atw: Re: The decreasingly meaningful authoring experience
- From: "Steve Hudson" <adslyy5g@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 23:20:48 +1000
Steve> Please ... provide a case study that clearly shows the reverse of the
above. Its all very easy to say "But its not true", now go ahead and prove
it.
Brian> Steve has thrown down the gauntlet - for someone to show that
technological advance does not reduce costs or increase benefits.
We can see the first problem here. You have twisted the argument to suit
yourself.
Your case of whether the upgrade is worth it gets no argument from me at
all. Matter of fact, the reason I picked the tractor example is because it
has been demonstrated that the Chinese method is far cheaper and socially
better - but it means that the wealth is distributed into more hands which
is completely against the Western and capitalistic grains. Thus, the tractor
is less efficient overall, but allows the greater concentration of resources
upon a smaller set of recipients (those people who are paid).
However, the introduction of the tractor meant a decrease in jobs. If you
claim we have more medicos than before, I find that one a little hard to
accept. Ancient Rome had an entire medical suburb occupying about 1/7 of
Rome. Songs written in the 60s described drug stores on every corner and
quacks in every street. Doctors no longer work after hours, instead another
surgery is open. Home visits or after hours callouts are a rarity. So the
total dr hours worked each week are about the same as always or less.
A specific example I shall provide again, despite still waiting for one,
this time in the industry you have chosen.
An acquaintance of mine, Rowan Letters, was quite concerned about his
employment stability about 5 years ago. He is a pathologist, and at the time
had just completed his degree making him pathologically sound or whatever
:-) He had been working at a lab for a few years now, and had recently taken
on a full time position with them upon completion of his degree and his
wedding day was looming.
His lab was downsizing. They had just brought a new blood analyser. It now
meant that instead of a few guys constantly running tests on batches for
several days, the machine would process the blood and produce results in a
few hours. Marvellous stuff. But, it meant they no longer needed the
headcount.
Rowan negotiated a deal and went interstate with them to a smaller lab.
Several staff voluntarily left (retired). They downsized because of an
investment in technology.
This is the argument Brain, please provide a specific case study that shows
otherwise. Wazza - you are obviously watching with interest. How many people
are employed in the automotive industry compared to the 1950's and '60's you
old fossil? You know - the days when petrol stations had bowser attendants
and driveway servicing?
The government does a good job of hiding the true unemployment figures.
Whether Labour or Liberal, makes little difference. The official figures are
about 1/2 to 1/3 of the true rate.
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Clarke
Hi All,
Steve has thrown down the gauntlet - for someone to show that technological
advance does not reduce costs or increase benefits.
Adam Smith noticed the economic effect of increasing technological input
back in the late 18th century. Frederick Winslow Taylor made a world-wide
habit out of pushing for better use of technology - before WWI! The first
Russian 5-year plan was generated on a Gantt chart - Gantt was one of
Taylor's disciples.
While I can see that what Steve and a few other economically savvy
interlocutors have said, shows that upping the technological input seems to
reduce production costs, that this will benefit the rest of society is not
so clear. Where the entity that increases its uptake of technology is
monopolist or oligopolist, the only people who win are on the production
side; the consumers are not protected and can expect increased costs.
And in Australia, our market size generally is too small to sustain perfect
competition. Those who push for more population by rapid increases in
immigration fail to take account of the fragile environment and its
inability to sustain a larger population. At last the Ord River scheme and
similar ventures are being laid open for inspection.
However, there is at least one work area where technology uptake has been
quite rapid and increasingly so, but where the consumers are held to ransom
more and more. Prior to about 1900, medicine had to compete with religion to
offer health care. Around 1900, a number of significant medicines emerged in
several countries
- eg, the salicylates and quinine nostrums - that reduced pain and fever.
And at last there was an even chance that doctors actually knew what was
happening in a few cases. Over the next 100 years, the uptake of technology
has been quite phenomenal.
We have more diagnostics and pathology testing, more diagnoses possible,
more treatments [medicines and invasives] available, more over-the-counter
stuff and more junk for the medical-knowledge-challenged, eg, cosmetics that
promise everlasting skin smoothness, as well as more quacks who promise a
more fulfilling sex life by offering to increase the size of your gonads.
And to support all this new technology we have MORE health care delivers and
hangers-on per head of population. Who wins? The medicos - even though they
are taking up increasing amounts of technology.
The only countervailing force is insurance premiums.
I suspect that defence falls into a similar economic niche to health care
delivery.
But it has no countervailing force. Therefore, I suspect that our defence
bill will just keep on increasing in line with the increasing use of
technology - against threats from whom? Sure, we have fewer defence
personnel - probably a purely political decision - but I think you'll find
that the cost of defence per head of population has been increasing for
decades. Now, there's a nice little undergraduate project for someone.
So, let's be very careful about proclaiming that technology uptake is always
beneficial - or at least, always reduces head count.
Brian.
Steve said:
Please, for those opponents of
the argument, provide a case study that clearly shows the reverse of the
above. Its all very easy to say "But its not true", now go ahead and prove
it.
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