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> Florida's population explosion precisely coincides with the adoption of air conditioning in American households This is also the case for Arizona, Phoenix in

> Florida's population explosion precisely coincides with the adoption of air conditioning in American households This is also the case for Arizona, Phoenix in particular. Air conditioning is one of the great inventions of the 20th century, it’s up there with the airplane, antibiotics, transistor, and shipping container.

kbutler 2y ago
Especially if you include refrigeration for foods.
- osigurdson 2y ago
  Absolutely agree. So far, the transistor (i.e. computation, internet, mobile, AI) has been less transformative than earlier breakthroughs like refrigeration, the automobile and the airplane.
  - dartos 2y ago
    Hard disagree. The internet has been WILDLY transformative. I mean look at what we’re doing right now on HN. IIRC Twitter was a big part of the Arab spring. Politics have been warped around it as most political discourse now takes place online. There are so many examples of society all over the world warping and changing due to comparatively unfettered access to global information. It’s crazy to say the internet wasn’t at least as transformative as automobiles or planes. Just because it didn’t directly change the physical world doesn’t mean is wasn’t transformative.
    - osigurdson 2y ago
      In my view politics is largely a sideshow compared to technological advancement as it is mostly about how to divide up the pie as opposed to growing it. While people can communicate various political ideas more freely, it actually doesn't matter than much unless the political situation gets bad enough that it leads to a dark age. Therefore technologies that merely make it easier to communicate political ideas are less impactful than technologies that directly improve life (e.g. most people would not trade their fridge for a Twitter account). Of course, I am glad that both exist.
      - SamPatt 2y ago
        I agree with your overall point, but I would add that technology has significantly increased leisure time, and the fact that communication platforms are how many people use that extra leisure time proves their value beyond what you might expect just looking at a hierarchy of needs.
        osigurdson 2y ago
        I'm not sure that it has. The workweek remains at 40 hours and most people still work about 40 years. Furthermore, in advanced economies the per household cumulative hours worked has roughly doubled since the transistor was invented. The dishwasher and washer/dryer are the last technologies that actually increased leisure time and predated the transistor. I'm hopeful that AI + robotics will improve the situation but so far there have been very little quality of life improvements due to the transistor (coding is very fun however).
        dartos 2y ago
        You’re ignoring the skyrocketing productivity metrics. If the world economies did not need to keep growing, we’d have much more leisure time and much less productivity. That extra time just gets gobbled up by the wheel of growth.
    - hash872 2y ago
      I don't hate your argument, but the Arab Spring citation is some idealism from over a decade ago. The Arab Spring mostly failed and almost all of those countries remained autocracies?
      - dartos 2y ago
        True, but the fact that a revolutionary social movement was organized across an entire global region was enabled because of the internet was what I was trying to highlight.
  - Uehreka 2y ago
    Oh come on, that take is too cute by three halves. The internet was the biggest change in human society of the 20th Century, if not the millennium. And while you’re peeling that one apart, the transistor also laid the bedrock for GPS, modern medical devices like pacemakers and insulin dispensers, mass-communication/mass-media with live broadcast capable of reaching billions of people, and like 10 even bigger things my brunch-addled mind isn’t thinking of at the moment. I know it’s a cool thought exercise to go “what if the things I like/care about actually aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things?” But at the end of that exercise you’ve got to come back to reality.
    - osigurdson 2y ago
      If you to choose your fridge or the internet, which one would you choose? I love technology but 100% in camp fridge.
      - twoWhlsGud 2y ago
        And the internet has been taken over by bad actors (Meta, Xitter, TikTok etc) with the result that the public is swamped by lies and thus democracy and post Cold War peace is being replaced by global war and dictatorship. So refrigerators look pretty good right now...
        osigurdson 2y ago
        I don't think technology is really making things worse. The free flow of information comes with pros and cons. It is hard to imagine that unidirectional communication is net better in the final analysis.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  and even more, the generalization of "air conditioning" and "refrigeration" into "heat pumps" ...
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  Good point, I do a lot of work with HVAC contractors and implicitly include refrigeration in my ‘air conditioning’ mental model but not everyone does.

kbutler 2y ago

Especially if you include refrigeration for foods.

osigurdson 2y ago
Absolutely agree. So far, the transistor (i.e. computation, internet, mobile, AI) has been less transformative than earlier breakthroughs like refrigeration, the automobile and the airplane.
- dartos 2y ago
  Hard disagree. The internet has been WILDLY transformative. I mean look at what we’re doing right now on HN. IIRC Twitter was a big part of the Arab spring. Politics have been warped around it as most political discourse now takes place online. There are so many examples of society all over the world warping and changing due to comparatively unfettered access to global information. It’s crazy to say the internet wasn’t at least as transformative as automobiles or planes. Just because it didn’t directly change the physical world doesn’t mean is wasn’t transformative.
  - osigurdson 2y ago
    In my view politics is largely a sideshow compared to technological advancement as it is mostly about how to divide up the pie as opposed to growing it. While people can communicate various political ideas more freely, it actually doesn't matter than much unless the political situation gets bad enough that it leads to a dark age. Therefore technologies that merely make it easier to communicate political ideas are less impactful than technologies that directly improve life (e.g. most people would not trade their fridge for a Twitter account). Of course, I am glad that both exist.
    - SamPatt 2y ago
      I agree with your overall point, but I would add that technology has significantly increased leisure time, and the fact that communication platforms are how many people use that extra leisure time proves their value beyond what you might expect just looking at a hierarchy of needs.
      - osigurdson 2y ago
        I'm not sure that it has. The workweek remains at 40 hours and most people still work about 40 years. Furthermore, in advanced economies the per household cumulative hours worked has roughly doubled since the transistor was invented. The dishwasher and washer/dryer are the last technologies that actually increased leisure time and predated the transistor. I'm hopeful that AI + robotics will improve the situation but so far there have been very little quality of life improvements due to the transistor (coding is very fun however).
        dartos 2y ago
        You’re ignoring the skyrocketing productivity metrics. If the world economies did not need to keep growing, we’d have much more leisure time and much less productivity. That extra time just gets gobbled up by the wheel of growth.
  - hash872 2y ago
    I don't hate your argument, but the Arab Spring citation is some idealism from over a decade ago. The Arab Spring mostly failed and almost all of those countries remained autocracies?
    - dartos 2y ago
      True, but the fact that a revolutionary social movement was organized across an entire global region was enabled because of the internet was what I was trying to highlight.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  Oh come on, that take is too cute by three halves. The internet was the biggest change in human society of the 20th Century, if not the millennium. And while you’re peeling that one apart, the transistor also laid the bedrock for GPS, modern medical devices like pacemakers and insulin dispensers, mass-communication/mass-media with live broadcast capable of reaching billions of people, and like 10 even bigger things my brunch-addled mind isn’t thinking of at the moment. I know it’s a cool thought exercise to go “what if the things I like/care about actually aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things?” But at the end of that exercise you’ve got to come back to reality.
  - osigurdson 2y ago
    If you to choose your fridge or the internet, which one would you choose? I love technology but 100% in camp fridge.
    - twoWhlsGud 2y ago
      And the internet has been taken over by bad actors (Meta, Xitter, TikTok etc) with the result that the public is swamped by lies and thus democracy and post Cold War peace is being replaced by global war and dictatorship. So refrigerators look pretty good right now...
      - osigurdson 2y ago
        I don't think technology is really making things worse. The free flow of information comes with pros and cons. It is hard to imagine that unidirectional communication is net better in the final analysis.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
and even more, the generalization of "air conditioning" and "refrigeration" into "heat pumps" ...
quickthrowman 2y ago
Good point, I do a lot of work with HVAC contractors and implicitly include refrigeration in my ‘air conditioning’ mental model but not everyone does.