Peter Sidor, a heavy hitter at the Mises Wiki, just called on my Skype app on my iPhone, something I downloaded the other day just to test it out (yeah yeah, I know, I’m a late adopter).
So I answered and voila I’m video talking to a colleague in Germany, and there for a minutes we discussed the Panic of 1792 and the literature surrounding it, about which time Matt McCaffrey walked by and rattled off a list of references. We wished each other a happy new year and the call ended. It was free. It was amazing. It was astounding and beyond belief — more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine.
The Jetsons video phone was hooked on the wall and you had a special chair to sit in. It was surely expensive. I walked around with mine and I paid nothing. Where are the headlines? This new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? It has something to do with the nature of the human mind but that’s too much for this post.
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http://nedroid.com/comics/2010-01-01-beartato-newyearnewchanges.gif
“Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.” – GK Chesterton
Louis CK isn’t an austro-libertarian, but I think this clip is apt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Aw, I rushed in here to post that.
guard needs this video.
A real miracle would be a pelican eating Jeffrey’s iphone at San Francisco bay.
Another miracle would be if I could make sense of this comment. It’s a real head scratcher.
Amusing image, though.
It’s an internet meme running around based off of a really stupid music video, at one point the “artist” mentions a situation regarding a pelican at the bay. The song’s name was miracles.
Allow me to explain, Mr. Tucker. This is a reference to the worst musical act of all time, The Insane Clown Posse, and there brilliantly lulz worthy song “Miracles”. I suggest watching the whole video for maximum laughs (or a crippling loss of faith in young people depending on how you look at it), but if you skip to 1:08 you will hear the reference to the joke in question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs
“Magnets, huh? How do they work? And I don’t want to hear from a scientist” Brilliant.
Got it! thank you
Actually in the video they make an argument against intecllectual propery when it’s said “music is pure magic, you can’t even hold it”.
I agree with the Daily Bell on this. ICP is all right.
http://www.thedailybell.com/1657/In-Defense-of-the-Insane-Clown-Posse.html
Yes, we now know that these modern miracles are destructive to actual relationships in community. And the modern miracles of white phosphorus and atomic bombs. How wonderful and amazing.
Snore… what was that?
Lots of people think this way. They regard all progress as regrettable.
Perhaps he is not considering the origin of these weapons which are obviously created via taxpayer dollars.
Actually Jeffrey, to go back to a previous point about comedian Louis CK adopting the phrase “everything’s amazing and nobody cares”, in Louis’ most recent (debuted on 1/9/11) stand-up special titled-”Hilarious” he advocated for gold.
At first he pretty much alluded to it for a good 2-5 minutes when he went on about all the stuff a cowboy could buy by just listing off to the barkeep and then plopping a big heavy coin on the counter. He went on about how “real money” has weight to it, how our “money” today is just paper, and then (the coup de gras) was when he outright said “[gold] which by the way, I think we’re going to go back to.” He also mentioned that we’re in a “depression”, instead of this letter-shape recession nonsense.
Believe it or not, it does seem like Louis CK has strong austro-libertarian leanings, whether he realizes them or not.
When the iPhone gets an app that lets you pull a The Jetsons Meets The Flintstones moment, I’ll get excited.
I have to admit technology fascinates me. But as an old man from a time and place where relatively little existed, I also understand what it costs; what we’ve lost. In so many ways the technology is a poor substitute.
Lee, what do you mean?
Lee – you’re wasting your breath. In these here parts nowadays – and increasingly – the idea that we might be losing something that previously was relied upon by, say, conducting meetings via phone or video phone rather than in person, is…well, to say it is dismissed would be too much, it just isn’t even considered. Often only the “seen” benefits are considered and therefore practically anything can be labelled as “progress”. Ironic coming from people who subscribe to a philosophy whose best introduction is “Economics in One Lesson”.
There is a bit of an appeal to novelty fallacy going around here lately (especially anything related to that fad peddler Apple). However, don’t make the mistake and fall into the appeal to tradition fallacy. Technology can be a positive replacement, just take everything on an individual basis.
Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better. Just becuase it’s how things have always been done, doesn’t mean they should continue being done that way.
“Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better. Just becuase it’s how things have always been done, doesn’t mean they should continue being done that way.”
I agree – case by case basis. But the benefits of, for example, a face to face meeting are intangible and hard to describe and very easily overlooked. Some gadgets make it easier to overlook these and therefore make it easier for people to go down a path which is not in fact optimal based on their personal preferences. However, if we say that all things that aren’t forced or property rights violations MUST by definition be “progress”, then I’m wrong.
Since humans have had minds it has been possible for them to go down a path which does not benefit them. For example, crack cocaine is almost universally regarded as a harmful path if it is consumed, and in that sense, the invention of crack cocaine is not “progress” in the sense that its use and consumption is almost universally regarded as having a negative net effect on a society.
However, it is also possible to define progress as the gain of abilities to do something in a particular way, rather than the practice of actually doing things that way. In some sense, we have “progressed” because we are now *able* to manufacture crack cocaine, and we were not able to 500 years ago.
I prefer the second way of thinking of progress, as it doesn’t rely on subjective judgements of the value of certain accomplishments, relative to the costs of using them. For example, people 500 years ago might very much have liked to be able to make crack cocaine for some obscure medieval purpose we do not know, like exorcisms, but they were unable. Then they would certainly see the discovery of crack as progress, even though its effects on medieval society would probably be awful.
It isn’t really clear whether there is any such thing as “progress” at all in one sense – and so all you can do is establish whether an action is or not aggressive, and if the latter it is good, else bad. I have some sympathy for this view.
But then again I think we can all agree our life is “easier” or “better” than that of a hunter gatherer or someone from the Dark Ages (would anyone prefer to swap?) and so I think it would be nice to agree on some ways to measure “progress”.
“However, it is also possible to define progress as the gain of abilities to do something in a particular way, rather than the practice of actually doing things that way.”
And if we try to, it is possible to define it like this yes – it just doesn’t make any sense to me to do so.
Having a phone or video phone does not preclude you from having meetings in person. The phone call is an acceptable substitute in many cases, but in some cases it is not. In those cases, you can still have a face-to-face meeting. This ability is not lost. However, in the cases where a phone call is a acceptable substitute, there is usually a significant time and co-ordination effort which is saved by using a phone.
Yep, I call this progress. Consider that if you had 6 meetings a day before, and only one of them was very important, replacing the other 5 meetings with quick phone calls means you can afford to spend more time and effort on the 6th meeting.
Exactly what is it that you claim you are missing by being given the ability to communicate over vast distances at minimal cost and effort, at your choice?
I’m not saying they are not progress – they save time yes. Their cost is far less easy to see though, in that it involves missing subtleties that may be picked up upon in person. Probably they are a net benefit. It’s not about meetings and phones specifically though, it’s a general point.
Fair enough, there are costs involved, and as you say, new methods may be imperfect substitutes. But in general, new methods are adopted because they benefit some people appreciably, though obviously not everybody benefits equally.
Progress also brings new problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
Stephan
Although in many cases, perhaps most, the losses from technology are buried in the complexity of the situation, the first things which come to mind are pretty direct. The first centers around the marvels of communication. That same technology has made any sort of privacy virtually a dead issue; as a professor of law I’m sure you know better than I that while laws exist to supposedly protect privacy, for the most part they are meaningless, because of the difficulty and expense of enforcement.
The automobile is an obvious offender here. From a time when most people worked near home it is not at all uncommon for people to drive 100 miles or more to work. Yes, they choose to do so, but why? It seems to me the hazard and expense make it something of a “sucker game” with little real gain. On this same tack is the disappearance in the country of the small family businesses which furnished both nearby employment and a place to buy. As a customer you were buying from your neighbor with a community reputation to think about , as opposed to a stranger you might never see again. There is a huge quality of life issue here; the relatively peaceful and easy old way has become one with a vastly more driven quality; one does much more of what he perceives he must rather than what he’d like.
There will be those who disagree, but I have to believe that excess population is the core driver of technology, not just the natural inventiveness of humans. In my opinion that fact makes it not something to celebrate but a response to sustain a pathological condition.
I don’t know why, but this cell phone/iWhatever issue (ie, good or fad) seems to somehow come up in my life about once a week for some reason. There’s a neat conflict when people think with two minds: what is the cost/benefit to me personally, and how does my preference apply to society at large? What should “they” do?
I like the debate in general, actually. At first I’d wonder, what’s with all the “we” business? Since no technology can be beneficial for all of us, isn’t the choice of whether “we’re” losing too much with any technology up to “you or me”, not “you and me”? Why the all or nothing approach? It’s like you’re either a neo-luddite, or you’re riding the newest bandwagon fad, pink shirt with popped collar and all.
The competition between the two extreme ideas (all or none) is a good one, I think. Progress on an individual level isn’t the same as progress on a societal level. Kind of like evolution – a single organism doesn’t evolve, but a population does, over time. Yet, the evolution can begin with a single organism in the right place at the right time. That’s where the real miracle is, in my thinking, and probably the reason that “nobody cares” lies along that path too.
Personally, I kind of like the mennonite approach to technology – you pick and choose carefully based on what you value for you and your family. They don’t rush into new technology, and they try to decide what they might gain or lose. No broad brushes for them, and I think that’s smart on the individual level. But the best part is that, over years and generations, the community in general benefits by being able to see, over time, what works and doesn’t work at the individual and family level. It’s like a lot of little experiments. As for me, I happen to pick a lot more technology than they do, and yet many more people choose more technology than I, but to each his own.
To clarify a little, my main point is simply that an individual is not impeding progress by deciding not to choose a technology. Society benefits from both “yes” and “no” decisions, and progresses in either case – as long as people have a free choice. I think something along those lines is the reason that “nobody cares” at the individual level.
Yeah, progress is BAAD.
Let’s get back to the cave and 25 year life spans!
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