7 ms·

> a person can write a paper just as well in Wordperfect 5 as the latest Google Doc or Office365 Word That seems hard to believe; try printing, or formatting.

> a person can write a paper just as well in Wordperfect 5 as the latest Google Doc or Office365 Word That seems hard to believe; try printing, or formatting. It's like saying 'a person can fly just as well in a 1930s biplane or a current 737.' Sure, they both fly. On the other hand, am I more productive in 2022 Emacs than I would be in 1985 Emacs?

dredmorbius 4y ago
As Robert Gordon notes in his The Rise and Fall of American Growht, an air traveller in 1936 headed from New York to Chicago, could have made the trip in 3h 55m gate-to-gate, vs. 2h 35m today. But in 1936, arrival at the airport need only be 10 minutes prior to departure, gates were immediately next to the terminal entrance, and taxis or a chauffeured Cadillac limousine were 5 minutes from the gate --- the latter cost $10.50 in 2014 prices. The 2014 traveller must arrive an hour prior to departure, it takes 20 minutes merely to get off the plane on average (from the middle of the plane) on arrival, and 5--10 minutes to get to the taxi line. The net trip is only 20 minutes shorter than in 1936, despite the faster in-flight leg. Much more of that time is spent standing, waiting, or walking. Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2015), pp. 396-7.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Good points. Still, there are imperfections in the argument: safety, availability (very few could afford that flight in 1936, if I understand correctly), range (NY to LA or London would be entirely different, etc.).
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    The range question was addressed by 1960. Costs fell markedly from 1930 -- 1970. Far less so since. It's popular to point to how much airline ticket prices have fallen since dregulation (under Democratic president Carter) in 1979, without also noting that 1979 was a local price peak driven by the Iranian oil embargo of the same year. Safety has increased, of course. That's largely been a continuous function from the first days of flight ... with a curious exception in the first decade of the 2000s, where passenger deaths/mile fell markedly. (Also in Gordon's book.)
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > Safety has increased, of course. Come to think of it, security too. Hijackings weren't unusual news items in the 1970s; now, it's hard to remember the last one. And that partly explains the slower airport experience today (which is really due to nobody investing in the resources to speed it up). > It's popular to point to how much airline ticket prices have fallen since dregulation (under Democratic president Carter) in 1979, without also noting that 1979 was a local price peak driven by the Iranian oil embargo of the same year. A lot of those narratives are similar if one takes even a cursory look at the facts. As an aside (and IIRC), per the autobiography of former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who was not a Democrat (and was a follower of Ayn Rand) and served in various roles under many presidents including Carter, deregulation began under Carter.
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        You're largely right. Early air travel externalised numerous costs, and those have been internalised. "Big Sky" air traffic policy was proved nonviable over the Grand Canyon (1956) and Park Slope (1960). Bombings and hijackings of the 1960s and 1970s lead to increased departure-gate screenings. Those increased further after 2001. Noise complaints lead to use of quieter high-bypass turbofan engines (with their own MAX failure modes). Increased fuel costs in the 1970s also prompted higher-efficiency engines (again, high-bypass turbofans serve this role), as well as curtailment or cancellation of planned commercial supersonic transports. Gordon also discusses similar apparent retrograde trends in automobiles. Here again I see formerly externalised costs (emissions, safety, handling, noise) being internalised and included in purchase costs. Electrification is a similar trend.
    - Rury 4y ago
      There's also quite a bit more people who travel by airplane today than in the 1930s. This adds complexity in trafficking, which works to slow things down, rather than speed things up. The fact that overall trip times are marginally faster, despite added traffic volume & complexity, largely explains things here. But despite this, I mostly agree with the broader premise.
- pixl97 4y ago
  You should instead ask " how long must a rich person show up before their flight" I have not read the book, but from your quote selection so far it seems to mismanaged comparisons of the 1% to the 80% of the population. If you looked at the poorer part of the population that things are generally much faster since they get to travel by plane at all.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    The general public was flying en masse by the 1960s, though the pace picked up greatly through that decade. Gordon's point is that the best commercial-grade service ... didn't move much in the seventy-eight years* from 1936--2014. It's been nearly another decade and that story's largely the same. In a world which obsesses over Moore's Law and doubling improvements every 1.5 -- 3 years, no appreciable movement in 8 decades* is something to take note of. Put another way, the 1936 experience was in a DC-3 (or similar) aircraft. The 2014 experience is in a turbofan-powered plane. It turns out that approaching the speed of sound is a pretty hard limit for most aviation --- commercial aircraft tend to max out at about Mach 0.85 or so. The laws of aeronautical engineering aren't going to move that much, at least not for reasonable quantities of fuel (hence: cost) and noise (externalities). There's also the fact that other factors, call them "frictions", begin to appear: airport and air traffic congestion, security requirements, etc. Even private-charter aircraft might find themselves further curtailed if they are utilised in, say, future terrorist attacks. Or find themselves vulnerable to attacks themselves in ways commercial aircraft are not. (This resembles a plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.)
    - spupe 4y ago
      Flights were five times more expensive in the period you refer to [1]. I would bet that the number of fliers increased almost proportionally. A significant part of this cost reduction is efficiency gains, with better, lighter airplanes that consume less fuel. Airplanes are also safer today. To call all that "no appreciable movement" is unfair. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3022215/what-it-was-really-like-to-fly-during-the-golden-age-of-travel https://www.fastcompany.com/3022215/what-it-was-really-like-...

dredmorbius 4y ago

As Robert Gordon notes in his The Rise and Fall of American Growht, an air traveller in 1936 headed from New York to Chicago, could have made the trip in 3h 55m gate-to-gate, vs. 2h 35m today. But in 1936, arrival at the airport need only be 10 minutes prior to departure, gates were immediately next to the terminal entrance, and taxis or a chauffeured Cadillac limousine were 5 minutes from the gate --- the latter cost $10.50 in 2014 prices. The 2014 traveller must arrive an hour prior to departure, it takes 20 minutes merely to get off the plane on average (from the middle of the plane) on arrival, and 5--10 minutes to get to the taxi line. The net trip is only 20 minutes shorter than in 1936, despite the faster in-flight leg. Much more of that time is spent standing, waiting, or walking. Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2015), pp. 396-7.

wolverine876 4y ago
Good points. Still, there are imperfections in the argument: safety, availability (very few could afford that flight in 1936, if I understand correctly), range (NY to LA or London would be entirely different, etc.).
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  The range question was addressed by 1960. Costs fell markedly from 1930 -- 1970. Far less so since. It's popular to point to how much airline ticket prices have fallen since dregulation (under Democratic president Carter) in 1979, without also noting that 1979 was a local price peak driven by the Iranian oil embargo of the same year. Safety has increased, of course. That's largely been a continuous function from the first days of flight ... with a curious exception in the first decade of the 2000s, where passenger deaths/mile fell markedly. (Also in Gordon's book.)
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > Safety has increased, of course. Come to think of it, security too. Hijackings weren't unusual news items in the 1970s; now, it's hard to remember the last one. And that partly explains the slower airport experience today (which is really due to nobody investing in the resources to speed it up). > It's popular to point to how much airline ticket prices have fallen since dregulation (under Democratic president Carter) in 1979, without also noting that 1979 was a local price peak driven by the Iranian oil embargo of the same year. A lot of those narratives are similar if one takes even a cursory look at the facts. As an aside (and IIRC), per the autobiography of former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who was not a Democrat (and was a follower of Ayn Rand) and served in various roles under many presidents including Carter, deregulation began under Carter.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      You're largely right. Early air travel externalised numerous costs, and those have been internalised. "Big Sky" air traffic policy was proved nonviable over the Grand Canyon (1956) and Park Slope (1960). Bombings and hijackings of the 1960s and 1970s lead to increased departure-gate screenings. Those increased further after 2001. Noise complaints lead to use of quieter high-bypass turbofan engines (with their own MAX failure modes). Increased fuel costs in the 1970s also prompted higher-efficiency engines (again, high-bypass turbofans serve this role), as well as curtailment or cancellation of planned commercial supersonic transports. Gordon also discusses similar apparent retrograde trends in automobiles. Here again I see formerly externalised costs (emissions, safety, handling, noise) being internalised and included in purchase costs. Electrification is a similar trend.
  - Rury 4y ago
    There's also quite a bit more people who travel by airplane today than in the 1930s. This adds complexity in trafficking, which works to slow things down, rather than speed things up. The fact that overall trip times are marginally faster, despite added traffic volume & complexity, largely explains things here. But despite this, I mostly agree with the broader premise.
pixl97 4y ago
You should instead ask " how long must a rich person show up before their flight" I have not read the book, but from your quote selection so far it seems to mismanaged comparisons of the 1% to the 80% of the population. If you looked at the poorer part of the population that things are generally much faster since they get to travel by plane at all.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  The general public was flying en masse by the 1960s, though the pace picked up greatly through that decade. Gordon's point is that the best commercial-grade service ... didn't move much in the seventy-eight years* from 1936--2014. It's been nearly another decade and that story's largely the same. In a world which obsesses over Moore's Law and doubling improvements every 1.5 -- 3 years, no appreciable movement in 8 decades* is something to take note of. Put another way, the 1936 experience was in a DC-3 (or similar) aircraft. The 2014 experience is in a turbofan-powered plane. It turns out that approaching the speed of sound is a pretty hard limit for most aviation --- commercial aircraft tend to max out at about Mach 0.85 or so. The laws of aeronautical engineering aren't going to move that much, at least not for reasonable quantities of fuel (hence: cost) and noise (externalities). There's also the fact that other factors, call them "frictions", begin to appear: airport and air traffic congestion, security requirements, etc. Even private-charter aircraft might find themselves further curtailed if they are utilised in, say, future terrorist attacks. Or find themselves vulnerable to attacks themselves in ways commercial aircraft are not. (This resembles a plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.)
  - spupe 4y ago
    Flights were five times more expensive in the period you refer to [1]. I would bet that the number of fliers increased almost proportionally. A significant part of this cost reduction is efficiency gains, with better, lighter airplanes that consume less fuel. Airplanes are also safer today. To call all that "no appreciable movement" is unfair. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3022215/what-it-was-really-like-to-fly-during-the-golden-age-of-travel https://www.fastcompany.com/3022215/what-it-was-really-like-...