Is advancing tech making us more lazy?

[Parasondox]

Well, is they?... Are they?

Anyway, yeah. I've had many discussion about this with those of different age ranges and of course they are different, duh! But how do the users of the Escapist feel. When was the last time you hand wrote something that was not to do with a signature and with a pen or paper? Not drawn, written? Some experts believe that handwriting, remember that, could stop entirely in school education in the UK in the next few decades. Is it so?

But that's one part of tech. What about Bluetooth tooth brushes? Fitbits (okay I keep typing that word but it changes it to "titbits".)? Fridges and kettles that are wi-fi enable... wait. Stop. Seriously? Why? Actually, someone will tell me in the post below so all good.

Anyway, as much as I love tech and want it to help more of it, are we taking it for granted and becoming more lazy when it comes to mundane things like turning on the lights without using your phone.

What do y'all think... as I write this on a Pixel C tablet while watching YouTube videos laying down.

This has been a Para thread brought to you by a Para. Something something sexual thought something.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Personally I never supported the change-over from foot/inertia powered wood and rock cars to these newfangled automatic liquid dinosaur powered death machines! Say what you will about the good ol' days in Bedrock, but we never had a car that could go faster than one footpower per hour!

Spoiler: Also look at those calves.

Those are a working man's calves.

 

[Saelune]

There was a reason why we used to die much younger. Lighting candles and writing letters. Deadly that.

 

[balladbird]

Well, in a way it's undeniable, sure. Skills that would have been handy in everyday life, and required depending on certain fields, such as advanced mathematics or even something as common as good spelling, have been rendered obsolete by the advance of technology. Hell, modern day spell-checkers can correct your mistakes as you're working without even informing you that they're doing it, so even the net boon of having your common mis-spellings pointed out to you is kind of disappearing.

Likewise, data-retention is fast becoming obsolete, since a person who memorizes facts from his studies is, in many cases, not all that much better off than the person who googles the facts from his phone when the issue presents itself.

As to whether it's a bad thing? eh, I'm not one of the doomsday types, who swears that all it'll take is a solar flare making our technology crumple to make humans these days die out, because we're just so inferior to the people of the olden days. We'd suffer for a time without our gadgets and comfort, but we'd ultimately be fine. We're resilient as cockroaches, we meatbags.

 

[Zhukov]

Of course.

And I'm totally fine with that.

I grew up in the bush in a low-tech house. No electricity apart from lights. So I'll take my electric stove and washing machine and vacuum cleaner and I will be fucking thankful for them.

 

[Avnger]

Define lazy.

I get more work done in an average day than it would have been possible for someone to do in multiple weeks 20 years ago. If we are getting more work done in a shorter amount of time, how can that be considered lazy? One could easily make the argument that being so efficient while also allowing time to relax and take care of our mental health means previous generations were the lazy ones

 

[Sniper Team 4]

The last time I wrote something by hand--more than just a quick note--was to a girl I was dating at the time. I took all of our text messages and wrote them all down. Took about four pages. She loved it. Not sure if girls nowadays would really appreciate something like that, or just go, "Um...why?"

Tech is totally making people lazy. That's what it does. How many people will choose to push the handicap button to open the door instead of opening it themselves? It's little things like that that are slowly adding up over the generations.

 

[Marik2]

Current technology, yes.

 

[Kolby Jack]

Depends on how you define "lazy." Technology is certainly convenient, which is the whole point. Nowadays people in first world countries are freer to do the things that make them happy rather than toil for a meager living. Some choose to piss the days away, and those people could be called lazy I suppose, but that's more on them than technology. There are plenty of worthwhile and productive things someone can do today.

Personally I look forward to the day when someone is criticized for getting a "useless" engineering degree when they could be doing something worthwhile, like liberal arts. Provided we don't all die before then, that day could be fairly soon.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

No ... it's making us work harder for less.

This has been the trend since (forever, but particularly) the 70s.

Prior 70s productivity and relative wage growth to RPI and CPI was consistently met. People were getting wealthier doing the same job for the same hours. By the time of Reagan in the 80s, productivity continued to rise while wage growth and total blue collar and even white collar incomes for total hourly labour rewards began to collapse onto itself.

Now you have CEOs who get paid an average of 250 times what a baseline average income in their company, the average employee who works more hours than ever before for less, who are getting fucked.

Technology has never made people lazy. It's merely reduced just what workers can do to earn a living.

Go back a few centuries and farmers worked hard for 5 months of the year, and rested the other 7 with light duties. That was considered 'enough' to be given the fundamentals of life and even leave you something to set aside for old age and raise a family of 4 kids.

Good luck putting a roof over the heads of 4 kids working an entry level job, 50 hours a week, for 5 months of the year all without welfare.

 

[WolfThomas]

No ... it's making us work harder for less.

This has been the trend since (forever, but particularly) the 70s.

Prior 70s productivity and relative wage growth to RPI and CPI was consistently met. People were getting wealthier doing the same job for the same hours. By the time of Reagan in the 80s, productivity continued to rise while wage growth and total blue collar and even white collar incomes for total hourly labour rewards began to collapse onto itself.

Now you have CEOs who get paid an average of 250 times what a baseline average income in their company, the average employee who works more hours than ever before for less, who are getting fucked.

Technology has never made people lazy. It's merely reduced just what workers can do to earn a living.

Go back a few centuries and farmers worked hard for 5 months of the year, and rested the other 7 with light duties. That was considered 'enough' to be given the fundamentals of life and even leave you something to set aside for old age and raise a family of 4 kids.

Good luck putting a roof over the heads of 4 kids working an entry level job, 50 hours a week, for 5 months of the year all without welfare.

I was coming here to say, no it should have allowed us to be lazier. To work less hours a week yet still own a home, raise a family etc. But you beat me to the punch.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I was coming here to say, no it should have allowed us to be lazier. To work less hours a week yet still own a home, raise a family etc. But you beat me to the punch.

Heh... whenever I run into baby boomers pissing and moaning about how today kids are lazy and the jobless refuse to labour, not like the good ol' days... I look at them and smile; "Yeah... let's bring those days back... with their relative incomes, total work availability, and taxing your free lunch."

But you know the real sickening thing? This immunity of the board and these overpaid fuckwits hurting their companies ... they are now even telling shareholders to shut up about what they get paid and making it harder for the shareholders who own a stake in the company to get rid of the do-nothing scumbags like themselves.

I used to make time for AGMs in companies I had significantly invested into. Now I just don't bother because they LEGALLY RUN IT LIKE A PERSONAL PIGGY BANK. It's not even capitalist anymore in the crooked system of 'fuck everybody' in the corporate world. It's more like having a meeting with a mafiosi don telling you it's okay to be paid millions and spend only an average of 12 hours of strategic planning per week.

Rather than using those millions to expand corporate services, employ more people, and give incentives to hard workers to stay inhouse... And to make matters worse these board members aren't even loyal mafiosi dons ... you can be a board member of multiple companies, receiving individual cheques. Then they have the fucking gall to tell even shareholders that this is right. Board members in Australia don't even need to own a percentage of their pay in stock of the company they're a board member of ... then they turn around and say; "Oh, we had a hard year so we had to cut back on our earnings projections and div yields, while giving ourselves a payraise and going on vacation... sorry-not-sorry."

All while they don't suffer for it and tell us we can't throw them off the roof. And not a single politician will talk about it. Not one. In fact many of them become board members after their stint in politics! Despite receiving the best benefits and biggest paycheques of any other government in the world. It is more crooked than Russia. No, that is not hyperbole ... it is *economic fact*.

This is not a liberal vs. conservative thing. This is not a labour vs. capital thing. This is not a free market vs. protectionism thing.

It's just a monstrously bad thing.

And if it's not addressed ... why play Shadowrun when you can live in Sydney circa 2030!?

 

[FalloutJack]

I think social media is a problem, but technology in general is a boon.

why play Shadowrun when you can live in Sydney circa 2030!?

I like Shadowrun, though.

 

[Avnger]

I was coming here to say, no it should have allowed us to be lazier. To work less hours a week yet still own a home, raise a family etc. But you beat me to the punch.

Heh... whenever I run into baby boomers pissing and moaning about how today kids are lazy and the jobless refuse to labour, not like the good ol' days... I look at them and smile; "Yeah... let's bring those days back... with their relative incomes, total work availability, and taxing your free lunch."

But you know the real sickening thing? This immunity of the board and these overpaid fuckwits hurting their companies ... they are now even telling shareholders to shut up about what they get paid and making it harder for the shareholders who own a stake in the company to get rid of the do-nothing scumbags like themselves.

I used to make time for AGMs in companies I had significantly invested into. Now I just don't bother because they LEGALLY RUN IT LIKE A PERSONAL PIGGY BANK. It's not even capitalist anymore in the crooked system of 'fuck everybody' in the corporate world. It's more like having a meeting with a mafiosi don telling you it's okay to be paid millions and spend only an average of 12 hours of strategic planning per week.

Rather than using those millions to expand corporate services, employ more people, and give incentives to hard workers to stay inhouse... And to make matters worse these board members aren't even loyal mafiosi dons ... you can be a board member of multiple companies, receiving individual cheques. Then they have the fucking gall to tell even shareholders that this is right. Board members in Australia don't even need to own a percentage of their pay in stock of the company they're a board member of ... then they turn around and say; "Oh, we had a hard year so we had to cut back on our earnings projections and div yields, while giving ourselves a payraise and going on vacation... sorry-not-sorry."

All while they don't suffer for it and tell us we can't throw them off the roof. And not a single politician will talk about it. Not one. In fact many of them become board members after their stint in politics!

This is not a liberal vs. conservative thing. This is not a labour vs. capital thing. This is not a free market vs. protectionism thing.

It's just a monstrously bad thing.

And if it's not addressed ... why play Shadowrun when you can live in Sydney circa 2030!?

But, but, but regulations are bad! mkay?

And these like corporations netting billions of dollars in profits annually that hand out hundreds of millions in bonuses and raises to C-suite and board members can't afford to pay 1% more in taxes or raise workers' salaries at all. They're the heroes here! We should all be so thankful and happy that they manage to pay us at all for our work mkay?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I like Shadowrun, though.

Well come on down! Have a blast! And watch how corporations and board members can simply steal your money with zero legal restrictions or without facing harsh censure from those who are supposed to own a stake in it or govern against their misconduct!

It'll be great!

 

[FalloutJack]

I like Shadowrun, though.

Well come on down! Have a blast! And watch how corporations simply steal your money with zero legal restrictions!

I like Shadowrun for the Shadowrunning. You get gipped. I do the Robin Hood thing, only I get to keep the money.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I like Shadowrun for the Shadowrunning. You get gipped. I do the Robin Hood thing, only I get to keep the money.

Well... unfortunately the Robin Hood thing tends to draw the police. With guns. And it's a bit more serious than an intensive care roll and one week in your apartment with only a scant chance of Lone Star interruption.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

But, but, but regulations are bad! mkay?

And these like corporations netting billions of dollars in profits annually that hand out hundreds of millions in bonuses and raises to C-suite and board members can't afford to pay 1% more in taxes or raise workers' salaries at all. They're the heroes here! We should all be so thankful and happy that they manage to pay us at all for our work mkay?

And don't forget those wondrous politicians of ours. Those heroes of civilization. Who are the best paid, and receive more benefits even after their political career, than any other government in the world ... when they themselves, in their infinite infallibility, join these corporate boards as full members for doggedly defending the extraterritoriality of megacorporations on our shores during their tenure of being representatives of the Australian people.

Truly, they are martyrs... Our government doesn't even bother trying to extract corporate taxes from these global businesses. Don't even bother. In fact, Ikea managed to write off all of it and our government shrugged it off and said; "Seems legit." Now any healthy person with a grasp of basic arithmetic might be saying; "Now hold on a moment ... something doesn't add up..." But not in Australia, apparently!

When I say the Australian government is more corrupt than Russia's, I'm not fucking kidding. It is ridiculous and yet we put up with it... I'm sure Australians are masochists at heart.

 

[pookie101]

I like Shadowrun, though.

Well come on down! Have a blast! And watch how corporations simply steal your money with zero legal restrictions!

I like Shadowrun for the Shadowrunning. You get gipped. I do the Robin Hood thing, only I get to keep the money.

real people play cyberpunk 2020