What paperless society? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15059208
Electronic records and media were supposed to liberate us from paperwork and paper recordkeeping, while conserving forests used to produce paper products.

The promise rings hollow. Cybersecurity experts are suggesting states have a voter-verified paper record of every ballot cast to guard against Russian hackers. Many people are reluctant to do on-line banking, fearing some hacker will erase their accounts from the “cloud.” They want to be able to point to a paper statement and say, “This proves I have this money.”

When I reorder medicine online, a message on the page says, “Print this for your records.” While newspaper print circulation has fallen, the New York Times still has a print circulation of more than 2.2 million.

If we were truly in a paperless society, inkjet and laser printers would be as scarce as fax machines. Hardly. Best Buy, for example, has more than 270 different printers available. (They have only one combination fax-printer.)

Should we completely dismiss the idea of a paperless society?
#15059210
Robert Urbanek wrote:
Should we completely dismiss the idea of a paperless society?



Way back in 1994, in the tv show Babylon 5, a character says 'every time someone says we are getting a paperless society, I get 3 new forms to fill out'.

A LOT of ways we have of doing things last longer than our need for them. Sometimes this is tradition. And sometimes it's inefficient organisation. Canada has a teeny tiny fraction of the paperwork we have to handle medical stuff. That's the result of massive inefficiency.
#15059217
Robert Urbanek wrote:When I reorder medicine online, a message on the page says, “Print this for your records.”


To be fair, though, you can choose to "print" that to a .pdf and, thereby, not generate an actual paper copy of it...
#15059222
late wrote:Way back in 1994, in the tv show Babylon 5, a character says 'every time someone says we are getting a paperless society, I get 3 new forms to fill out'.

A LOT of ways we have of doing things last longer than our need for them. Sometimes this is tradition. And sometimes it's inefficient organisation. Canada has a teeny tiny fraction of the paperwork we have to handle medical stuff. That's the result of massive inefficiency.


I thought Canada had less medical paperwork because of universal health care: no or few insurance forms to fill out.
#15064030
Robert Urbanek wrote:Electronic records and media were supposed to liberate us from paperwork and paper recordkeeping, while conserving forests used to produce paper products.

Paper is usually made from recycled waste and softwoods grown sustainably for that market.
Save trees? Stop cutting down tropical hardwood forests.

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