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Movable type is technology. Archimedes’ screw is technology. The inclined plane is technology. A sharpened stick is technology.

Not all technology is equal. It varies in complexity and the demands it places on our lives.




Sure. My mention of "printing press" was specifically meant to be moveable type, but that detail doesn't matter.

Now how do you get from your true observation to characterize how technology now is 'several orders of magnitude' greater than the 'very little "technology"' af3d had as kid?

When you talk about "demands it places on our lives", do you mean modern life has higher demands, or lower? And is that a good thing?

Like, in the 1800s, employees worked 12 hour shifts, 6 days/week, with few rest days or holidays. Working conditions were horrible, and a simple slip in attention could cut your fingers off or worse.

That placed a high demand on people's lives - higher than ours now, and higher than those in the Middle Ages. Quoting https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_... :

"Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind."

My mother would make clothes for the family when I was a kid. Sewing is a complex skill which takes effort and time to learn. She stopped when the price of cloth got more expensive than the price of pre-made clothing. Does technology place fewer demands on our lives now?

And how do you factor in the lack of effort we should have been doing to avoid global warming - a problem we've known about since I was a teenager in the 1980s?


It sounds like you’re really invested in the idea that life was tough in the old days. I’m certainly not going to disabuse you of that notion.


I said life during 1800s high tech was more demanding on people than now, but I also said that life in the Middle Ages was less demanding on us than now.

Which makes it decidedly difficult to see a simple correlation between technology and ease of life, no matter how many "orders of magnitude" technology has changed.




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