This particular one is a funny-once, as Manny the narrator character said to Mike the newly-conscious computer in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Man

This particular one is a funny-once, as Manny the narrator character said to Mike the newly-conscious computer in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Manny also said something like, the second time it's half-funny, with a geometric progression downward.) It's possible to look at the glass as half-full: People can still write nice letters, and sometimes do (often by email), but they also have other avenues of creative expression.