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I think the concept of payment itself is one ignored. Credit Cards were sort of in use in the 1940s but they were typically limited and on a store only basis. The idea of a payment system other than cash that just works anywhere (more or less) is pretty revolutionary. Especially if it allows you to remove the headache of making sure you have available funds at any given time.
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Jan 27, 2016 05:31
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trucutru posted:It does introduce the headache of not having available funds to pay the interest in the future. To be fair is is like a time machine for your (future) headache. If you pay everything with a card, you get one bill that you can pay off, and (like you said) you don't even need to pay it all off at once, though you do incur interest. That's still better than "oh I need groceries but I don't get paid until friday and I don't have the cash now".
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Jan 27, 2016 05:37
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trucutru posted:This is not precisely a new problem, you know. I am pretty sure it was solved in the past, it just took a bit longer. You also knew the person who was going to break your legs if you didn't pay personally. Nowadays it is much less personal. It was solved with checks, which are cumbersome and easier to fake. I'm not even talking about cheating the mob owned bodega, I just mean that a grocer or whoever just wouldn't sell you food.
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Jan 27, 2016 05:43
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MikeCrotch posted:
Nope, because the thing about anti-biotic resistance is that it requires many more resources than the normal bacteria. Once the environmental pressures are relieved (i.e., people say "oh poo poo these antibiotics won't work anymore) then the anti-biotic resistant bacteria will be outbred.
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Jan 27, 2016 19:17
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ReadyToHuman posted:increased automation producing more leisure time rather than just putting people out of work, The only difference here is the amount of unemployment benefits.
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Jan 28, 2016 04:53
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Inferior Third Season posted:The real question is whether any of these new technologies are sustainable economic powerhouses that can match the long-term and short-term growth from earlier technological progress. Clearly, the internet allows for greater economic activity, but I think it's easy to make the case that it doesn't have nearly as dramatic an effect as the proliferation of electricity in the 19th century or widespread adoption of the combustion engine. The huge caveat here that you're not mentioning is that proliferation of those technologies are not universal. It's really hard to get a grasp on the effects of the internet when a decade ago, most of China didn't have it.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:51
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I would think GPS alone has been a massive change in the way people do things.
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Jan 28, 2016 19:33
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Cicero posted:A very common problem I've seen on these boards with evaluating technological innovation is that when an innovation is first created, it hasn't spread yet and thus has minimal impact, and by the time it's spread and has clearly made a big impact, it's 'in the past' and doesn't count as a current innovation anymore. Basically it's nearly impossible to evaluate how impactful cutting edge innovations are, because cutting edge means they're recent and haven't had time to do much. Yeah, and I think that's actually a consequence of the modern mindset. Like the first modern automobile was made in 1897, but it wasn't until about 15 years later that Ford started doing his assembly line, and even then it still took a lot of time before cars were really ubiquitous. That's roughly the same timeline as mobile phones today*, but people think that very little has changed in that interval. *At least for phones that are smaller than this: 
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Jan 28, 2016 21:27
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HorseLord posted:This is the stupidest proposition ever. Oh yeah, the large advances in quality control is another major shift in the past 50-60 years. Back in the day they didn't "make things better", they just hoped and prayed that they could catch all of the defective ones before they left the factory. These days you can have fine tuned control over your manufacturing process and make it so that even though there are defects, they're extremely minimal (in the single digit parts per million or billion range).
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Jan 29, 2016 05:16
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1st AD posted:I use a GPS watch not to find out where I need to go, but to track my pace, elevation change, and map my routes while I'm running. It can be done without the aid of all this technology, but boy does the technology make the data collection idiot proof. That's another thing too - it seems like people are mainly concerned about the first product that can do x, rather than the first product that lets you do x easily. Right now you can tell an app your relevant factors, and let it use GPS to determine the speed and length of your run, and have it calculate the estimated calories expended. You could do all of that (with the proper books, maps, etc) in previous decades, but not nearly as quickly or easily.
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Jan 29, 2016 22:04
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Main Paineframe posted:Those aren't technological changes, though. Those are social, economic, or engineering changes. For example, widespread availability of wireless broadband-speed internet is why YouTube exists now and not two decades ago when watching a video meant downloading a blurry 2MB RealMedia clip the size of a postage stamp. But broadband was around then, and so were both wireless networking and internet over cellphone signals - the reason it's widely available now and not then is because of decades of infrastructural investments and cost reductions, not because of some big technological breakthrough. Those investments and improvements are absolutely very significant, sure, but the question of the thread was about technological change. The fact that it takes time, refinement, and infrastructure for new technologies to go mainstream doesn't really make the results of that iteration into new technological discoveries in their own right. Cost reductions are very much technological changes because they often involve different processes. Your definition of new technology seems to be "something that's never done before", but that's hilariously reductive. The difference between broadband 20 years ago and now, for example, is roughly equivalent to the difference between lead-acid batteries and the battery in your mobile phone. To call them the same technology is disingenuous.
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Jan 30, 2016 19:42
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Uncle Jam posted:I think people are still missing the original point and arguing only one leg of support that the original author presented, basically a retrospective of technology. Giving one or two specific examples doesn't really show that economic growth will continue as it has been. Nothing will show that, and it's boring to try to discuss that.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:44
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