#modern inhuman refinements don't even save time

[knightotoc]

"In my father's day, a night operator, whose name he'd have known, could've told him who'd called. It would probably have been the only light on her board at that time of night, and she'd have remembered which one it was, because they were calling the doctor.

"But now we have dial phones, marvelously efficient, saving you a full second or more every time you call. Inhumanely perfect, and utterly brainless. And none of them will ever remember where a doctor is at night when a child is sick and needs him. Sometimes I think we're refining all humanity out of our lives."

-- The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney, 1955