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When all our appliances solve all our problems, the problems which remain are more prominent. No one complained in 1990 at not being able to go to the cinema,

When all our appliances solve all our problems, the problems which remain are more prominent. No one complained in 1990 at not being able to go to the cinema, etc., whenver they liked (netflix); to coordinate with friends without hours of conversation (messenger); to search for materials without days at the library (google). These were taken for granted and are now reduced to "seconds of time". Tech since the 90s has led to a massive increase of wealth via making our time vastly more productive: both social and economic.

Bakary 6y ago
Much of that wealth has filtered down to the masses, but the vast majority of it has been captured by rent-seekers or first-movers.
jimbokun 6y ago
Netflix etc. has just resulted in us spending less time on the things that make us happy (time with friends and family and socializing) with things that are addictive but make us less happy (endlessly staring at pixels).
- lm28469 6y ago
  I'd say it's worse than that, they offer the perfect counter argument to soul crushing jobs. Get home, unplug your brain, spend 3.2 hours on netflix [0], go to bed and forget about everything else. Yes, your life is miserable but tonight you'll be offered a new episode of that quirky baking show. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-netflix-subscribers-watch-32-hours-and-use-96-gb-of-data-per-day https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-netflix-subscribers-watch-32-h...
lm28469 6y ago
I don't feel like we're looking at the right metrics to judge if people's lives actually get better. If all you focus on is production/consumption then yes, sure, we've never produced and consumed as much, but consumption of goods and entertainment hardly is enough to fulfil a life. We see it very often on hacker news, people trying to "optimise their lives", "be more productive", not everything has to be about productivity, you can't quantify "social" productivity, the simple fact of writing "social productivity" makes me sick to be honest. We're applying machine concepts to human interactions... what's the best: 10M instagram followers or a loving family ? Who's the most socially productive here ? > massive increase of wealth Yes, but again, once you're past a certain point perceived wealth isn't a benchmark for quality of life. A min wage worker has a faster car than kings from the 15th century, they also have better beds, better heating systems, &c. do they have better lives ? And this isn't even talking about the fact the the massive wealth increase was highly beneficial to a very limited number of people while the rest got the crumbs A unit of out time is more productive, but we still spend as many unit of times working than 50 years ago for less and less rewarding jobs. Being stuck in a dead end meaningless job is a daily reminder that your time is worth next to nothing since you perceive your mission as useless and you're paid the bare minimum. If all you care about is productivity we're twice as productive as in the 70s [0], are we twice as happy as then ? And by "we" I don't mean "tech workers making 2-10 times their country's min wage". The vast majority of people still have to work 8 hours a day until retirement, less and less are able to afford homes, &c. I'm not against technology, that would be ridiculous, google search and google maps are literal miracles, but there is a flip side to tech and automation which is becoming increasingly hard to bear for a lot of people. I find that telling these people to suck it up because they have on demand cinema and facebook messenger a bit insulting. I lived on both sides, it doesn't matter if you have barely enough money to pay for a shelter or if you have enough money to buy any new amazon gadgets, all things being equal as long as you spend 8 hours a day working you'll still be missing out by the simple fact that between work and sleep you'll barely have time to get entertained. "Panem et circenses" [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-productivity-per-hour-pennworldtable?tab=chart&time=1968..2017&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-productivity-per-ho...

Bakary 6y ago

Much of that wealth has filtered down to the masses, but the vast majority of it has been captured by rent-seekers or first-movers.

jimbokun 6y ago

Netflix etc. has just resulted in us spending less time on the things that make us happy (time with friends and family and socializing) with things that are addictive but make us less happy (endlessly staring at pixels).

lm28469 6y ago
I'd say it's worse than that, they offer the perfect counter argument to soul crushing jobs. Get home, unplug your brain, spend 3.2 hours on netflix [0], go to bed and forget about everything else. Yes, your life is miserable but tonight you'll be offered a new episode of that quirky baking show. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-netflix-subscribers-watch-32-hours-and-use-96-gb-of-data-per-day https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-netflix-subscribers-watch-32-h...

lm28469 6y ago

I don't feel like we're looking at the right metrics to judge if people's lives actually get better. If all you focus on is production/consumption then yes, sure, we've never produced and consumed as much, but consumption of goods and entertainment hardly is enough to fulfil a life. We see it very often on hacker news, people trying to "optimise their lives", "be more productive", not everything has to be about productivity, you can't quantify "social" productivity, the simple fact of writing "social productivity" makes me sick to be honest. We're applying machine concepts to human interactions... what's the best: 10M instagram followers or a loving family ? Who's the most socially productive here ? > massive increase of wealth Yes, but again, once you're past a certain point perceived wealth isn't a benchmark for quality of life. A min wage worker has a faster car than kings from the 15th century, they also have better beds, better heating systems, &c. do they have better lives ? And this isn't even talking about the fact the the massive wealth increase was highly beneficial to a very limited number of people while the rest got the crumbs A unit of out time is more productive, but we still spend as many unit of times working than 50 years ago for less and less rewarding jobs. Being stuck in a dead end meaningless job is a daily reminder that your time is worth next to nothing since you perceive your mission as useless and you're paid the bare minimum. If all you care about is productivity we're twice as productive as in the 70s [0], are we twice as happy as then ? And by "we" I don't mean "tech workers making 2-10 times their country's min wage". The vast majority of people still have to work 8 hours a day until retirement, less and less are able to afford homes, &c. I'm not against technology, that would be ridiculous, google search and google maps are literal miracles, but there is a flip side to tech and automation which is becoming increasingly hard to bear for a lot of people. I find that telling these people to suck it up because they have on demand cinema and facebook messenger a bit insulting. I lived on both sides, it doesn't matter if you have barely enough money to pay for a shelter or if you have enough money to buy any new amazon gadgets, all things being equal as long as you spend 8 hours a day working you'll still be missing out by the simple fact that between work and sleep you'll barely have time to get entertained. "Panem et circenses" [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-productivity-per-hour-pennworldtable?tab=chart&time=1968..2017&region=World https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/labor-productivity-per-ho...