Why isn’t new technology making us more productive? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#411

Post by torginus » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:31 AM UTC

gitgud wrote: post #220

Barrin92 wrote: post #122

Because new technology is as Thiel often quips limited to the world of bits rather than the world of atoms. Paul Krugman once asked, if you go into an average house right now and you take out all the screens, could you tell that you're not in the 80s? Gordon in the Rise and Fall of American Growth gives a similar example, what if you went into a time capsule between say 1890 and 1950 compared to 1960 and 2010? In one…

> Today the average person crosses the Atlantic no faster than we did decades ago. Innovation is driven by demand, and demand for faster travel times is mainly fueled by people wanting quicker business trips, not people on holidays. Demand for business trips has waned dramatically due to the meteoric rise of video-conferencing. So businesses are spending less less time and money sending humans traveling around the wo…

This is a tautological argument. Let's say computers didn't advance in the last 15 years - one could make the case they didn't get faster because they don't fundamentally do anything today they didn't do 15 years ago so we don't need them to be faster.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#412

Post by phasersout » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:35 AM UTC

torginus wrote: post #405

Barrin92 wrote: post #122

Because new technology is as Thiel often quips limited to the world of bits rather than the world of atoms. Paul Krugman once asked, if you go into an average house right now and you take out all the screens, could you tell that you're not in the 80s? Gordon in the Rise and Fall of American Growth gives a similar example, what if you went into a time capsule between say 1890 and 1950 compared to 1960 and 2010? In one…

And to bring the analogy into the realm of computing, I feel like progress isn't lightning fast here either. I just watched this video of Office 3.0 from 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsTydF09hbg This looks and feels like the Office I use everyday. Likewise, I feel like the changes in the realm of software development, a purportedly fast moving, tech and investment heavy industry, have been a mix of sidegrade…

In case of operating systems I often wonder what our GUI and workflow would look like if Windows, MacOS and Linux had equal market shares for the last twenty years.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#413

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #409

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric cars? Come on. They're barely even a change from a consumer perspective. Someone from 1950 wouldn't even notice the difference, unless you told them exactly what they were looking at. Wut? I call major bullshit on this. Yes, obviously electric cars generally do the same thing as ICE cars, but the consumer experience is so much better for me is that after owning an electric car I will never, ever even consi…

In the context of the question being posted electric cars don’t move the needle for productivity. I spent three glorious days with a Tesla performance M3 in Texas recently. The driving experience is, for me, unparalleled. But it was definitely not more productive by any metric I’d use.

Never going to the gas station?

The fact that the per-mile cost is much lower? Isn't that pretty much the definition of productivity?

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#414

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:39 AM UTC

mymythisisthis wrote: post #302

nerdponx wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point you're trying to make here? That somehow people were better off for having to spend hours thumbing through books instead of searching things on the Web?

The fastest way of learning something is to have a professional teach you. Not even the Internet can beat that. Because of cut backs to education, we have fewer good mentors. Because of loss in manufacturing in N. America there are fewer skilled professionals to pass on their knowledge.

Because of cut backs to education, we have fewer good mentors.

What cut backs? We spend more on education than ever. We might be getting less out of it, but not for lack of spending.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_236.70.a...

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#415

Post by 1123581321 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:42 AM UTC

iratewizard wrote: post #386

1123581321 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely wrong, in aggregate. Vehicle longevity and reliability have significantly increased over that time period. However, when an unproven new car is compared to an old car that has already survived for a long time, it’s possible you may be right.

The same new cars that need the entire transmission replaced if any one thing goes wrong in it? Compared to those poorly built old cars where you could blow a gasket and just put a new one in?

Yes, exactly those. I would recommend reasoning backwards from the longevity statistics to the potential reasons for the changes to the designs of individual parts and systems.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#416

Post by harryf » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:44 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #122

Because new technology is as Thiel often quips limited to the world of bits rather than the world of atoms. Paul Krugman once asked, if you go into an average house right now and you take out all the screens, could you tell that you're not in the 80s? Gordon in the Rise and Fall of American Growth gives a similar example, what if you went into a time capsule between say 1890 and 1950 compared to 1960 and 2010? In one…

> Another interesting thought experiment is, how many digital services, modern tech and so on would you be willing to trade for something mundane, say your dishwasher, a hot shower, the toilet, a car, soap, if you could only have one or the other? I think it really puts into perspective how much or rather little value those 'innovations' add.

Exactly! In fact I‘d go further and say - in some cases - “innovation” has made things worse not better.

As a kid our family TV had one remote control. You switched the TV on and it “just worked”. Today to watch your “Smart TV” you need at least 3 remote controls apparently and the time between switching it on an actually watching anything seems to get longer and longer. Sure there’s all this choice now available of what to watch - although mostly it’s a choice between many variations of low quality content - but the basic usability of a TV is way worse than what I had when I was 10.

Another example is “smart lights” … it used to be you just switch a light on and it worked. But now there’s at least an additional 200 ms to wait for a light to turn on, and a little glimmer of anxiety when you’re unsure what “mode” the light will boot up in, especially when your Wifi was down…

I do a comedy podcast and we were ranting about this stuff a little while ago about how “innovation” is making things worse https://youtu.be/HvtCfUMJEk0

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#417

Post by tshaddox » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:44 AM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #253

Quinner wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years ago in order to navigate somewhere you had to ask someone for directions and write down notes. If you missed a turn, god help you. We fundamentally move through the world vastly differently thanks to digital maps. Many people (and in a few years, the majority) are doing so in cars that use electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. One way to tell whether you're in an 80s house would be to look…

> 30 years ago in order to navigate somewhere you had to ask someone for directions and write down notes. If you missed a turn, god help you. We fundamentally move through the world vastly differently thanks to digital maps. Many people (and in a few years, the majority) are doing so in cars that use electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. Honestly, it seems like you're just picking some incremental o…

> And some of those other things are debatable. For instance: I deliberately stopped using GPS for several years, because I realized it was preventing me from building up geographic/navigational knowledge, and instead was just training me to follow instructions blindly and never learn anything

That’s a fine personal choice to make if you value building up geographic knowledge for its own sake, but I don’t really get your point. You could say the same thing about giving up your dishwasher because you value hand washing dishes for its own sake.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#418

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:44 AM UTC

alephnan wrote: post #375

arcticbull wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keyboard button press to screen response is ~100ms whereas an Apple IIe was 35ms.

How'd you measure that?

Most measurements were taken with the 240fps camera (4.167 ms resolution) in the iPhone SE. Devices with response times below 40 ms were re-measured with a 1000fps camera (1 ms resolution), the Sony RX100 V in PAL mode.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#419

Post by tshaddox » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:46 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #406

philosopher1234 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that skill be useful to me? I’ve never needed it in my entire life. You sound like a Luddite.

I think this is a risky side to take. Consider that your argument isn't all that far from a kid wondering why they should learn math. After all if they ever needed to use it, they could just use a calculator, like the one they bought from the clerk who whipped our her trusty calculator to determine how much change to give for the 120 coin calculator that was paid for with 200 coins. Navigational skills are likely not…

> Consider that your argument isn't all that far from a kid wondering why they should learn math. After all if they ever needed to use it, they could just use a calculator, like the one they bought from the clerk who whipped our her trusty calculator to determine how much change to give for the 120 coin calculator that was paid for with 200 coins.

Well yes, it’s exactly like that argument, and they’re both valid!

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#420

Post by jcims » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #413

jcims wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of the question being posted electric cars don’t move the needle for productivity. I spent three glorious days with a Tesla performance M3 in Texas recently. The driving experience is, for me, unparalleled. But it was definitely not more productive by any metric I’d use.

Never going to the gas station? The fact that the per-mile cost is much lower? Isn't that pretty much the definition of productivity?

That wasn’t my experience at all. I spent substantially more time and cognitive energy keeping it topped off than i ever have an ICE vehicle. I’m sure if I lived in the area I could have installed a charger of sufficient capacity to start off every morning at 80% but i needed to hit a supercharger for 20+ minutes per day to do that.