

Productivity Paradox - JesseAldridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

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cousin_it
This essay argues that as automation becomes better, people create artificial
complexity to soak up the gains:

[http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/I...](http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/ImportantThatSoftwareFails.html)

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adastra
If I had to guess, I'd bet workers can now do 8 hours of work in 3, but
because we're required by cultural norms to be in the office 9 to 5, people
find things to waste time on to stretch it back out to 8 again. (Hmm, there's
lots of places to waste time on the internet. But what tech workers would
really want to meet this need is a website that is substantive and technical,
so they don't feel guilty about spending time there...)

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morganwilde
What a strange coincidence, this is one of my sources for an article I'm
writing now to dig deeper into why do we have such a paradox with the pc. It's
nice to know that I'm not the only one digging.

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Evbn
Who feels less productive now than 30 years ago? We are so much more
incredibly wealthy now, we just consume more now, instead satisifying basic
needs and then sleeping 18 hours per day.

Plus some unequal distribution of wealth.

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pc86
I don't think I understand your point. I get what you're saying regarding
increased consumption, a lot of people have argued that point. What does
distribution of wealth have to do with changes in productivity as it relates
to increased workplace automation?

