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If you stopped working, society wouldn’t care. If everyone did, there would be a problem; no more good food or vacation accommodations. I’m frustrated in the l

by nxc18 5y ago

If you stopped working, society wouldn’t care. If everyone did, there would be a problem; no more good food or vacation accommodations. I’m frustrated in the lack of big picture thinking in this discussion generally. Imagine how much better off we’d all be if the people at Intel, Boeing, or Qualcomm took their jobs seriously. Imagine if there was (non-joke) US competition to DJI for drones. Imagine if there was an Android flagship CPU that wasn’t years behind last year’s the iPhone on day one. On the flip side, imagine if Google hadn’t gone out of their way to create street view, or the rest of the Maps system? The folks at Apple and Google aren’t Einstein or Newton, but they make a vigorous contribution to society nonetheless. Everyone has to do their part, and when they don’t, we are all poorer for it. The European attitude towards work isn’t fully entrenched in the US but it seems to be growing to our detriment.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Honestly, on the balance, I don't think any of the examples you mentioned would do that much to my general happiness. I care about the other things in life so much more than about processor performance. If Google Maps hadn't come someone else would do it. They didn't invent digital maps. I don't think society in general would be very different. If we lost basic things like safety, food, and so on, then yes that matters. But if we're being honest, big tech in the big picture of our daily lives is really just candy. The thing that is of much bigger import than all of those put together for most people is healthcare, housing, and eventually climate change.
- nxc18 5y ago
  Again, very small-scale thinking that misses the forest for the trees. Yes, you don’t care about processor performance. Fine. What I care about is the people in my life not wasting time because of shitty Android phones. I care about things like being able to give my parents my old phones, which have years of productive life on them; Qualcomm is the reason that doesn’t work on Android. I care about the people who can’t afford the flagship; they deserve a great experience just as much as I do. Digital maps did exist before Google Maps. And they sucked. The industry was all about digital preparation of maps that would be printed. On paper. We don’t know that no one would have done it better; you could say electric cars would have happened anyway, except they didn’t happen until very recently. When a field technician can do a network trace to solve a power outage in minutes instead of hours, that matters. Big tech is enabling things like replacing pesticides with robotics, targeting fertilizer application based on need, and reducing the environmental impact of the food you eat. Big tech is doing things like improving the safety of cars with automatic emergency braking, giving you early earthquake notifications (buying precious moments to duck, cover, and hold on), predicting and warning about dangerous weather with increasing accuracy, and improving medical diagnosis among many, many, many other achievements. So yes, of course, ‘just candy’. People doing their jobs well, consistently, is how healthcare is delivered, housing is produced, and climate change will be solved. The US could implement a social safety net regardless of cultural issues and it very well should. 3 month vacations and slack work ethic will do absolutely nothing to solve healthcare, housing, or climate change, so I don’t really understand why those concerns are relevant.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Google maps was developed by Where 2 Technologies in Sydney. Google bought it in late 2004, same sort of time OSM started (in the UK) Microsoft AutoRoute predated that by a decade - NextBase (A UK company) built it in 1988, I think Microsoft had bought it by the mid 90s. The US is great at taking other peoples inventions, buying them, marketing them, and claiming them for itself. The rest of the world innovates, the US pumps it out in bulk.
    - wreath 5y ago
      But also those US companies brought this tech they bought to the masses. To say they were built by others anyway reduced the role big tech played here same way a naive developer thinks a company’s success is just because of code he wrote.
      - iso1210 5y ago
        America really wins in marketing and consumerism - especially when appealing to the American consumer
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Do you think OSM was going to not bring the data to the masses? Or that no developper was going to make apps that used that data?
        wreath 5y ago
        There is no way for us to know and I didn't say that w/o Google or other Big Tech we wouldn't be have these candies as someone described. Rather that we should acknowledge the role they played in distributing the tech they didn't create.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        Sure, they did bring them to the market. And they did play a role, which was not vital and that other companies were trying to do at the same time.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Honestly, on the balance, I don't think any of the examples you mentioned would do that much to my general happiness. I care about the other things in life so much more than about processor performance. Current essential advances in civilisation that I'm sure you enjoy, such as healthcare, are fundamentally reliant on processor technology developed in the US after the war. If we'd left it to European countries our standards of living would be much reduced.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Please, the microprocessor was being pursued by multiple countries. The US first, but again that doesn't mean only the US could do it.
iso1210 5y ago
In the 60s and 70s, the US population was promised 15-30 hour work weeks by now Reality is 60-80 hour work weeks, and for what? Work til you drop then die. > Technology is opening a new world of leisure time. One government report projects that by the year 2000, the United States will have a 30-hour work week and month-long vacations as the rule. > Those who hunger for time off from work may take heart from the forecast of political scientist Sebastian de Grazia that the average work week, by the year 2000, will average 31 hours, and perhaps as few as 21. Twenty years later, on-the-job hours may have dwindled to 26, or even 16. > “The work week and the work day will be drastically reduced,” said Gillis. “The majority of the people will be working less than 30 hours a week.” He didn’t predict just how the populace will adjust to the increased free time. > So tell your children not to be surprised if the year 2000 finds 35 or even a 20-hour work week fixed by law. The American worker is 400% more productive than in the 1950s, but works longer than ever, hasn't seen the fruits of that productivity. A high school graduate can't raise a family in a single income household on a 10 hour week, which given the productivity increase should have been possible.

by nxc18 5y ago

sudosysgen 5y ago

Honestly, on the balance, I don't think any of the examples you mentioned would do that much to my general happiness. I care about the other things in life so much more than about processor performance. If Google Maps hadn't come someone else would do it. They didn't invent digital maps. I don't think society in general would be very different. If we lost basic things like safety, food, and so on, then yes that matters. But if we're being honest, big tech in the big picture of our daily lives is really just candy. The thing that is of much bigger import than all of those put together for most people is healthcare, housing, and eventually climate change.

nxc18 5y ago
Again, very small-scale thinking that misses the forest for the trees. Yes, you don’t care about processor performance. Fine. What I care about is the people in my life not wasting time because of shitty Android phones. I care about things like being able to give my parents my old phones, which have years of productive life on them; Qualcomm is the reason that doesn’t work on Android. I care about the people who can’t afford the flagship; they deserve a great experience just as much as I do. Digital maps did exist before Google Maps. And they sucked. The industry was all about digital preparation of maps that would be printed. On paper. We don’t know that no one would have done it better; you could say electric cars would have happened anyway, except they didn’t happen until very recently. When a field technician can do a network trace to solve a power outage in minutes instead of hours, that matters. Big tech is enabling things like replacing pesticides with robotics, targeting fertilizer application based on need, and reducing the environmental impact of the food you eat. Big tech is doing things like improving the safety of cars with automatic emergency braking, giving you early earthquake notifications (buying precious moments to duck, cover, and hold on), predicting and warning about dangerous weather with increasing accuracy, and improving medical diagnosis among many, many, many other achievements. So yes, of course, ‘just candy’. People doing their jobs well, consistently, is how healthcare is delivered, housing is produced, and climate change will be solved. The US could implement a social safety net regardless of cultural issues and it very well should. 3 month vacations and slack work ethic will do absolutely nothing to solve healthcare, housing, or climate change, so I don’t really understand why those concerns are relevant.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Google maps was developed by Where 2 Technologies in Sydney. Google bought it in late 2004, same sort of time OSM started (in the UK) Microsoft AutoRoute predated that by a decade - NextBase (A UK company) built it in 1988, I think Microsoft had bought it by the mid 90s. The US is great at taking other peoples inventions, buying them, marketing them, and claiming them for itself. The rest of the world innovates, the US pumps it out in bulk.
  - wreath 5y ago
    But also those US companies brought this tech they bought to the masses. To say they were built by others anyway reduced the role big tech played here same way a naive developer thinks a company’s success is just because of code he wrote.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      America really wins in marketing and consumerism - especially when appealing to the American consumer
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Do you think OSM was going to not bring the data to the masses? Or that no developper was going to make apps that used that data?
      - wreath 5y ago
        There is no way for us to know and I didn't say that w/o Google or other Big Tech we wouldn't be have these candies as someone described. Rather that we should acknowledge the role they played in distributing the tech they didn't create.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        Sure, they did bring them to the market. And they did play a role, which was not vital and that other companies were trying to do at the same time.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> Honestly, on the balance, I don't think any of the examples you mentioned would do that much to my general happiness. I care about the other things in life so much more than about processor performance. Current essential advances in civilisation that I'm sure you enjoy, such as healthcare, are fundamentally reliant on processor technology developed in the US after the war. If we'd left it to European countries our standards of living would be much reduced.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Please, the microprocessor was being pursued by multiple countries. The US first, but again that doesn't mean only the US could do it.

iso1210 5y ago

In the 60s and 70s, the US population was promised 15-30 hour work weeks by now Reality is 60-80 hour work weeks, and for what? Work til you drop then die. > Technology is opening a new world of leisure time. One government report projects that by the year 2000, the United States will have a 30-hour work week and month-long vacations as the rule. > Those who hunger for time off from work may take heart from the forecast of political scientist Sebastian de Grazia that the average work week, by the year 2000, will average 31 hours, and perhaps as few as 21. Twenty years later, on-the-job hours may have dwindled to 26, or even 16. > “The work week and the work day will be drastically reduced,” said Gillis. “The majority of the people will be working less than 30 hours a week.” He didn’t predict just how the populace will adjust to the increased free time. > So tell your children not to be surprised if the year 2000 finds 35 or even a 20-hour work week fixed by law. The American worker is 400% more productive than in the 1950s, but works longer than ever, hasn't seen the fruits of that productivity. A high school graduate can't raise a family in a single income household on a 10 hour week, which given the productivity increase should have been possible.