3 ms·

Just like how the car gave us back so many more hours to spend actually living instead of working. And the washing machine. And the computer. And the Internet.

eru 28d ago
The washing machine and dishwasher definitely did. I don't own a car, so I can't comment on that.
- raincole 28d ago
  They release women from housekeeping... to workplaces.
  - yen223 28d ago
    You should ask a working woman if she'd rather be at home doing dishes and laundry by hand without pay
    - number6 28d ago
      Sounds tempting
    - qsera 28d ago
      Why would you put yourself in a jail 9 to 5 every day even if you get paid, if it can be spared?
    - thin_carapace 28d ago
      some in this thread call out the author for doing what he did without principle. while i dont agree with the argument applied there, i do apply it here. which is to say that feminism did enable some avenues of freedom to women, therefore i wonder how that act benefitted the system, and whether such freedom has culminated in net benefit for the common man & woman
    - dzhiurgis 28d ago
      Only works if breadwinner is relatively rich. If it’s a struggle the home is likely to be unpleasant to struggle in.
    - adrian_b 28d ago
      Unless the husband was a jerk, he would have understood that this is a division of work, so the spouse who worked at home had actually earned a half of the pay received at the payed job of their husband. Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, it was not at all unusual for the wives to handle most of the finances, so they actually handled most of the money earned by the family, even if their husbands were on the payroll. What was bad in the past, was not what happened in typical cases, but what happened in the worst cases. Because a fair treatment of the wife depended on the goodwill of the husband, not being codified in laws, as it should have been, that enabled a lot of abuses.
      - eru 27d ago
        > Unless the husband was a jerk, he would have understood that this is a division of work, so the spouse who worked at home had actually earned a half of the pay received at the payed job of their husband. This is probably the best division to keep the wife happy, but from a certain point of view, housework should be paid at whatever rate you'd have to pay a maid to do the same. > Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, [...] Where are you getting your 'many past societies' like that from? You know that salaried out-of-the-home work isn't all that old, and wasn't all that common (until recently) even where it existed?
- adrian_b 28d ago
  There are 4 differences between my home and that of my grandparents from one century ago, which indeed have reduced significantly the time spent with household chores: 1. Washing machine 2. Vacuum cleaner 3. Microwave oven 4. Electric refrigerator (but they had a cold underground cellar, while I no longer have such luxuries) There are also various modern tools that are not used in the normal day-to-day life, but only when incidents happen, which require repairs, for example an electric drill or reciprocating saw, or a soldering iron, or an electric sewing machine (but my grandparents had a mechanical Singer sewing machine, which did the same job, only with more effort) and sometimes, but not often, I prepare some kind of food for which an electric mixer accelerates enough the preparation to compensate for the time spent with assembling, disassembling and washing the mixer. While other modern inventions, like computers, are very important to me, none of them has reduced the amount of work that must be done in my home (I never felt the need for an automatic dishwasher, because I never let them accumulate, I wash them instantly after use, even while cooking, because I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients).
  - eru 27d ago
    The mechanical sewing machine would definitely be on the same kind of list, if you had asked your grandparents to prepare one. > (I never felt the need for an automatic dishwasher, because I never let them accumulate, I wash them instantly after use, even while cooking, because I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients). Batching usually lowers the total amount of work you have to do. In any case, the dishwasher becomes more useful (for most people) as the household gets larger. I find that when we cook and bake, we need the dishwasher more. If you only eat out or eat take-away, there's barely any washing up to do. I thought of a fourth modern machine for your list: the elevator. But it only applies for some people.
qsera 28d ago
>actually living... Watching TV...Or consuming social media..
- eru 28d ago
  Who am I to judge what other people decide to do with their freetime. It's not like lurking on HN is morally superior.
  - qsera 28d ago
    But you made that judgement already when you decided that people be better off not working...
    - eru 28d ago
      My judgement is that all else being equal, I defer to people's wishes to decide what they want to do with their time. Even in AI times, you can still spend years acquiring obsolete skills. Just like people still run for fun, even though the bicycle has already been invented. Or they make their own music by hand, instead of turning on the radio.
arjie 28d ago
All of these things have been marvelous. The washing machine in particular is such a marvel that almost all Amish use one.
- left-struck 28d ago
  While our time working at home has definitely gone down, our time at work hasn’t though. The point is our employers just expect more, and the benefits of whatever new efficiency is gained, if any, are not passed onto those at the bottom or middle.
  - hakimg 28d ago
    Hours spent at work have also gone down over the decades and leisure time has gone up. Even if that stat wasn't true and we all spent the same amount of time working more productively then that would still be good for society at large. This attitude of unwillingness to do anything except for direct personal gain isn't good for the world and isn't good for yourself.
    - ninalanyon 28d ago
      Hours spent working haven't noticeably declined for people in Northern Europe for fifty years. I worked 40 hours a week in the UK in 1978, the usual working week in Norway now is 37.5 hours. I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivity are soaked up in increased communication effort and in shifting ever more tat.
      - eru 27d ago
        > I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivity are soaked up in increased communication effort and in shifting ever more tat. The old jobs are a lot more productive. We just decided to consume a lot more, and also a lot more of things that are harder to make more productive, instead of taking extra leisure. If you were willing to live a 1950s life (and it were legal), you could mostly do that on very little money today.
seanmcdirmid 28d ago
Increased productivity is nothing to sneeze at even if you work the same amount of hours. The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers.
- eru 28d ago
  > The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers. What makes you think so? What evidence do we have one way or another?
  - seanmcdirmid 28d ago
    We are seeing workers get laid off to free up more money for AI and only the AI techies are making more money? It could be temporary, but the way AI is currently owned and structured, the owners and investors are positioned to reap almost all of the financial benefits whereas workers will just be expected to do more with AI for the same pay and hours worked.
    - eru 28d ago
      Workers are getting hired and fired in all kinds of economic situations all the time. At the moment, overall (US) unemployment at 4.1% hasn't moved all that much since the end of the pandemic, and is on the lower end of average overall by historic standards. We don't see any impact from AI so far. As far as I can tell so far, the benefits from AI seem to flow mostly into customer surplus, not towards owners and investors. There's just so much competition between AI providers for anyone but customers to capture the benefits.
      - seanmcdirmid 27d ago
        I hope you are right, but it definitely feels like everything is turning against workers. They might have jobs, but prices are such that they are still getting by or not at all.
tonyedgecombe 28d ago
I’m not sure about the car. I seem to remember reading that commute time has been remarkably consistent even going back to Roman times. All the car allowed us to do is build homes further away from our workplace.
atiedebee 28d ago
I don't think cars gave back many hours for the majority of people, they just increased the distance people travel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant

eru 28d ago

The washing machine and dishwasher definitely did. I don't own a car, so I can't comment on that.

raincole 28d ago
They release women from housekeeping... to workplaces.
- yen223 28d ago
  You should ask a working woman if she'd rather be at home doing dishes and laundry by hand without pay
  - number6 28d ago
    Sounds tempting
  - qsera 28d ago
    Why would you put yourself in a jail 9 to 5 every day even if you get paid, if it can be spared?
  - thin_carapace 28d ago
    some in this thread call out the author for doing what he did without principle. while i dont agree with the argument applied there, i do apply it here. which is to say that feminism did enable some avenues of freedom to women, therefore i wonder how that act benefitted the system, and whether such freedom has culminated in net benefit for the common man & woman
  - dzhiurgis 28d ago
    Only works if breadwinner is relatively rich. If it’s a struggle the home is likely to be unpleasant to struggle in.
  - adrian_b 28d ago
    Unless the husband was a jerk, he would have understood that this is a division of work, so the spouse who worked at home had actually earned a half of the pay received at the payed job of their husband. Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, it was not at all unusual for the wives to handle most of the finances, so they actually handled most of the money earned by the family, even if their husbands were on the payroll. What was bad in the past, was not what happened in typical cases, but what happened in the worst cases. Because a fair treatment of the wife depended on the goodwill of the husband, not being codified in laws, as it should have been, that enabled a lot of abuses.
    - eru 27d ago
      > Unless the husband was a jerk, he would have understood that this is a division of work, so the spouse who worked at home had actually earned a half of the pay received at the payed job of their husband. This is probably the best division to keep the wife happy, but from a certain point of view, housework should be paid at whatever rate you'd have to pay a maid to do the same. > Moreover, in many past societies where the wives were supposed to work at home and only the husbands were expected to do a job for a salary, [...] Where are you getting your 'many past societies' like that from? You know that salaried out-of-the-home work isn't all that old, and wasn't all that common (until recently) even where it existed?
adrian_b 28d ago
There are 4 differences between my home and that of my grandparents from one century ago, which indeed have reduced significantly the time spent with household chores: 1. Washing machine 2. Vacuum cleaner 3. Microwave oven 4. Electric refrigerator (but they had a cold underground cellar, while I no longer have such luxuries) There are also various modern tools that are not used in the normal day-to-day life, but only when incidents happen, which require repairs, for example an electric drill or reciprocating saw, or a soldering iron, or an electric sewing machine (but my grandparents had a mechanical Singer sewing machine, which did the same job, only with more effort) and sometimes, but not often, I prepare some kind of food for which an electric mixer accelerates enough the preparation to compensate for the time spent with assembling, disassembling and washing the mixer. While other modern inventions, like computers, are very important to me, none of them has reduced the amount of work that must be done in my home (I never felt the need for an automatic dishwasher, because I never let them accumulate, I wash them instantly after use, even while cooking, because I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients).
- eru 27d ago
  The mechanical sewing machine would definitely be on the same kind of list, if you had asked your grandparents to prepare one. > (I never felt the need for an automatic dishwasher, because I never let them accumulate, I wash them instantly after use, even while cooking, because I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients). Batching usually lowers the total amount of work you have to do. In any case, the dishwasher becomes more useful (for most people) as the household gets larger. I find that when we cook and bake, we need the dishwasher more. If you only eat out or eat take-away, there's barely any washing up to do. I thought of a fourth modern machine for your list: the elevator. But it only applies for some people.

qsera 28d ago

>actually living... Watching TV...Or consuming social media..

eru 28d ago
Who am I to judge what other people decide to do with their freetime. It's not like lurking on HN is morally superior.
- qsera 28d ago
  But you made that judgement already when you decided that people be better off not working...
  - eru 28d ago
    My judgement is that all else being equal, I defer to people's wishes to decide what they want to do with their time. Even in AI times, you can still spend years acquiring obsolete skills. Just like people still run for fun, even though the bicycle has already been invented. Or they make their own music by hand, instead of turning on the radio.

arjie 28d ago

All of these things have been marvelous. The washing machine in particular is such a marvel that almost all Amish use one.

left-struck 28d ago
While our time working at home has definitely gone down, our time at work hasn’t though. The point is our employers just expect more, and the benefits of whatever new efficiency is gained, if any, are not passed onto those at the bottom or middle.
- hakimg 28d ago
  Hours spent at work have also gone down over the decades and leisure time has gone up. Even if that stat wasn't true and we all spent the same amount of time working more productively then that would still be good for society at large. This attitude of unwillingness to do anything except for direct personal gain isn't good for the world and isn't good for yourself.
  - ninalanyon 28d ago
    Hours spent working haven't noticeably declined for people in Northern Europe for fifty years. I worked 40 hours a week in the UK in 1978, the usual working week in Norway now is 37.5 hours. I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivity are soaked up in increased communication effort and in shifting ever more tat.
    - eru 27d ago
      > I very much doubt that most people are greatly more productive, if you can even measure that for most jobs, than they were fifty years ago. Most jobs now are office jobs and service jobs. Much of the purported gains in productivity are soaked up in increased communication effort and in shifting ever more tat. The old jobs are a lot more productive. We just decided to consume a lot more, and also a lot more of things that are harder to make more productive, instead of taking extra leisure. If you were willing to live a 1950s life (and it were legal), you could mostly do that on very little money today.

seanmcdirmid 28d ago

Increased productivity is nothing to sneeze at even if you work the same amount of hours. The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers.

eru 28d ago
> The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers. What makes you think so? What evidence do we have one way or another?
- seanmcdirmid 28d ago
  We are seeing workers get laid off to free up more money for AI and only the AI techies are making more money? It could be temporary, but the way AI is currently owned and structured, the owners and investors are positioned to reap almost all of the financial benefits whereas workers will just be expected to do more with AI for the same pay and hours worked.
  - eru 28d ago
    Workers are getting hired and fired in all kinds of economic situations all the time. At the moment, overall (US) unemployment at 4.1% hasn't moved all that much since the end of the pandemic, and is on the lower end of average overall by historic standards. We don't see any impact from AI so far. As far as I can tell so far, the benefits from AI seem to flow mostly into customer surplus, not towards owners and investors. There's just so much competition between AI providers for anyone but customers to capture the benefits.
    - seanmcdirmid 27d ago
      I hope you are right, but it definitely feels like everything is turning against workers. They might have jobs, but prices are such that they are still getting by or not at all.

tonyedgecombe 28d ago

I’m not sure about the car. I seem to remember reading that commute time has been remarkably consistent even going back to Roman times. All the car allowed us to do is build homes further away from our workplace.

atiedebee 28d ago

I don't think cars gave back many hours for the majority of people, they just increased the distance people travel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti's_constant