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Fascinating reading. There were nor programmers, neither bots at that time. Conveyor belt existed though ang Mr. Ford was making his black magic from condensed

Fascinating reading. There were nor programmers, neither bots at that time. Conveyor belt existed though ang Mr. Ford was making his black magic from condensed sweat of American workers.

rmah 10y ago
By 1915, multiple waves of automation had already put millions of people out of work in industries as diverse as textiles to bookkeeping. But some other jobs radically expanded and new jobs were invented. The pace of advancement was, from our perspective, staggering. A few decades before and after would radically transform daily life, not just bring a few new toys.
- dalke 10y ago
  In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago. 100 years ago, a 50 year old would have been born as the first transatlantic cable was laid, and seen the general introduction of the telephone, phonograph, movie projection, airplanes, filing systems (including punched card machines for data), radio, electric lights (which made nightlife possible), the first plastics, ironclad warships, the opening of the Suez and Panama Canals, the first affordable car in the Model T, the explosion of newspapers made possible by Linotype, etc.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    >In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago. Much of today's change is cosmetic, or a matter of added convenience. Flight, electronics, vaccines, antibiotics... those kind of changes affect how you really live. People in the early 20th century imagined we'd have rocket ships, ray guns, 600 year lifespans, and robot servants by now because they were projecting forward based on the speed of change in their own time. Near as I can figure the pace of technological development really slowed down in the 1970s and has continued slowing. Whether this is because something fundamental has created stagnation or, as Tyler Cowen proposed, we've eaten all the low hanging fruit, I couldn't say.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      A slight quibble: not all the change is simply cosmetic. The ways in which we interact with things can change quite markedly. If you're deep in the guts of technology, any technology, this is quite apparent. I've heard the comment made by programmers, Web designers, auto mechanics, doctors, carpenters, and more. But the impacts of those changes ... not so much. The whole concept of impact measurement is its own ball of waxworms, but there are some areas we can look at. Medicine, for example, improved life expectancy twice as much from 1900-1950 as from 1950 to today. The low-hanging fruit really mattered. Air travel today is slower than in 1970s, when ground and airport delays are considered. A multi-millionfold increase in compute power has extended long-range weather prediction from five days to ... seven. (Though the minute-by-minute near-term forecasts can be uncannily accurate.) In researching material (something I do a lot of these days), there are the benefits of online access, but I'm ultimately blocked by the rate at which I myself can read and understand new information. (And not get distracted replying to comments on HN.)

Fascinating reading. There were nor programmers, neither bots at that time. Conveyor belt existed though ang Mr. Ford was making his black magic from condensed sweat of American workers.

rmah 10y ago

By 1915, multiple waves of automation had already put millions of people out of work in industries as diverse as textiles to bookkeeping. But some other jobs radically expanded and new jobs were invented. The pace of advancement was, from our perspective, staggering. A few decades before and after would radically transform daily life, not just bring a few new toys.

dalke 10y ago
In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago. 100 years ago, a 50 year old would have been born as the first transatlantic cable was laid, and seen the general introduction of the telephone, phonograph, movie projection, airplanes, filing systems (including punched card machines for data), radio, electric lights (which made nightlife possible), the first plastics, ironclad warships, the opening of the Suez and Panama Canals, the first affordable car in the Model T, the explosion of newspapers made possible by Linotype, etc.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago. Much of today's change is cosmetic, or a matter of added convenience. Flight, electronics, vaccines, antibiotics... those kind of changes affect how you really live. People in the early 20th century imagined we'd have rocket ships, ray guns, 600 year lifespans, and robot servants by now because they were projecting forward based on the speed of change in their own time. Near as I can figure the pace of technological development really slowed down in the 1970s and has continued slowing. Whether this is because something fundamental has created stagnation or, as Tyler Cowen proposed, we've eaten all the low hanging fruit, I couldn't say.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    A slight quibble: not all the change is simply cosmetic. The ways in which we interact with things can change quite markedly. If you're deep in the guts of technology, any technology, this is quite apparent. I've heard the comment made by programmers, Web designers, auto mechanics, doctors, carpenters, and more. But the impacts of those changes ... not so much. The whole concept of impact measurement is its own ball of waxworms, but there are some areas we can look at. Medicine, for example, improved life expectancy twice as much from 1900-1950 as from 1950 to today. The low-hanging fruit really mattered. Air travel today is slower than in 1970s, when ground and airport delays are considered. A multi-millionfold increase in compute power has extended long-range weather prediction from five days to ... seven. (Though the minute-by-minute near-term forecasts can be uncannily accurate.) In researching material (something I do a lot of these days), there are the benefits of online access, but I'm ultimately blocked by the rate at which I myself can read and understand new information. (And not get distracted replying to comments on HN.)