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Productivity Paradox
- morganwilde 14y agoWhat a strange coincidence, this is one of my sources for an article I'm writing now to dig deeper into why do we have such a paradox with the pc. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one digging.
- cousin_it 14y agoThis essay argues that as automation becomes better, people create artificial complexity to soak up the gains: http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/ImportantThatSoftwareFails.html http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/I...
- Evbn 14y agoWho feels less productive now than 30 years ago? We are so much more incredibly wealthy now, we just consume more now, instead satisifying basic needs and then sleeping 18 hours per day. Plus some unequal distribution of wealth.
- pc86 14y agoI don't think I understand your point. I get what you're saying regarding increased consumption, a lot of people have argued that point. What does distribution of wealth have to do with changes in productivity as it relates to increased workplace automation?
- adastra 14y agoIf I had to guess, I'd bet workers can now do 8 hours of work in 3, but because we're required by cultural norms to be in the office 9 to 5, people find things to waste time on to stretch it back out to 8 again. (Hmm, there's lots of places to waste time on the internet. But what tech workers would really want to meet this need is a website that is substantive and technical, so they don't feel guilty about spending time there...)
- jack9 14y agoThis isn't a paradox. As computers replace people, the productivity gain is net 0. The only reason this paradox exists is that it's published and nobody has published a study to illustrate the obvious.