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You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

ksec 6y ago
I am getting "smart" technology fatigue. I want old fashion technology, mechanical, analog. Whiteboard, Pen and Pencil, Dump TV.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Yeah, "smart" is just a marketing buzzword. It's not an intrinsic property of technology, either. It's just businesses that want to take advantage of you in new and more abusive ways. Don't let them.
WetMinister 6y ago
Also applies to the very tired ”work smarter, not harder” saying: it never means working less with the time you gain but actually means ”work smarter so you can work even more”
- xmprt 6y ago
  At some point, you stop working though right? And all that smart work probably earned you enough money to retire early compared to someone working a dead end job.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  That depends on your career goals and your attitude towards the concept of "buffer time", though.
- collyw 6y ago
  Thankfully the trend of boasting about "multitasking" has died. A decade or two back everyone seemed to think it was a good idea.
onion2k 6y ago
The problem with everything that 'saves time' is that it doesn't save time in way a that actually frees up blocks of time, because most things in your day are running to someone else's schedule. Saving 10 minutes here and 20 minutes there only adds up to give you hours to do what you want if you're not waiting for some event to let you begin the next task. If you are waiting for something then saving 10 minutes just gives you 10 minutes more dead space in your day to spend waiting. If I have two meetings and I can manage to get the first one done early the only impact that will have is that I'll have to wait longer until the second one. I guess that's a little more time to spend writing nonsense on HN, but it doesn't feel useful to have saved that time. Saving time on tasks to give yourself more time to do other things only works if you have complete autonomy over your schedule.
yourapostasy 6y ago
As long as workers who trade their labor time for money do not participate in the productivity gains at a rate that sufficiently outpaces wage adjustments to the new productivity, this will continue.
andi999 6y ago
I agree on the short timescale, but look at the longer one. like coal mining was horrible during Orwells times, and now it is difficult but much much better due to technology. Or take saturdays. I do not know about your country, but here not having to work (and not having to go to school) on saturday happened in the last 50 years; or in Singapore in the last 15 years.
- pegasus 6y ago
  The funny thing is, that horrible coal mining that technology liberated us from was part and parcel of the Industrial Revolution. Thank you technology, for saving us from the fallout of technology! Good thing this time there's no fallout.
  - andi999 6y ago
    I prefer it this way, with renevables in (far) sight and maybe some fusion, much better than not heating the apartment in winter (which of course you can choose to do up to a certain limit)
Dirlewanger 6y ago
It's why I think more and more as the days go on that the Internet, while being humanity's greatest invention, is turning out to be a net negative. Despite most human-development-related statistics pointing to the fact that humanity/civilization is at its most productive/safest in all of history, the Internet is slowly eroding away what it means to be human.
GuB-42 6y ago
Life is busy work. I mean, we give sense to our life beyond filling the atmosphere with CO2, and yet, on a planetary scale, there is not much more to humanity than that. Technology allows us to experience things that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And your word processor can indeed save you enough time to do other things you want to do with your life. And if word processors and overstimulation are not your things, you can go to a Zen monastery, technology have your back: food, medicine, construction, transportation,... so you can meditate in peace. I have known several people who live a simple life. Small house in the middle of nowhere, no phone signal, grow their own crops, etc... But they still have a car, go out to town to buy stuff that come out of large factories, they have a few electric devices powered by solar panels, etc... They take advantage of technology and people love of word processors to live their simple life, and that's fine! That's what technology is for, to allow those who want to disconnect to do so without putting their life at risk, and to give a dopamine rush to those who can't stay still.

ksec 6y ago

I am getting "smart" technology fatigue. I want old fashion technology, mechanical, analog. Whiteboard, Pen and Pencil, Dump TV.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Yeah, "smart" is just a marketing buzzword. It's not an intrinsic property of technology, either. It's just businesses that want to take advantage of you in new and more abusive ways. Don't let them.

WetMinister 6y ago

Also applies to the very tired ”work smarter, not harder” saying: it never means working less with the time you gain but actually means ”work smarter so you can work even more”

xmprt 6y ago
At some point, you stop working though right? And all that smart work probably earned you enough money to retire early compared to someone working a dead end job.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
That depends on your career goals and your attitude towards the concept of "buffer time", though.
collyw 6y ago
Thankfully the trend of boasting about "multitasking" has died. A decade or two back everyone seemed to think it was a good idea.

onion2k 6y ago

The problem with everything that 'saves time' is that it doesn't save time in way a that actually frees up blocks of time, because most things in your day are running to someone else's schedule. Saving 10 minutes here and 20 minutes there only adds up to give you hours to do what you want if you're not waiting for some event to let you begin the next task. If you are waiting for something then saving 10 minutes just gives you 10 minutes more dead space in your day to spend waiting. If I have two meetings and I can manage to get the first one done early the only impact that will have is that I'll have to wait longer until the second one. I guess that's a little more time to spend writing nonsense on HN, but it doesn't feel useful to have saved that time. Saving time on tasks to give yourself more time to do other things only works if you have complete autonomy over your schedule.

yourapostasy 6y ago

As long as workers who trade their labor time for money do not participate in the productivity gains at a rate that sufficiently outpaces wage adjustments to the new productivity, this will continue.

andi999 6y ago

I agree on the short timescale, but look at the longer one. like coal mining was horrible during Orwells times, and now it is difficult but much much better due to technology. Or take saturdays. I do not know about your country, but here not having to work (and not having to go to school) on saturday happened in the last 50 years; or in Singapore in the last 15 years.

pegasus 6y ago
The funny thing is, that horrible coal mining that technology liberated us from was part and parcel of the Industrial Revolution. Thank you technology, for saving us from the fallout of technology! Good thing this time there's no fallout.
- andi999 6y ago
  I prefer it this way, with renevables in (far) sight and maybe some fusion, much better than not heating the apartment in winter (which of course you can choose to do up to a certain limit)

Dirlewanger 6y ago

It's why I think more and more as the days go on that the Internet, while being humanity's greatest invention, is turning out to be a net negative. Despite most human-development-related statistics pointing to the fact that humanity/civilization is at its most productive/safest in all of history, the Internet is slowly eroding away what it means to be human.

GuB-42 6y ago

Life is busy work. I mean, we give sense to our life beyond filling the atmosphere with CO2, and yet, on a planetary scale, there is not much more to humanity than that. Technology allows us to experience things that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And your word processor can indeed save you enough time to do other things you want to do with your life. And if word processors and overstimulation are not your things, you can go to a Zen monastery, technology have your back: food, medicine, construction, transportation,... so you can meditate in peace. I have known several people who live a simple life. Small house in the middle of nowhere, no phone signal, grow their own crops, etc... But they still have a car, go out to town to buy stuff that come out of large factories, they have a few electric devices powered by solar panels, etc... They take advantage of technology and people love of word processors to live their simple life, and that's fine! That's what technology is for, to allow those who want to disconnect to do so without putting their life at risk, and to give a dopamine rush to those who can't stay still.