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I wrote something with a very similar title in 2009: https://www.takimag.com/article/the_myth_of_technological_progress/ https://www.takimag.com/article/the_my

I wrote something with a very similar title in 2009: https://www.takimag.com/article/the_myth_of_technological_progress/ https://www.takimag.com/article/the_myth_of_technological_pr... I've considered turning it into a book, since it is almost self-evidently true and saying it out loud seems to piss people off.

zamfi 7y ago
Frankly, the dismissals you use for insulin (“allow fat people to eat more sugar without slaughtering horses and pigs”) and smartphones (“can we really do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years ago?”) kind of destroy the legitimacy of your article. Readily available insulin (along with automated pumps) allows folks with type 1 diabetes (you know, not the “fat people”, but the almost-died autoimmune people) to live quasi-normal lives. The point of smartphones isn’t that they’re small versions of regular computers, the point is that they’re everywhere. Do you not see that as categorically different? You could not, for example, hail a cab from a mainframe in 1959. Whereas now you have a device in your pocket that connects you with a cabbie with a similar device in their pocket. The fact that they’re computers using radio networks (old tech that makes it “not progress” to you) is completely irrelevant. That’s to say nothing of the fact that in 1959 cabs wouldn’t stop for black Americans, or visit gay neighborhoods in the ‘80s, etc. etc. — smartphones have completely changed the landscape there. These kinds of dismissals are like sitting in 1959 saying that planes aren’t that fundamentally different from cars — sure they’re faster, but they’re still fuel-powered engines that take you from point A to point B! And they’re more expensive! Radio is just a telegraph with no wires! The smallpox vaccine is just so that those slummy “urban dwellers” can avoid spending time with cows while they’re kids! All technology development is path dependent, and looking at the path and saying “therefore this isn’t progress” is not a particularly valuable insight in my humble opinion.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for his audience. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry you're so sensitive I guess. I'm not sorry for making jokes. That statement also makes an important point: diabetics had solutions back in the old days 40 years before 2009, and there sure were a lot less people with self-inflicted diabetes then. My dismissals are simply the magnitude of the difference. The comparison class for nerd dildos is ... the invention of the computer and networking technology in the first place in the decades before. The invention of the computer and associated networking technology is a vast increase in human power. Smart phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not a categorically new thing which insanely changes people's way of life. Even in 1969 (now that it's been 50 years), one could put a nickel in a pay phone and summon a cab. It worked about as well as Uber does in most circumstances. In cities, where you're most likely to use such services, you could also just wave at a taxi. I did it for 3 months earlier this year in Lisbon: it worked just fine, and was often faster than uber! The sad thing, to me, is people really think their networked electrical dingus is comparable to something like computers -to say nothing of antibiotics, the atom bomb, spaceflight and so on. I mean, you're in good company: no less a personage than Jerry Pournelle made the same argument you are making here. But it's still wrong!
  - zamfi 7y ago
    You are missing my point, or at least not really addressing it, so perhaps I wasn't clear. Your dismissals are "just about magnitude of difference", but your supporting examples are also about magnitude of difference, you are just choosing not to frame them that way. > That statement also makes an important point: diabetics had solutions back in the old days 40 years before 2009, and there sure were a lot less people with self-inflicted diabetes then. > Smart phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not a categorically new thing which insanely changes people's way of life. Even in 1969 (now that it's been 50 years), one could put a nickel in a pal phone and summon a cab. I can make this argument about anything you listed as being "progress" from 1909-1959. People who now fly could have driven, or taken the train, or rode on horseback. Flying is just faster, right? The jet engine is just an evolutionary change over the turboprop. The atom bomb is just a really big bomb, right? Couldn't you just drop 10,000 equivalent bombs? And that's me trying to take you seriously -- one of your examples is "fuel-injected internal combustion engines", which you claim is a bigger "invention" than anything that's happened in computing since 1959. In 1959, computers did almost nothing for almost nobody. You are taking an entire half century of advances in computing and saying they are irrelevant because you can draw some "fundamental" line in 1959 that everything was done before. But if we still had 1959-level computers our society would be, to use your words, insanely different. So what makes 1959-2009 "not progress"? You started with a thesis and selected your evidence to match. What you write is "almost self-evidently true" because your examples are extremely selective. It "pisses people off" because you're trying to deceive them and they can see it. Look, the ridiculous part of this argument is that I actually agree with you: I think the pace of technological development has slowed and that it's a problem. But you're making extreme claims that are just wrong, and your argument is based in some kind of weird definition of the world looking different than before that I can't relate to. You write in your piece: "as such, I don’t think the world of 50 years hence will look very technologically different from the world now." If you already don't think 2019 looks very different from 1969, then, sure, 2069 might not look very different from 2019 either. But I venture that if we transported you back to 1969 you're be complaining about the lack of progress since 1919 too, because you can make that same argument by cherry-picking facts. Each half-century of technological progress has looked different from the last. If you're looking for the type of progress that happened in the previous 50 years you'll miss the forest for the trees, just as you've done here. Some of the grumpy people who were expecting the continuation of development of the railroads and giant industrial machines from 1859-1909 probably looked at the bio breakthroughs and jet engines and electrification of 1909-1959 as not being the same kind of progress. ("Planes were invented in 1903!") We won't really know what mattered from 1959-2009 until 2059, and I suspect we will see a ton of groundbreaking "invention" work making real changes in people's lives when we look back from 2059. (Just look at the ads from 1959 and tell me how much of that garbage really still matters.) And also: > Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for his audience. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry you're so sensitive I guess. I'm not sorry for making jokes. That's nice. I'm glad there's an audience out there for you that also finds humor in mocking human illness. Diversity provides strength.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  In 1959 there were public phone booths or stands in the cities, or the cab companies installed dedicated ones by themselves at public places. I have seen them maybe up to around 2000. In less dense places it probably wouldn't have made sense, because the cost of the ride were too expensive, prohibitive for most, except in emergencies. For which other services did and do exist, at least in developed countries. Where there is no cell phone reception now, a cab/taxi/uber is probably still too expensive nowadays. So i'm not getting why you are using this as example, while ignoring the fact that you are carrying a f..(-word).. Orwellian TELEVISOR with you, while the usefulness leaves much to be desired because of the formfactor even with good eyesight/vision. I don't want to read books on smartphone. Why would i? Do you read books in the size of a cash reciept/sales slip? Oh yes, there is navigation! But it's often wrong. I know this goes against the grain of most of you, because it's your source of income(Mobile First!1!!) or you've grown up with them, without knowledge of the times before cell/smartphones. But you know what? For all i care you can shove those things where the sun doesn't shine! (Edit: I hear teledildonics are a thing now. The last sentence was meant as an insult, not endorsement. Just to be clear about that, k?)
  - scarface74 7y ago
    or you've grown up with them, without knowledge of the times before cell/smartphones. Guess what the “74” in my name signifies? Where there is no cell phone reception now, a cab/taxi/uber is probably still too expensive nowadays. There are very few populated areas on the earth without cell phone reception from at least one provider. I don't want to read books on smartphone. My phone is about the size of a page in a paperback book and the words are definitely the size of normal text. Also, any modern phone you can increase the size of text if your eyesight isn’t good.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
      Yawn. With the exception of so called 'phablets' i doubt that, because the aspect ratio usually doesn't fit. Anytime i'm trying that it just feels wrong. As i mentioned before, like staring at a cashiers receipt/sales slip.
petermcneeley 7y ago
Read it and I agree with the sentiment. I think the more relevant questions is why has this happened? Also the promise of a distributed digital networked society is revolutionary. It our actualization that is a simple elaboration on the existing. If we were all working remote, being educated online, trading digital goods and currencies, and primarily living in VR then I would say a new world had been born.

zamfi 7y ago

Frankly, the dismissals you use for insulin (“allow fat people to eat more sugar without slaughtering horses and pigs”) and smartphones (“can we really do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years ago?”) kind of destroy the legitimacy of your article. Readily available insulin (along with automated pumps) allows folks with type 1 diabetes (you know, not the “fat people”, but the almost-died autoimmune people) to live quasi-normal lives. The point of smartphones isn’t that they’re small versions of regular computers, the point is that they’re everywhere. Do you not see that as categorically different? You could not, for example, hail a cab from a mainframe in 1959. Whereas now you have a device in your pocket that connects you with a cabbie with a similar device in their pocket. The fact that they’re computers using radio networks (old tech that makes it “not progress” to you) is completely irrelevant. That’s to say nothing of the fact that in 1959 cabs wouldn’t stop for black Americans, or visit gay neighborhoods in the ‘80s, etc. etc. — smartphones have completely changed the landscape there. These kinds of dismissals are like sitting in 1959 saying that planes aren’t that fundamentally different from cars — sure they’re faster, but they’re still fuel-powered engines that take you from point A to point B! And they’re more expensive! Radio is just a telegraph with no wires! The smallpox vaccine is just so that those slummy “urban dwellers” can avoid spending time with cows while they’re kids! All technology development is path dependent, and looking at the path and saying “therefore this isn’t progress” is not a particularly valuable insight in my humble opinion.

scottlocklin 7y ago
Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for his audience. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry you're so sensitive I guess. I'm not sorry for making jokes. That statement also makes an important point: diabetics had solutions back in the old days 40 years before 2009, and there sure were a lot less people with self-inflicted diabetes then. My dismissals are simply the magnitude of the difference. The comparison class for nerd dildos is ... the invention of the computer and networking technology in the first place in the decades before. The invention of the computer and associated networking technology is a vast increase in human power. Smart phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not a categorically new thing which insanely changes people's way of life. Even in 1969 (now that it's been 50 years), one could put a nickel in a pay phone and summon a cab. It worked about as well as Uber does in most circumstances. In cities, where you're most likely to use such services, you could also just wave at a taxi. I did it for 3 months earlier this year in Lisbon: it worked just fine, and was often faster than uber! The sad thing, to me, is people really think their networked electrical dingus is comparable to something like computers -to say nothing of antibiotics, the atom bomb, spaceflight and so on. I mean, you're in good company: no less a personage than Jerry Pournelle made the same argument you are making here. But it's still wrong!
- zamfi 7y ago
  You are missing my point, or at least not really addressing it, so perhaps I wasn't clear. Your dismissals are "just about magnitude of difference", but your supporting examples are also about magnitude of difference, you are just choosing not to frame them that way. > That statement also makes an important point: diabetics had solutions back in the old days 40 years before 2009, and there sure were a lot less people with self-inflicted diabetes then. > Smart phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not a categorically new thing which insanely changes people's way of life. Even in 1969 (now that it's been 50 years), one could put a nickel in a pal phone and summon a cab. I can make this argument about anything you listed as being "progress" from 1909-1959. People who now fly could have driven, or taken the train, or rode on horseback. Flying is just faster, right? The jet engine is just an evolutionary change over the turboprop. The atom bomb is just a really big bomb, right? Couldn't you just drop 10,000 equivalent bombs? And that's me trying to take you seriously -- one of your examples is "fuel-injected internal combustion engines", which you claim is a bigger "invention" than anything that's happened in computing since 1959. In 1959, computers did almost nothing for almost nobody. You are taking an entire half century of advances in computing and saying they are irrelevant because you can draw some "fundamental" line in 1959 that everything was done before. But if we still had 1959-level computers our society would be, to use your words, insanely different. So what makes 1959-2009 "not progress"? You started with a thesis and selected your evidence to match. What you write is "almost self-evidently true" because your examples are extremely selective. It "pisses people off" because you're trying to deceive them and they can see it. Look, the ridiculous part of this argument is that I actually agree with you: I think the pace of technological development has slowed and that it's a problem. But you're making extreme claims that are just wrong, and your argument is based in some kind of weird definition of the world looking different than before that I can't relate to. You write in your piece: "as such, I don’t think the world of 50 years hence will look very technologically different from the world now." If you already don't think 2019 looks very different from 1969, then, sure, 2069 might not look very different from 2019 either. But I venture that if we transported you back to 1969 you're be complaining about the lack of progress since 1919 too, because you can make that same argument by cherry-picking facts. Each half-century of technological progress has looked different from the last. If you're looking for the type of progress that happened in the previous 50 years you'll miss the forest for the trees, just as you've done here. Some of the grumpy people who were expecting the continuation of development of the railroads and giant industrial machines from 1859-1909 probably looked at the bio breakthroughs and jet engines and electrification of 1909-1959 as not being the same kind of progress. ("Planes were invented in 1903!") We won't really know what mattered from 1959-2009 until 2059, and I suspect we will see a ton of groundbreaking "invention" work making real changes in people's lives when we look back from 2059. (Just look at the ads from 1959 and tell me how much of that garbage really still matters.) And also: > Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for his audience. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry you're so sensitive I guess. I'm not sorry for making jokes. That's nice. I'm glad there's an audience out there for you that also finds humor in mocking human illness. Diversity provides strength.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
In 1959 there were public phone booths or stands in the cities, or the cab companies installed dedicated ones by themselves at public places. I have seen them maybe up to around 2000. In less dense places it probably wouldn't have made sense, because the cost of the ride were too expensive, prohibitive for most, except in emergencies. For which other services did and do exist, at least in developed countries. Where there is no cell phone reception now, a cab/taxi/uber is probably still too expensive nowadays. So i'm not getting why you are using this as example, while ignoring the fact that you are carrying a f..(-word).. Orwellian TELEVISOR with you, while the usefulness leaves much to be desired because of the formfactor even with good eyesight/vision. I don't want to read books on smartphone. Why would i? Do you read books in the size of a cash reciept/sales slip? Oh yes, there is navigation! But it's often wrong. I know this goes against the grain of most of you, because it's your source of income(Mobile First!1!!) or you've grown up with them, without knowledge of the times before cell/smartphones. But you know what? For all i care you can shove those things where the sun doesn't shine! (Edit: I hear teledildonics are a thing now. The last sentence was meant as an insult, not endorsement. Just to be clear about that, k?)
- scarface74 7y ago
  or you've grown up with them, without knowledge of the times before cell/smartphones. Guess what the “74” in my name signifies? Where there is no cell phone reception now, a cab/taxi/uber is probably still too expensive nowadays. There are very few populated areas on the earth without cell phone reception from at least one provider. I don't want to read books on smartphone. My phone is about the size of a page in a paperback book and the words are definitely the size of normal text. Also, any modern phone you can increase the size of text if your eyesight isn’t good.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
    Yawn. With the exception of so called 'phablets' i doubt that, because the aspect ratio usually doesn't fit. Anytime i'm trying that it just feels wrong. As i mentioned before, like staring at a cashiers receipt/sales slip.

petermcneeley 7y ago

Read it and I agree with the sentiment. I think the more relevant questions is why has this happened? Also the promise of a distributed digital networked society is revolutionary. It our actualization that is a simple elaboration on the existing. If we were all working remote, being educated online, trading digital goods and currencies, and primarily living in VR then I would say a new world had been born.