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Tog's Paradox

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166 points adzicg | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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nine_k ◴[] No.41914693[source]
It looks almost as if humans have a nearly infinite backlog of things they would do if they only had time and capability, and a limit on the amount of effort they are capable of exerting per day. Then, once new tools increase their productivity and free up a bit of resources, they pick more desiderata from the backlog, and try to also accomplish that. Naturally they seek more tools for the newly-possible activities, and the loop closes.

This applies to any activity, leisure emphatically included. Travel became simpler → more vacations now involve flying a plane and thus obtaining tickets online and thus comparison-shopping, aggregating reviews of faraway places, etc → omg, vacation travel is complex again. It just allows to fulfill more of a dream.

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delichon ◴[] No.41914766[source]
The nearly infinite backlog also means that there is nearly infinite demand for labor and Luddite adjacent arguments that labor saving technology causes persistent underemployment are invalid.
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1. falcor84 ◴[] No.41914865[source]
Even if we shouldn't be concerned about "persistent" underemployment, I still think that rapid "transient" unemployment due to rapidly evolving tech over the coming decades may cause significant societal upheaval that we should be concerned about - even if it's "just luddites" coming to burn our data centers.