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>> In the past 50 years, despite overall economic growth, the quality of life for most Americans has declined > I would like to see some citations for this bec

by tivert 3y ago

>> In the past 50 years, despite overall economic growth, the quality of life for most Americans has declined > I would like to see some citations for this because there are many things that make up quality of life, and many ways to measure them. There's that famous graph that shows flat real wages from the 70s onward for most people, and very well-known problems with extremely important goods like healthcare access and housing. Sure, most Americans (even poor ones) have gotten significantly larger and higher-resolution televisions and gizmos like cell phones during that time, but I think those things are actually pretty marginal (and perhaps even negative), from a quality of life perspective.

Turing_Machine 3y ago
The Internet has made a good portion of the sum total of human knowledge available to anyone with a cheap cell phone plan. Yes, most of them are using it to play games and look at funny cat pictures, but some are not, or at least not exclusively. I'm not being snobbish here -- I like funny cat pictures myself, but that's not how I spend most of my online time. That's far from "marginal" or a "gizmo", IMO, and I don't think we've even begun to see the final outcome.
- tivert 3y ago
  > That's far from "marginal" or a "gizmo", IMO, and I don't think we've even begun to see the final outcome. Come on. The internet is really a gizmo that in no way is a substitute for basic needs (like housing, healthcare, or security) when evaluating someone's quality of life. That's pretty easy to show: if you were given a choice between: 1. being homeless but having access to "a good portion of the sum total of human knowledge" through "cheap cell phone plan." 2. having a home, but no internet access. Which would you choose? Wikipedia won't keep the rain off your head. IMHO, software engineers are often very poor judges of the true value of the tech-gizmos they spend so much time with.

by tivert 3y ago

Turing_Machine 3y ago

The Internet has made a good portion of the sum total of human knowledge available to anyone with a cheap cell phone plan. Yes, most of them are using it to play games and look at funny cat pictures, but some are not, or at least not exclusively. I'm not being snobbish here -- I like funny cat pictures myself, but that's not how I spend most of my online time. That's far from "marginal" or a "gizmo", IMO, and I don't think we've even begun to see the final outcome.

tivert 3y ago
> That's far from "marginal" or a "gizmo", IMO, and I don't think we've even begun to see the final outcome. Come on. The internet is really a gizmo that in no way is a substitute for basic needs (like housing, healthcare, or security) when evaluating someone's quality of life. That's pretty easy to show: if you were given a choice between: 1. being homeless but having access to "a good portion of the sum total of human knowledge" through "cheap cell phone plan." 2. having a home, but no internet access. Which would you choose? Wikipedia won't keep the rain off your head. IMHO, software engineers are often very poor judges of the true value of the tech-gizmos they spend so much time with.