[lbo-talk] Warm summers or dark ages?

[Carl Remick]

>From: Jon Johanning <jjohanning at igc.org>
>
>On Oct 2, 2004, at 11:52 AM, martin wrote:
>
>>Try to think about the quality of the information that's provided rather 
>>than the delivery system and you might revise your opinion.
>
>Well, I manage to get quite a bit of quality stuff from the Net; perhaps 
>your way of using it is less expert. (Don't you think this list is pretty 
>high quality, all in all?)
>
>But I wasn't just thinking of the computer as a Net appliance. I use it, 
>with and without the Net, in my work, in which it is a vast improvement 
>over the typewriter. I also use it for many applications that would have 
>been impossible in the '50s. I consider it a tremendous invention -- even 
>though Bill Gates has done his best to muck it up.

College students today have no understanding of the torture involved in 
writing papers in the typewriter era -- the endless drudgery of typing 
things over and over for revision and correction.  Plus, the Web is easily 
the greatest gift to plagiarism ever conceived.  I would imagine there has 
been a radical reduction of all-nighters from a generation ago.


>I don't know how old you were in the '50s, but I was there. Certainly 
>things have gone downhill somewhat since then, but there have also been 
>many "material improvements." (I forgot to mention CDs over vinyl records, 
>for example).

IMO one of the biggest under-appreciated improvements has been in 
wristwatches, which used to be not only wildly inaccurate but were always 
getting broken crystals.  Now even dirt-cheap watches keep perfect time and 
-- amazing to me -- their crystals never even scratch.

Of course, popular culture has become completely mindless and we have 
regressed over a century in political and economic consciousness, but it's a 
treat avoiding constant watch repair.

Carl