Skip to main content

What leads to productivity gains?

Image
By

 After reading Paul Krugman's newsletter recently about technology and productivity gains, I had some thoughts about the topic.

He repeats his skepticism about cryptocurrency -- and I agree with his skepticism -- then muses on past predictions about the wonders of technology.  One powerful example is the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Even twenty years after the promised date, none of the fantastic futuristic features have actually happened, except for widespread video calls.   He even includes a link to a list of 100 innovations predicted by futurist Herman Kahn in 1967, of which only one-fourth have been realized.  

I have long considered the futuristic promises, and the changes that effect modern life, ever since sitting through GE's Wonderful World of Tomorrow at the 1965 World's Fair.  My impressionable 11-year-old mind soaked it in, considering what sort of changes really change the way we live, noting that the major seismic shifts took place a hundred years ago, with the spread of electricity, the combustion engine, and air travel.   Given Krugman's skepticism about the immanent marvels of technology, I think it boils down to speed of transport and speed of communication as primary factors in dramatic productivity increases as well as very seminal changes in the way we live.   This factor would explain the burst of productivity after 1995, because of the spread of the internet -- dramatic increase in the speed of communication.  After about ten years that increase gets factored in to production.  Speed of communication does not in itself dramatically change our everyday life, but it does improve business productivity.   

Actually what I think impressed my eleven-year-old self the most at that World's Fair show was the Theory of Mind -- the audio-animatronic characters on stage represented successive past generations of "typical American families", and at each stage of history (i.e. General Electric technology introductions) each declaimed that their current life was so good and so much better than before, any further improvement is hard to imagine!     And yet we now consider those old families as so benighted.   Thus is the benefit of literature, and historiography -- to consider life in the context of those who lived it at the time.

Any other ideas?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Riding the Bus often

By
From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back.  His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty.  The air-conditioning usually works too well.  I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...
2 comments
Read more

Above the Salt

By
  Above The Salt, a novel written by Katherine Vaz. Notes by Jeffrey Thomas, 14 April  2026.  Report for the Book Group at StJames Anglican Church. An epic historical novel that sweeps through 80 years, from Madeira and all around the United States. The term “above the salt” refers to an old English tradition about the placement of the salt-cellar on a large dining table – people seated closer to the host were “above the salt", socially-favored; by exclusion, those below the salt were on a lower social level. This expression is reflected in the narrative indirectly, in its theme of social distinctions that affect lives in tragic ways; and the author refers to salt often, in relation to tears and to the ocean. I was drawn to the novel by its Portuguese connection, and I enjoyed the language and culture references; but the romantic love stories and the evocation of life in the 1800s propelled the narrative. Occasional poetic metaphorical passages evoked the emotional state ...
Post a Comment
Read more

String Quartet Broken String

By
  We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river.  At one point it served as a customs house.  The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland.  We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2.  Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore.  They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat! 
Post a Comment
Read more