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Posted by Kyle Boatright on May 15, 2006, 9:01 pm
> In the fifties, there was a groundswell among consumers to do work in less
> time, and take that extra time to go fishing or spend quality time with
> the family.
>
> So, in comes the riding mower. The idea was that what once took you four
> hours to do with inefficient tools would now take one hour, net gain three
> hours for napping or fishing or golfing, or whatever.
>
> Didn't happen.
>
> Net result of riding lawnmowers?
>
> You could have more grass.
>
> Same with most "labor saving" devices. You don't save time, which is then
> squandered on frivolous pursuits. You can do more work in the same amount
> of time, so now you can have and maintain more "stuff."
>
> Steve
You are so right. Consider the modern washer and dryer. In the old days,
only the wealthy could afford to change clothes several times a day and have
the dirty ones cleaned. Now, it is *easy* to wash and dry clothes, so we
just wear more different items and wash clothes more frequently. We
probably spend just as much or more time doing laundry today as ever...
Computers are another time consumer. Used to be we spent an hour figuring
up something (say business options) using paper and pencil. Today, we invest
the same hour but get ten times the number of options, figured down to the
2nd decimal place. The extra options are generally non-starters, and
figuring guesstimates down to the 2nd decimal place is pretty much a waste
of time...
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