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"But can we really do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years ago?" 'nuff said. the author is probably just trying to be pr

by spot 17y ago

"But can we really do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years ago?" 'nuff said. the author is probably just trying to be provocative. either that or he's an idiot.

bsaunder 17y ago
Seems like the latter.
jimbokun 17y ago
I note you didn't answer the question. Computers add a little more convenience. Shopping is a little more convenient than catalog shopping, maybe. You can be "friends" with people by looking at their pictures and reading occasional snippets of text from them instead of spending time with them in person. It is much easier to adopt a lifestyle of sitting in an automobile seat, to sitting in a cubicle seat, to sitting in a reclining chair in front of a television or a computer screen, than it was in the 1950s. We've gone from listening to a transistor radio in our pocket to listening to music on our iPod. That's an improvement in terms of choice and convenience, but it that all we've got to show for the past 50 years? What are the qualitative improvements in life since 1959? Taking just one thing he mentioned in the 50 years before that, the invention of antibiotics, is there anything in the past 50 years that compares in the impact to human lives? (Note how he convincingly argues it was even the enabler of the sexual revolution.)
- bsaunder 17y ago
  To point out just one qualitative improvement the author completely discounts: the internet. "Computer networks came a year or two after 1959 and didn’t change very much, other than how we waste time in the office, and whom advertisers pay." Which, even according to his statement, happened in the 50 year window from 1959-2009. You can't change facts to support your argument just because it's convenient. Just imagine what your world would be like without google and email (just to name two aspects of the internet). We wouldn't be having this debate (maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing ;).
  - varjag 17y ago
    You giving up your age here :) The world was actually fine, and more or less the same as it is now.
  - jimbokun 17y ago
    "Just imagine what your world would be like without google and email" I would not be wasting time having this debate at my office, which is part of his point. :) I do not think just saying "The Internet, I mean, come on..." wins the argument. There needs to be something showing that the Internet changes our lives in ways similar to what radio, television, antibiotics and the atom bomb changed lives in the first half of the 20th century. I think part of the problem with making that argument is that the Internet and computing technology is changing life much more appreciably in India and China than it is here. It is allowing people in India to suddenly join the cubicle dwelling, information processing, Western world work force in large numbers in ways that are profoundly changing the lives of many people there. Walmart's computerized, just in time inventory systems makes ordering products in China and getting them to the right shelves in a timely manner feasible. That is having perhaps an even more profound effect on the life of many Chinese. (This also applies to many other developing countries, of course.) So it may be that the technology advances are less noticeable here in the U.S., where many of us were already working in offices and shopping at department stores in the 1950s. But the way lives are changing in developing countries is akin to the kinds of changes Americans experienced in the first half of the 20th century.
- rubinelli 17y ago
  I guess it is easy to dismiss the way technology made a large range of products and services available to billions of people if you come from an upper-middle class American family, but even then, it is hard to argue that you will suffer a lot less if you find a kidney stone today than back in the 50s.

by spot 17y ago

bsaunder 17y ago

Seems like the latter.

jimbokun 17y ago

I note you didn't answer the question. Computers add a little more convenience. Shopping is a little more convenient than catalog shopping, maybe. You can be "friends" with people by looking at their pictures and reading occasional snippets of text from them instead of spending time with them in person. It is much easier to adopt a lifestyle of sitting in an automobile seat, to sitting in a cubicle seat, to sitting in a reclining chair in front of a television or a computer screen, than it was in the 1950s. We've gone from listening to a transistor radio in our pocket to listening to music on our iPod. That's an improvement in terms of choice and convenience, but it that all we've got to show for the past 50 years? What are the qualitative improvements in life since 1959? Taking just one thing he mentioned in the 50 years before that, the invention of antibiotics, is there anything in the past 50 years that compares in the impact to human lives? (Note how he convincingly argues it was even the enabler of the sexual revolution.)

bsaunder 17y ago
To point out just one qualitative improvement the author completely discounts: the internet. "Computer networks came a year or two after 1959 and didn’t change very much, other than how we waste time in the office, and whom advertisers pay." Which, even according to his statement, happened in the 50 year window from 1959-2009. You can't change facts to support your argument just because it's convenient. Just imagine what your world would be like without google and email (just to name two aspects of the internet). We wouldn't be having this debate (maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing ;).
- varjag 17y ago
  You giving up your age here :) The world was actually fine, and more or less the same as it is now.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  "Just imagine what your world would be like without google and email" I would not be wasting time having this debate at my office, which is part of his point. :) I do not think just saying "The Internet, I mean, come on..." wins the argument. There needs to be something showing that the Internet changes our lives in ways similar to what radio, television, antibiotics and the atom bomb changed lives in the first half of the 20th century. I think part of the problem with making that argument is that the Internet and computing technology is changing life much more appreciably in India and China than it is here. It is allowing people in India to suddenly join the cubicle dwelling, information processing, Western world work force in large numbers in ways that are profoundly changing the lives of many people there. Walmart's computerized, just in time inventory systems makes ordering products in China and getting them to the right shelves in a timely manner feasible. That is having perhaps an even more profound effect on the life of many Chinese. (This also applies to many other developing countries, of course.) So it may be that the technology advances are less noticeable here in the U.S., where many of us were already working in offices and shopping at department stores in the 1950s. But the way lives are changing in developing countries is akin to the kinds of changes Americans experienced in the first half of the 20th century.
rubinelli 17y ago
I guess it is easy to dismiss the way technology made a large range of products and services available to billions of people if you come from an upper-middle class American family, but even then, it is hard to argue that you will suffer a lot less if you find a kidney stone today than back in the 50s.