started on the new job today, and to be honest I'm a little depressed about the technology we make.
i have this class in college about the history of technology and my professor called technology "the science of productive work". is that all there is? make tools so people can work more? is that all there is to life? it's fucked up if you think about it at all

That is honestly why i have this screen name alias hahaha

Make tools so that people can work less. You have it totally backwards.

Calculators don't make people do more math, they make the work to do that math immensely faster.

Increase productivity, decrease effort.

The ultimate goal is to automate / drastically simplify everything except the creative processes.

What @pk76 and @Root said. Plus there's always the possibility to help people that are less fortunate through your development (e.g. https://www.bemyeyes.com/)

Although the term is definitely overused, technology has so much potential to change people's lives. It just depends on how you try to accomplish that (i.e. what jobs are you willing to take).

@Root one of my professors got seriously depressed after his work in a company got more than half of the employees fired. I'm not saying that it could be like that, but it's not the world we live in.
I mean, we have washing machines and light weight iron so that women could work as well. That's the history of humanity.

technology is not less work for us, mere mortals, it's cheap labor for rich people. the second they can fire someone, they will. and if they can't, they will use technology to make you work as much as they can for a wage

@darksideofyay so that women could do work they would be paid for.

Fixed that for you; that was a step in progress.

@pk76 and they still have to clean the house and raise the children and work for a smaller wage. and not the point also. what i mean is that technology came so they would work more

@darksideofyay idk where you are, but where I am we're getting very close to shared responsibility of these things. That is, near 50-50 house work division.

Try washing all your laundry by hand, calibrating fire temperature manually so you can cook, and doing all your math with pen and paper or an abacus, then tell me technology is making us work more.

@pk76 while it CAN be like that for YOU (emphasis because i know it's not like that for a lot of people), that was not the *intention*. if there was no need for women to work out of home they would never have made the technology

@darksideofyay you're falsely assuming the only reason to develop new technology is to make more people work.

Look at farm equipment, or power tools. We actually require less people for what used to be grueling work. The chainsaw especially means far less people are required for one of the deadliest jobs: lumberjack.

Your statements are coming off as if it's a bad thing women's house work was me easy by technology, so they could actually go get paid for work instead of spend their time at home.

@pk76 oh dear... you do know that there is a lot of unemployment worldwide related to rural technology, right? they keep the less they can and fire the rest. and the people that get fired can't simply work somewhere else, it's hard. if you need the education, it's expensive, and to work in the same field is getting harder and harder

also, the ones that do stay don't work less. they work the same amount or more

@darksideofyay considering I live in a town of barely over 1000 people where it's very common to be a farmer, yes, I'm aware. More so than most people.

Are you aware that this technology opens up the ability to be more than just a farmer your whole life because that's all there is available and it used to be so hard to keep enough food that you needed tons of people doing that?

Last time I checked, slight employment problems were better than areas running out of food.

@darksideofyay my neighbor is literally a farm

@pk76 you're basing the world on your personal experiences...

@darksideofyay and you're not? Oh boy.

@pk76 sure, but I'm not saying there are not million being screwed by rich people because my neighbor is not

There’s a great Calvin and Hobbes strip where the dad opines about how great it was to have to wait a week for a response and how modern technology just makes us all rushed and impatient.

I think about that strip (and many other Calvin and Hobbes strips) a lot.

@darksideofyay that's not even close to what I'm saying. You were implying I didn't understand how technology impacts rural areas. I'm showing you I most definitely do, because I'm about as rural as you get before going into the backwoods.