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Im deaf

My doctor signed me up for google glass study

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google gave me free glasses that close caption everything i need to hear and do not caption anything i dont. I went to china and the glasses translated all the signs for me as well as the people talking to me in Chinese in real time

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sorry. Technology rocks

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Yeah... We work longer harder and for less money because technology makes things easy... Not better.... Ultimately everything will be so easy that we will have no job to get money

Thinks that were easy and pay less, so you worked longer hours to earn more have been replaced by machines... And now we need to work longer on more difficult jobs

Hmmm needing to look something up before the internet

Leave house, go to library, check card catalog, find book, read or copy page.

After the internet

googles the question

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Well, you're not wrong, but you're not right. Define "us". XD

Many technologies are ethically neutral. The effect they have on society is dependent on how they’re implemented. That so many technologies have been implemented in ways that degrade our quality of life speaks volumes about who our society empowers.

I'm happy because you're happy

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Yeah, it was way better when we were working in the mines 10 hours a day without weekends from age 10 for an allowance at the company store.

You're thinking of capitalism. Technology has done as advertised, and your boss is taking advantage of it, and you.

You think you work longer and harder than the people of the 1800s and earlier? Lmao

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Harder? Sorry I didn’t realize waking up at 9, working from my own home, sitting around all day with coffee is harder and longer work than the medieval peasants who woke up at the crack of dawn to feed their family. Even the blue collar jobs have been made significantly easier. Hauling massive things? Get someone trained with a fork lift. Construction? Got a ton of useful tools like drills and Jack hammers. And not sure where you got the “for less money” from. Really have no idea what time period you’re comparing this to because this is just non sense

They shelved it so it can't be that great

They sent me my new test pair 6 months ago ☺️

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https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/google-will-once-again-test-augmented-reality-glasses-in-public.html

Ooo awesome! Good to see its being revived, could you seem them being useful in day to day life or just as an enhancement tool for the impaired? The translation part sounds like it could be really useful! Does it overlay the translation similar to how Google translate works?

The productivity benefits haven't gone to the workers, it's gone to the corporations in larger profits.

That’s…that’s just mind bogglingly incorrect. How can people be this fucking ignorant??? Do you know absolutely nothing about history??

I'll give you an updoot for the general idea, but in reality, it's not nearly that simple.

It would be more accurate to say "Technology created the middle class, and now it's destroying the middle class."

Ask a farmer how long they work... then ask an old lady how long it takes to knit a sweater... then look at the percentage of the human population that lives longer, healthier, and safer lives now then 100 years ago. Technology has issues, and human laws and standards have a hard time keeping up... but the poorest people today live (on avg) far better lives than they would have 100 years ago thanks to technological advancement.

Do we actually earn less money? I think it's just that the standart of living is much higher, like everyone buys phones, maybe pc's, tv's, smart fridges, robotic cleaners... Also ordering food is more normal then cooking for yourself.

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Dude right? The company I work for is going more and more paperless and unfortunately cashless too.

It's a dealership of sorts and before when everything was paper we could get a customer in, sell them something, and be outta here in 15 minutes.

Now that everything is computer based it takes an hour and a half to fully process a customer.

It's fucking stupid and when one thing doesn't work you have to start it all over again.

Paper and pen works great with no load screens or error message.

Demand for coal skyrocketed when the steam engine was developed to the point that it could be used commercially.

How much coal did society need before it was used to drive factories and locomotives? Certainly not enough to motivate people to send children into mines seven days a week.

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Technology has made a ton of things way easier. Almost nothing is black and white

Sounds like you’ve never been on a farm before and that is sad

We wouldn’t have advances in technology if it wasn’t for capitalism.

You are misguided, technology did make thing easier and faster, it's corporation that make you work longer, harder amd for less money.

If they wanted to have a similar output from 50 years ago, we would only need to work (guessing here) 12 hours vs 40 hours.

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But before you leave though you have to hitch the team of horses to the wagon, gather the ranch hands, ford through a river, camp out at Wilson's Creek, THEN get to town, to only realize you can't read because you spent your youth learning to ranch and farm and not getting an education because everything had to be done by hand!

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Longer and harder compared to what? I work as a granite fabricator, I use cnc machinery, if I had to cut and shape all of the countetops by hand I would be working much harder and longer.

Technology has dramatically improved the quality of life for all of humanity and made things much easier. The fact that we tend to use that extra time to work more is a societal choice (or maybe flaw), not a reflection on the technology itself.

I mean if you want to go back to hand gathering berries and roots and chasing prey down (no spears though, gotta kill and eat it bare handed), you can totally do it, there's still plenty of wild lands. No fire either though, unless it's wildfire.

Technology and modern society is definitely not without it's faults, but this sentiment is absurdly naive.

And I say this as someone who somewhat shuns a lot of the trappings of modern life.

It's just funny when somebody says "life is so hard these days" as they sit in their climate controlled dwelling, typing on a device that holds the sum of all knowledge, and work likely less than full time at a relatively easy, though possibly still soul sucking job.

Your comment is amazing!!

Yeah, right. Because people in the middle ages worked 9 to 5 and had everything they wanted.

Even our grandparents had miserable work conditions, and their life conditions weren't much better. Of course, there were almost some millionaires, kings and wealthy minorities, bit of you think you have it worse than your ancestors, let's hope they never invent a time machine because you will be very disappointed.

As bad as the Soviet Union was, they still had advances in technology.

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you are right the USSR going from being a semi-feudal country to putting the first man in space in less than 40 years isn't technological advancement, all this without taking Nazi rocket scientists under their wing 😭😭

If you're uneducated, unfornately yes.

If your primary means of living is your back and arms, a machine has multiple arms, need no sleep and work for no money.

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Yep. And now you have all that time to do cognitive stuff rather than repetitive routine mindless tasks. So your brain is running in top gear 16/8 at best and 20/4 at worst which is incredibly taxing psychically. I've been teaching myself to ease off for 2 years now and still struggling. Shit is shit, I want to live in 2000s again

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People working in those Mills in the 1800s were probably cursing technology too

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They definitely were. And living better more abundant lives than those before them. People were ignorant of history back then. Today, people have no excuse for thinking we have it worse.

The average work week was 60 hours in the early 1900s.

That number dropped to 37 hours, thanks to automation.

It has since crept back up due to increased expectations by customers and improved communications technology making people available 24/7.

I don't think you can objectively say people were living "better more abundant lives". You can say people are generally healthier, live longer, are better educated but it's impossible to say whether people are happier or living more meaningful lives. Especially because you're always dealing with averages and statistics or anecdotal stuff and never with the individuals. No one can say for sure. Maybe the ancient Greeks fucking loved life and we are all living a pale shadow of the hijinks they had

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I recently read that in 1800, an extra hour of light per day required 5.4 hours of effort. (Make a candle, chop down a tree, etc.) Today, it takes less than a minute of effort to get that extra hour. That sure seems easier.

You can work at McDonald's working fewer hours than those in the 1800s and live in the same conditions they did. We now just have higher standards

Hmmm. Why do you think you got downvotes here? Maybe I’m missing something.

I said they were living better more abundant lives. Which is objectively true.

If you plopped an average ancient Greek into the modern world and gave him a labor job, he would be overjoyed at all the basic comforts he/she can now enjoy....

They would look at people being sad and depressed and wonder why tf.

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People working for a cause are a force

Or just re-define “need”

This is your mistake though. Its not about judging the past by modern standards, it's about the quality of life by the standards of the time. If everyone dies by 30 then that's just life, it doesn't make your life worse that we now live longer in the same way our life isn't changed by the fact in 2084 people might live to 200. An average person can travel the globe now but will never have the thrill of seeing an animal that they haven't already seen on TV or in a kids book. An ancient Greek might be caught at sea, wash up in Madagascar and have their mind blown. Whose life is more abundant?

Nothing like threatening to kill your employees family to really bring out the best work!

Ours. Because we legitimately have more. More of practically everything. An average individual back then had less than an average individual now. That ancient Greek might only ever hear stories about animals other than what roams his neighborhood.

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The reductio ad absurdum of capitalism in a word where technological advancement keeps happening. Making things easy should make life easier, but we've engineered a way for it to make life harder.

Nah, you'd be working similar hours delivering fewer products at a much higher price. Technology benefits your customers and your employer, but unless you're self-employed, it doesn't benefit you, because capitalism and market forces have made it so the benefits of your increased productivity are taken by others.

>you can totally do it, there's still plenty of wild lands

No, no there aren't. You didn't invent the "go live in a cave" comeback.

I think I agree with the people who say that technology doesn't make life hard, we've just built a society that does not permit the benefits of technology to actually reduce the burden of "earning a living". We've increased productivity constantly since the microcomputer was invented, we've increased the efficiency of motors and lights, we've designed better ways to do everything. Yet jobs haven't gotten easier or shorter, and the cost of these "climate controlled dwellings" is becoming prohibitive to more working people every month.

If we're lucky, we earn enough at our meaningless job that we have enough time and energy left to volunteer for a job that gives us meaning or purpose. And if the productivity gains of technology weren't all sucked upward...

You see it a lot around here. This generation has convinced themselves that they work more than previous ones and that they’ve got it a lot harder. Not realizing they work about 10 hours a week less than previous generations and usually at work that is much easier.

There will always be jobs, they change change with time.

And we'll always be competing for resources, there's only so much to go around.

When I started doing the job I do, 25 years ago the report I had to do for an operation was two pages, a summary and a log, hand written on triplicate carbon paper pads. Now with the magic of computers that same report for the same job runs to eleven pages and takes a couple of hours to complete, then is uploaded. It's ludicrous.

OP has clearly never purchased clothes, or food, or seen a car, or had access to the internet, or...

Maybe if you weren't on the internet all day long and opened up a book you'd learn that wasn't true

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It wasn't really like that though

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I think you want to be pointing the blame at capitalism, not technology. Technology is amazing and we have advanced much further as a species because of it

Politicians lead to inequality and long working hours, technology made work easier but also increased our influence on the world around us. Resource consumption and emissions go up as a result.

Like the death ray?

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Opened this expecting a normal reddit circlejerk only to be pleasantly surprised at all the comments rightly pointing out how much better life is today than the past

I'm on my couch while my roomba vacuums, my dishwasher washes, and my clotheswasher does its thing. Technology has Definitely made my life easier.

I don’t agree with what you said but there is something you didn’t bring up. There is a lot more that kids need to learn and it only grows. Makes things really overwhelming growing up. Your parent probably don’t even know half of what you learned.

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Tech is always a tool. This is an example in which it can be used for good. I am so happy for you!

Nah.. It does benefit me. Having a CNC cut the stone is far less labor intensive. Having a hoist to move pieces is much less strain on my back and body. The productivity rate is only changed marginally, the machine runs for an extended period of time allowing me to basically stand and watch. If I had to hand fabricate everything; I would be working, much more intensive labor, non-stop until the fabrication is complete.

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I mean, you're choosing to work harder and longer for luxuries. People a thousand years ago worked daily not to starve, freeze to death or to have clean water. Billions still work for that.

You and I are at almost zero risk of these things. We work so we can pay for our internet, cell phone, and hot water on demand in our climate controlled dwelling. If you don't want to work hard you can go live in section 8 and collect snap. Or live on the streets and get food handed to you.

I think many people would benefit from a bit of reflection on how good we really have it. A king 500 years ago wouldn't have climate control, access to fruits and produce year around, and could be realistically die from diarrhea.

I think you need to search and replace “technology” with “low taxation for the rich” and “dynastic rule of rich families”

It has definitely made things easier. Perspective is super super important here.

I grew up before the digital age. You have no idea how much finnicky shit we used to have to deal with. Non value add things that took tons of time and were easy to mess up (mapquest anyone?)

Yes we still have to work hard, yes we have inequality and every other social ill that comes with being human. But the modern age gives people more free time and accessible interests than ever before.

There has been an extra negative and bitchy tear running through reddit the last few months and I'm tired of it. Its like collective seasonal depression.

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How is it a societal choice?

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The Soviets captured some 300 German rocket scientists and forced them to work on their space programme. They likely would have acquired more had their reputation not encouraged others to flee West.

Or just ask the one guy in town who can read to help you out.

Have you been to not ndustrialized/3rd world countries? Did people in the middle ages have it easier when they died from the black death and starvation because if famine? We are working harder for unnecessary luxuries, yes. But you can't really believe technology makes us work harder or longer, did you not have history lessons?

But we won't need money because everything will be so abundant.

Explain pls

And we certainly aren’t working “harder”. Grandad would laugh at what we call a hard days work. Even with manual labor tech has made it significantly easier.

It was a monumental transformation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/the-amount-of-work-that-once-bought-an-hour-of-light-now-buys-51-years-of-it/

Because if technology makes us more efficient, we shouldn’t need to work as long as we used to to get the same result. Yet the “normal” workday is still 8 hours. That’s a societal thing

We don't work for less money, inflation has made money worth less.

If you think capitalism is bad, wait til you hear about every other economic system in history. Idiot.

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I too would be interested too

Wonder how old OP is... not sure he/she has already worked hard, like physicaly hard... Some times, the only thing needed is to go out and see how the world is going

r/unpopularopinion

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>The fact that we tend to use that extra time to work more is a societal choice (or maybe flaw), not a reflection on the technology itself.

Lmao absolutely not. It's not a choice. And if it made thing "easier" is up to interpretation. All it did was help capitalism to get the rich richer and the poor poorer. There was no societal choice to work more. Only capitalist greed that force us to work more for less. And all technologies are just a way to make that go faster and produce more.

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That's not really the point. The point is despite having technology which allows work to be done more easily and also extremely more productively, we still have to work full time to get by. Granted, we have to work much fewer hours than those in the past. But if you just think about the transition between before and after the birth of the mainstream computer, productivity has gone up dramatically, but working hours haven't seen a similarly dramatic decrease in hours necessary to earn a living.

Its not and its not a choice. Its a rich people thing. They are the ones making us work more for less. If you think people making 40k$/ a year are choosing to work more and arent working more just to survive now. Please get the fuck out.

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying, I’m in full agreement of you. I don’t believe it’s a choice either, I’m overworked and making hardly enough too. But I do believe it’s a societal thing, as a result of the rich making it that way. I thought the original commenter was referring to “societal choice” meaning society has made that decision FOR us as “that’s the way it’s going to be”. Maybe I misinterpreted that

Tell that to the guy who had to go up a mountain to get blocks of ice for people’s ice boxes. Be thankful for your refrigerator!

Societal choice means that we as a society are aware of whats going on and choose to keep it this way. And its simply not the case. Most people arent aware of the injustices and thise of us who do are absolutely not OK with the way it is.

Also I wasnt telling you personally to "get fucking lost" it was meant as a " I dont want to argue with any dumbass who disagrees with this".

I'm on the same page as that. I would say that as much as it is the rich who benefit from it, I imagine it isn't such a deliberate or conscious thing.

Fair enough. However my reply about the technological aspect of it is still true: they expect us to work the same amount we would if we didn’t have technology, even though technology is supposed to make our lives easier.

I think it is though. At least on some level

For sure, but obviously not everyone has the choice.

Yes absolutely. Their lies are getting so obvious. Like they used to say "work hard now so your kids dont have to" then it was "we have to work hard until we get new technology then you can stop"

And now its straight up " yeah well we have the technology but if you want to survive youll have to work because life is now crazy expensive for everyone" and I just dont think theyll be able to keep that moto as long as the previous ones. People are getting angry.

I mean, I love my job and spend much of my free time in wild lands, of which there is plenty. My life is full of meaning and rich experience, and I'm pretty much a poor quasi-hippie with a dirty, blue collar job.

I mean, without technology, how would you not live a barefoot hunter gatherer "cave" life?

I know people who subsistence live off grid, and even they use plenty of technology to make life easier.

Yes, there is plenty of fault to find in our current system, but the "it's too hard" argument is silly. Is it woefully inegalitarian? Yes. Do lots of people struggle to find meaning? Yes. But even the "struggle to find meaning" is a sign of comfort and relative ease.

That’s amazing! I’m really excited for their new earbuds that will supposedly translate languages in real time

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Practically said it for me, soon as I read OP's headline...highly doubt those that built the pyramids would turn down the electric forklift.

If it wasn’t malicious, technology making things easier would have made life cheaper too.

However much we all come to hate capitalism there is no denying it's the best we've come up with so far despite it's glaring faults. Every day less and less people are at or below the poverty line. Productivity is through the roof compared to even decades ago let alone centuries. Survival used to be a non stop affair, now for more and more it's "only" 8 hours of wage slaving a day.

technology had made everything easier! including exploiting and overworking the lower and middle class.

Good one! Like, capitalist economies are the only ones who advance technology, clearly.

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It’s hard being second place but the commies seem to be used to it by this point in history

When I was in highschool I made $1.46/hr flipping burgers and they made us clock out and wait in the dining area when we got slow. The women only made $1.25/hr and they had to work the counter.

And from the phone in my pocket! Literally infinite information available, all in my pocket. Holy cow.