calvin

Calvin was WAY ahead of his time…

And sometimes those letters, errr bills… would get “lost” in the mail.

It was also kinda handy when you could write a check that you knew wouldn’t clear for at least a week. (not that I ever did that – ahem)

30 years later, I’d say we’ve allowed technology to go too fast.

They are referring to the time when a person could write out at least two coherent sentences in cursive hand writing.

Being born in the early 2000s, the earliest technology I experienced were flip phones, Windows XP, and the original model Xbox 360. If that feels like forever ago to me, I could never imagine what y’all have experienced.

Calvin was right on about this “super highway” and I’m guessing if his dad knew about smartphones, he’d probably become a hermit and move into a cave.

There was a book from the late ’90s called “Roadkill of the Information Superhighway.” I wanted to read it but never managed to find a copy.

WHAT, Calvin was the originator of the concept of the “Internet of Things (IOT) ??”

A friend of mine used to love it when the company e-mail server went down. “I got so much actual work done!”

Calvin’s dad is smarter than anyone!!!

Now that we’re there: Dad was right.

During the 1994 Olympics, in Norway, I remember commercials all about the Information Highway. I knew computers were involved but I had yet to be able to use them for communication. AOL was mentioned, which meant next to nothing to me. My youngest son caught on fairly quickly though and it was no time before “dial-up” entered our home.

Yes! World-wide, interactive, instantaneous communication…and hear I am, reading and interacting with a comic strip. (Or I could be watching actual, live-action cat videos!) Hljkjljljbnhblubbub….

Who knew Calvin was prescient

Instantaneous?

I’ve been run over on the information highway. I’m 74 and still recovering.

Hey guys I am starting a Calvin and Hobbes marathon. Wish me luck!

I love the surrealness of reading this on my iPhone.