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I've heard this argument before, but it's incredibly hard for me to buy it. The 50 years since 1970 have brought us the personal computer, the internet, and the

I've heard this argument before, but it's incredibly hard for me to buy it. The 50 years since 1970 have brought us the personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone, each of which has entirely reshaped the world. That's just from the perspective of the average person; there have also been huge leaps in manufacturing, energy, medicine, biotechnology, genetics, and so on. Many of these problems are political/societal, and not technical: the stagnation of wages in particular. I would argue that instead of a lack of change being the problem, the issue is that society is still trying to desperately adapt to the increased rate of change that's happened during the last century.

lkrubner 5y ago
The rate of technological growth has slowed down by any measure that historians and economists know how to use. The book does a much better job making this argument than I can in this short Hacker News comment, but here is a summary of the argument that I recently wrote: Peter Drucker has argued that the 60 years leading up to 1914 were the most innovative years in human history. A person born in 1860 and dying in 1940 would live through the first lightbulb, the first power plant, the first power grid, the first electrified city, the first electric street cars, the first combustion engine, the first cars and trucks, the first telephones and then the growth of the telephone networks to include every household, the first great oil boom, the first submarines and the exploration of the underwater seas, the development of germ theory, the sterilization of the hospitals and so the first safe surgeries, combined with the first true anesthesias, the first airplanes, the first radio as telegram and then in 1920 the ability of radio to carry the human voice, the invention of the television, the first sulfa drugs followed by the invention of the first true antibiotics, the first plastics, the invention of textiles made of plastics (nylon), and so much more than I can list. A person born in 1860 and dying in 1940 was born during one epoch of the human race and died in a completely different one, much more so than any person born in any other year. The best and most recent book on this subject is "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War” by Robert J. Gordon. [ Also, you write about "personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone" as three separate inventions, but it's really just 2: computers and better multi-plexing, and even the multi-plexing is because computers got better. ]
simiones 5y ago
While those things that you cite have been transformative, they are at best a minor part of everyone's lives. Standards of living have decreased in much of the US and EU even if today we have Netflix in our pockets. Vacations, home ownership, good food, participation in clubs, free time - these have all gone down for the majority of the population, even as they are more able to see their peers succeed (or seem to).
- nkohari 5y ago
  It's awfully reductionist to describe the whole of personal computing, the internet, and mobile phones as "Netflix in your pocket". I recognize that household income has stagnated and there's significant disparity in wealth. However, if you're going to claim that the median standard of living has decreased in most of the West over the last 50 years, you're going to need to cite some evidence. It's shocking to see pushback on the transformative nature of modern computing on Hacker News of all places.
  - simiones 5y ago
    Looking at the inequality-adjusted human development index, the USA has seen a decrease in this measure between 2010 and now at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequalit...
    - nkohari 5y ago
      The USA and Spain are the only Western countries with decreases in their IHDI scores since 2010, and they are extremely small decreases. This data effectively disproves the statement "Standards of living have decreased in much of the US and EU".
  - base698 5y ago
    Technopoly is a great book. It opens with this: > Thamus inquired into the use of each of them, and as Theuth went through them expressed approval or disapproval, according as he judged Theuth’s claims to be well or ill founded. It would take too long to go through all that Thamus is reported to have said for and against each of Theuth’s inventions. But when it came to writing, Theuth declared, “Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.” To this, Thamus replied, “Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.”

lkrubner 5y ago

The rate of technological growth has slowed down by any measure that historians and economists know how to use. The book does a much better job making this argument than I can in this short Hacker News comment, but here is a summary of the argument that I recently wrote: Peter Drucker has argued that the 60 years leading up to 1914 were the most innovative years in human history. A person born in 1860 and dying in 1940 would live through the first lightbulb, the first power plant, the first power grid, the first electrified city, the first electric street cars, the first combustion engine, the first cars and trucks, the first telephones and then the growth of the telephone networks to include every household, the first great oil boom, the first submarines and the exploration of the underwater seas, the development of germ theory, the sterilization of the hospitals and so the first safe surgeries, combined with the first true anesthesias, the first airplanes, the first radio as telegram and then in 1920 the ability of radio to carry the human voice, the invention of the television, the first sulfa drugs followed by the invention of the first true antibiotics, the first plastics, the invention of textiles made of plastics (nylon), and so much more than I can list. A person born in 1860 and dying in 1940 was born during one epoch of the human race and died in a completely different one, much more so than any person born in any other year. The best and most recent book on this subject is "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War” by Robert J. Gordon. [ Also, you write about "personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone" as three separate inventions, but it's really just 2: computers and better multi-plexing, and even the multi-plexing is because computers got better. ]

simiones 5y ago

While those things that you cite have been transformative, they are at best a minor part of everyone's lives. Standards of living have decreased in much of the US and EU even if today we have Netflix in our pockets. Vacations, home ownership, good food, participation in clubs, free time - these have all gone down for the majority of the population, even as they are more able to see their peers succeed (or seem to).

nkohari 5y ago
It's awfully reductionist to describe the whole of personal computing, the internet, and mobile phones as "Netflix in your pocket". I recognize that household income has stagnated and there's significant disparity in wealth. However, if you're going to claim that the median standard of living has decreased in most of the West over the last 50 years, you're going to need to cite some evidence. It's shocking to see pushback on the transformative nature of modern computing on Hacker News of all places.
- simiones 5y ago
  Looking at the inequality-adjusted human development index, the USA has seen a decrease in this measure between 2010 and now at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequalit...
  - nkohari 5y ago
    The USA and Spain are the only Western countries with decreases in their IHDI scores since 2010, and they are extremely small decreases. This data effectively disproves the statement "Standards of living have decreased in much of the US and EU".
- base698 5y ago
  Technopoly is a great book. It opens with this: > Thamus inquired into the use of each of them, and as Theuth went through them expressed approval or disapproval, according as he judged Theuth’s claims to be well or ill founded. It would take too long to go through all that Thamus is reported to have said for and against each of Theuth’s inventions. But when it came to writing, Theuth declared, “Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.” To this, Thamus replied, “Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.”