People predicted the working week would decrease dramatically over the last half-century. We now seem to work much harder. People predicted a paperless office. On the contrary we use more paper than ever because we can print on it so damn fast! Who knows what the outcome of more robots will be? Judging by the last 50 years it'll mean more and harder work for all of us.
In the US, the ammount of housework per day has not gone down much in the last 150 years. This is despite the advent of vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, etc. Instead, we have found ways to use these inventions to change the way we do things, so that we can fill up our free time with the same old chores....
Same thing regarding the work force. Sure, it is painful for the older population who may not have the skills to compete, but that is an argument for lowering the retirement age, IMO;-) Can we all retire
"In the US, the ammount of housework per day has not gone down much in the last 150 years. "
No decrease between 1853 and 2003? Do you have some meaningful stats to back this up? I think you've made this up to suit your argument, and my reasoning follows...
More and more US adults are in full time employment. If the same amount of housework is being done, who is doing it? Children? Don't make me laugh. If these people have jobs AND are still spend just as long cleaning the house, where did they find the tim
Have you been to a third world country and seen how much work they put into maintaining thier houses. Yes, it is work, and is physically harder work, but you usually don't see wall-to-wall carpet... In fact the only thing that seems to take more labor is laundry...
In most of these houses I have seen, middle-income families tend to hire *part time* a house-keeper. Bear in mind, I have never seen a vacuum cleaner in Jakarta or Quito, but people design their houses so that they don't *need* them. If you l
It does seem that washing machines are the biggest advance we have made in time savings. When I had to wash all of my clothes and bed linens by hand it would take a very large percentage of my time. It really made me appreciate my washer and dryer.
I don't have any carpets at home so my floor cleaning method is virtually the same as the 3rd worlders, a cloth mop (Vileda in my case). I don't have much use for a vacuum in house cleaning although I do like them. Automatic dishwashers are not that big a deal ei
Housework has gone down for most people. Did you see that TV series 1900 house? A bunch of modern British people decided to live for 3 months as if in 1900. Life for the women was one long chore. The amount of work was unbelievable. Just doing the washing was an entire day's work. Cooking was hell as a stove needed to be maintained. It was hard and slow to cook with. I can't even begin to reconut how much work these people did!
Housework has gone down for most people. Did you see that TV series 1900 house? A bunch of modern British people decided to live for 3 months as if in 1900. Life for the women was one long chore. The amount of work was unbelievable. Just doing the washing was an entire day's work. Cooking was hell as a stove needed to be maintained. It was hard and slow to cook with. I can't even begin to reconut how much work these people did!
The amount of skill required was greater. You can't master cooking on a moder
That is finally happening, but only because the two income family is now the norm.
A classic example of the change. Laundry used to be a day long ordeal. It was perfectly acceptable to wear the same pants for a week and the same shirt for 2 days or more (depending on profession). washer and dryer come along and save a lot of time, but now clothers are worn once then washed.
Roughly the same thing happened with other chores. Now that nobody has time anymore, we'
The fact is that a robot-driven world will mean that MUCH more will be done, and that everyone's job will be that of information management (whether a corporate manager type, a researcher, or a technician). In general, I predict very little change to wealth distribution.
Ahh, but the problem is that not everyone is manager, researcher or technician material. No amount of education is going to change that. Some people(a pretty fair proportion of them) don't have the intellectual initiative for these so
Ahh, but the problem is that not everyone is manager, researcher or technician material.
Then the bar will be lowered for the teachers and the technicians. Or maybe we will have more entertainers.
A certain number of people are bound to get left behind in this sort of an economy.
Do we not have this same problem today? When you look at the chronically unemployed, doesn't this seem to be part of the problem? I think that if people are born into a world which expects them to be at least a certain way,
We're headed towards the "Paperless Office". The road is longer and bumpier than was first imagined, but we're getting there.
The only times I print out stuff is when it needs to be portable (like printing driving directions) and I don't want to putz with putting it on a PDA.
Or sometimes, flipping through a document is easier than viewing it on the screen. I wish I had a PDF viewer which was really, really fast. Maybe something that could pre-render pages without gobbling massive amounts of memory...
Stuff like printing out code is almost useless. How can I tell if I'm looking at the latest version?
A lot of the notes and stuff I write these days goes into documentation, or the coporate wiki. Writing something down on paper only benefits me. Putting it on the wiki can potentially benefit everyone.
We're headed towards the "Paperless Office". The road is longer and bumpier than was first imagined, but we're getting there.
I'm sure I agree with you. There's the issue of a whole generation of workers preferring to use what's familiar to them. Meanwhile, the newest generation of workers are completely familiar with computers. I print mostly nothing. My wife prints everything. I'm not younger than my wife, however, I started with computers very young.
Meanwhile, things like "Electronic Paper" are right a
Darnitall, I can't remember where I saw the article (hope it wasn't here... my memory insists it was a deadtree magazine) that pointed out that it hasn't been the office that's become paperless, but the warehouse. The days of multiple-carbon picklists and that sort of thing are fading, replaced by barcode readers and wireless. Kind of an interesting point.
Or sometimes, flipping through a document is easier than viewing it on the screen. I wish I had a PDF viewer which was really, really fast. Maybe something that could pre-render pages without gobbling massive amounts of memory...
Your past posts don't seem too pro-mac, but the next time your near to one with the next Mac OS X update, Panther [apple.com], check out the new version of Preview [apple.com]...
Sub-pixel rendering + LCDs + rendering screen makes for some good readin'...
It was said when the phrase 'paperless office' first became popular that: "We will get the paperless office when we get the paperless toilet" - meaning never.
Well now they have paperless toilets in Japan (they wash and blow dry! lol) but I am unaware of any paperless office anywhere. By fiddling with fonts and using a very good monitor I have managed to get reading of the screen to a comfortable level but paper is still the best for large amounts. My wife even asks me to print out emails for her to save her
In the "good ol'days" there was no weekend because people would work. There was no vaction because people would work.
The outcome of robots is already known and it is called the tourism industry. Fifty years ago getting a job as a "excercise therapist" meant becoming a Gym teacher. Now there are wild water adventures, Bungy Instructors, etc, etc. There is an entire industry built around humans fascination to be amused.
I agree. Marshall's previous articles on this topic argues that simple service jobs will be replaced by robots (housekeeping...for one) and leave a lot of people unemployed. This is not an unlikely scenario, but I believe that this technological evolution will force humans to become more capable, producive and involved in the entire processes that make s such a productive breed. After all, we invenrted the wheel.
He has a point. We should not assume that automating automatically cut costs! Machines and their software cost money to buy and to keep running (repairs, upgrades, electricity). I situations where the machine is much more effective than humans they make a lot of sense (witness automated manufacturing).
But look at the examples in the article: automated checkout lines, swapping inventory, cleaning the store... these take a lot of work to build a machine that can do the work even as well as a human! Add all t
The working week has increased because our standard of living and expectations have risen so dramtically. Consider how the bottom 20% of the population spend their income. 50 years ago almost all of it went to food and shelter, now a far greater percentage goes to "other" expenses, such as television, movies, etc.
Marshall Brain's argument is basically a diluted version of Kurzweil's. He shares many of the same flaws and comes up with a few new ones:
Strong AI is presumed on the basis of Moore's law. Al
At the large company I work at, the office *is* almost entirely paperless, except for security control forms, startup HR work, and a few trivial things here and there which didn't go electronic.
In fact, that ties in very well work working from home. Of course, that ties in very well with outsourcing to India. Maybe I do like the paper office after all.
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
Who can make predictions like that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:2)
Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
Same thing regarding the work force. Sure, it is painful for the older population who may not have the skills to compete, but that is an argument for lowering the retirement age, IMO
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:0)
No decrease between 1853 and 2003? Do you have some meaningful stats to back this up? I think you've made this up to suit your argument, and my reasoning follows...
More and more US adults are in full time employment. If the same amount of housework is being done, who is doing it? Children? Don't make me laugh. If these people have jobs AND are still spend just as long cleaning the house, where did they find the tim
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
In most of these houses I have seen, middle-income families tend to hire *part time* a house-keeper. Bear in mind, I have never seen a vacuum cleaner in Jakarta or Quito, but people design their houses so that they don't *need* them. If you l
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
I don't have any carpets at home so my floor cleaning method is virtually the same as the 3rd worlders, a cloth mop (Vileda in my case). I don't have much use for a vacuum in house cleaning although I do like them. Automatic dishwashers are not that big a deal ei
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
The amount of skill required was greater. You can't master cooking on a moder
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
Housework has gone down for most people.
That is finally happening, but only because the two income family is now the norm.
A classic example of the change. Laundry used to be a day long ordeal. It was perfectly acceptable to wear the same pants for a week and the same shirt for 2 days or more (depending on profession). washer and dryer come along and save a lot of time, but now clothers are worn once then washed.
Roughly the same thing happened with other chores. Now that nobody has time anymore, we'
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
Ahh, but the problem is that not everyone is manager, researcher or technician material. No amount of education is going to change that. Some people(a pretty fair proportion of them) don't have the intellectual initiative for these so
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
Then the bar will be lowered for the teachers and the technicians. Or maybe we will have more entertainers.
A certain number of people are bound to get left behind in this sort of an economy.
Do we not have this same problem today? When you look at the chronically unemployed, doesn't this seem to be part of the problem? I think that if people are born into a world which expects them to be at least a certain way,
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:2)
So? Most current managers aren't manager material either?
Re:Well said, but there is more (Score:1)
The Paperless Office (Score:5, Informative)
We're headed towards the "Paperless Office". The road is longer and bumpier than was first imagined, but we're getting there.
The only times I print out stuff is when it needs to be portable (like printing driving directions) and I don't want to putz with putting it on a PDA.
Or sometimes, flipping through a document is easier than viewing it on the screen. I wish I had a PDF viewer which was really, really fast. Maybe something that could pre-render pages without gobbling massive amounts of memory...
Stuff like printing out code is almost useless. How can I tell if I'm looking at the latest version?
A lot of the notes and stuff I write these days goes into documentation, or the coporate wiki. Writing something down on paper only benefits me. Putting it on the wiki can potentially benefit everyone.
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:2)
I'm sure I agree with you. There's the issue of a whole generation of workers preferring to use what's familiar to them. Meanwhile, the newest generation of workers are completely familiar with computers. I print mostly nothing. My wife prints everything. I'm not younger than my wife, however, I started with computers very young.
Meanwhile, things like "Electronic Paper" are right a
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:3, Interesting)
Darnitall, I can't remember where I saw the article (hope it wasn't here... my memory insists it was a deadtree magazine) that pointed out that it hasn't been the office that's become paperless, but the warehouse. The days of multiple-carbon picklists and that sort of thing are fading, replaced by barcode readers and wireless. Kind of an interesting point.
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:0)
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:0)
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:2)
Your past posts don't seem too pro-mac, but the next time your near to one with the next Mac OS X update, Panther [apple.com], check out the new version of Preview [apple.com]...
Sub-pixel rendering + LCDs + rendering screen makes for some good readin'...
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:2)
I think the point to the paperless office was not to get rid of paper, but not use it for organizing everything.
Email's already killed off the endless memos, and stuff like Notes and TWiki are the biggest advances towards real group collaboration.
Or sometimes, flipping through a document is easier than viewing it on the screen. I wish I had a PDF viewe
The Paperless Toilet (Score:1)
"We will get the paperless office when we get the paperless toilet" - meaning never.
Well now they have paperless toilets in Japan (they wash and blow dry! lol) but I am unaware of any paperless office anywhere. By fiddling with fonts and using a very good monitor I have managed to get reading of the screen to a comfortable level but paper is still the best for large amounts. My wife even asks me to print out emails for her to save her
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:0)
Re:The Paperless Office (Score:2)
At least the 'first revision of the paperless office seems to finally be fading away. I have seen it in action and is truly funny. It went like this:
This was going on even when both companies had email access.
Most of my paper use these days is scribbling down brief notes on scrap paper. Basically anything that won't be needed in another hour or so.
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:2)
We have worked less, we actually have WEEKENDS...
In the "good ol'days" there was no weekend because people would work. There was no vaction because people would work.
The outcome of robots is already known and it is called the tourism industry. Fifty years ago getting a job as a "excercise therapist" meant becoming a Gym teacher. Now there are wild water adventures, Bungy Instructors, etc, etc. There is an entire industry built around humans fascination to be amused.
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:1)
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:0)
But look at the examples in the article: automated checkout lines, swapping inventory, cleaning the store... these take a lot of work to build a machine that can do the work even as well as a human! Add all t
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:0)
Marshall Brain's argument is basically a diluted version of Kurzweil's. He shares many of the same flaws and comes up with a few new ones:
Strong AI is presumed on the basis of Moore's law. Al
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:0)
Especially if we let MS make the OS for the robots.
Re:Who can make predictions like that? (Score:2)
In fact, that ties in very well work working from home. Of course, that ties in very well with outsourcing to India. Maybe I do like the paper office after all.