Everyone brings up the Internet. But the internet has not changed people’s lives as significantly as railroads, telegraphs, plumbing, electricity, radio, automobiles, central heating, air conditioning, telephone, or television did. I don’t mean it hasn’t changed it as much as those things combined; I mean each one of those had more impact on daily life than did the internet.
Here’s the test I use: look at fictional stories set and written in the time before the technologies. How many of the plot elements have become quaint and obsolete due to the technology?
By my reckoning, for the other technologies you listed, my metric only turns up a few inconveniences here and there which are still present on some level today. In contrast, many stories (even as recently as the early 90s) become laughably quaint given the introduction of a well-organized many-to-many communication/information network.
Knowledge is power, and the internet provides it to people in droves. (cheesy, I know, but fair)
That metric’s likely to be biased in favour of information & communication technologies, because fiction disproportionately relies on characters having limited information. I doubt there are many 19th century stories hinging on the humble electric washing machine not existing, but it’s freed up billions of hours for everyday people regardless.
That metric’s likely to be biased in favour of information & communication technologies, because fiction disproportionately relies on characters having limited information.
It relies on them having many deficiencies. If information deficiency is a common trope of fiction, that slant also indicates that a technology with solves it is that much more significant.
It’s certainly evidence, but it’s evidence based on fiction, which favours the sensational, dramatic, and unusual. One way for a TV drama or action film to advance its plot is to have a character get shot. This is far more popular than advancing the plot by having a character spend too long manually washing clothes with a scrub board. But I don’t infer that bulletproof vests are a more significant technology than the washing machine! Just that shooting someone’s more cinematic than scrubbing clothes.
“Fictional evidence” is, indeed, not evidence of the dangers presented in the fiction. But, in the aggregate, it is evidence of the common fears of the population—of getting shot, of living a life of drudgery (by presenting a hero who doesn’t), and of being hindered by information cut-off.
I would say, then, that the proper way to interpret the washing machine by my heuristic is to look at it as something that takes people slightly closer to living the heroic/fun lives of the protagonist. The internet, by contrast, obviates the entire problem class of information deficiency.
So you’re right that there are no books whose plot elements revolve around “washing clothes time-sucks”, but most stories casually assume away the slings and arrows of everyday drudgery (home upkeep, childcare). The extent to which a technology makes these dreams a reality is a measure of the relative significance (or, for an inversion, evidence of dystopia as in Brave New World.)
“Fictional evidence” is, indeed, not evidence of the dangers presented in the fiction. But, in the aggregate, it is evidence of the common fears of the population
Yes, and I reckon it’s biased evidence of those fears (and the fears in turn are biased indicators of real world importance).
I would say, then, that the proper way to interpret the washing machine by my heuristic is to look at it as something that takes people slightly closer to living the heroic/fun lives of the protagonist. The internet, by contrast, obviates the entire problem class of information deficiency.
Putting aside my quibbles with the heuristic itself, I think this still overrates the Internet, which fails to fill in information gaps as modest as “where did I put my keys?”, and underrates the washing machine, which allows us to assume away an entire afternoon of drudgery each week or so. (In fact, household appliances in general can account for most of the 20th century rise in American married women who work, a truly massive social change.)
Everyone brings up the Internet. But the internet has not changed people’s lives as significantly as railroads, telegraphs, plumbing, electricity, radio, automobiles, central heating, air conditioning, telephone, or television did. I don’t mean it hasn’t changed it as much as those things combined; I mean each one of those had more impact on daily life than did the internet.
Here’s the test I use: look at fictional stories set and written in the time before the technologies. How many of the plot elements have become quaint and obsolete due to the technology?
By my reckoning, for the other technologies you listed, my metric only turns up a few inconveniences here and there which are still present on some level today. In contrast, many stories (even as recently as the early 90s) become laughably quaint given the introduction of a well-organized many-to-many communication/information network.
Knowledge is power, and the internet provides it to people in droves. (cheesy, I know, but fair)
That metric’s likely to be biased in favour of information & communication technologies, because fiction disproportionately relies on characters having limited information. I doubt there are many 19th century stories hinging on the humble electric washing machine not existing, but it’s freed up billions of hours for everyday people regardless.
It relies on them having many deficiencies. If information deficiency is a common trope of fiction, that slant also indicates that a technology with solves it is that much more significant.
It’s certainly evidence, but it’s evidence based on fiction, which favours the sensational, dramatic, and unusual. One way for a TV drama or action film to advance its plot is to have a character get shot. This is far more popular than advancing the plot by having a character spend too long manually washing clothes with a scrub board. But I don’t infer that bulletproof vests are a more significant technology than the washing machine! Just that shooting someone’s more cinematic than scrubbing clothes.
“Fictional evidence” is, indeed, not evidence of the dangers presented in the fiction. But, in the aggregate, it is evidence of the common fears of the population—of getting shot, of living a life of drudgery (by presenting a hero who doesn’t), and of being hindered by information cut-off.
I would say, then, that the proper way to interpret the washing machine by my heuristic is to look at it as something that takes people slightly closer to living the heroic/fun lives of the protagonist. The internet, by contrast, obviates the entire problem class of information deficiency.
So you’re right that there are no books whose plot elements revolve around “washing clothes time-sucks”, but most stories casually assume away the slings and arrows of everyday drudgery (home upkeep, childcare). The extent to which a technology makes these dreams a reality is a measure of the relative significance (or, for an inversion, evidence of dystopia as in Brave New World.)
Yes, and I reckon it’s biased evidence of those fears (and the fears in turn are biased indicators of real world importance).
Putting aside my quibbles with the heuristic itself, I think this still overrates the Internet, which fails to fill in information gaps as modest as “where did I put my keys?”, and underrates the washing machine, which allows us to assume away an entire afternoon of drudgery each week or so. (In fact, household appliances in general can account for most of the 20th century rise in American married women who work, a truly massive social change.)