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helenS · 36-40, F
Modern life is more simple than life in the past. How often do you have to remove lice and fleas from your clothes? How often do you have to eat rotten meat because there were no fridges? How much rat excrement did you find today somewhere on your bedroom floor?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@helenS No, but I don't keep my beer in the fridge! What little alcohol I have in the house, stays sufficiently cool in a cupboard and does not go off. Fruit-juice yes, in the 'fridge because it would soon spoil otherwise.
Anyway I was not thinking of things like fridges. Those are improvements which also make life simpler (the refrigerator makes it far easier to keep food fresh and safe); but I have in mind areas like public and commercial services.
Though I can give an odd example where it's not immediately obvious which is better and in what way, and one that might strike a chord with you, 'cos its mathematical.
If I want to solve an awkward arithmetical problem I reach for my calculator; as most people would do since the early-1970s. One evening, I could not find it. Nor could I find my slide-rule; and had to use logarithms (I think the "sum" involved an awkward square-root.).
In that case, before I owned a computer that also includes a scientific-calculator and a comprehensive but very easy units-converter, I had mislaid the thing. However, I would have been similarly stuck had the calculator broken down, or (more likely) its battery had expired.
Now, the easiest and certainly most accurate choice was the calculator, the log-tables second in both respects, the slide-rule second for ease but third for accuracy. Irrespective of that comparison, I had the choice; I had an alternative way to solve the problem.
This shows how I think about changes: are they improvments qualitatively and in greater simplicity? For now, if something fails, often we have fewer workable alternatives, fewer choices anyway.
Also, unlike the calculator, the changes are not always primarily to benefit we users. They might be good in some respects, but not if we find them difficult and inconvenient, or they break, and we are denied alternatives.
.
Oh - I did subsequently find the calculator... after buying a replacement! I knew I can't possibly have put it in the drawer where it was hiding. And the slide-rule. So now I have two scientific calculators (plus those on this PC), slide-rule and printed mathematical tables; and can use all three. My first choice? The calculator.
Anyway I was not thinking of things like fridges. Those are improvements which also make life simpler (the refrigerator makes it far easier to keep food fresh and safe); but I have in mind areas like public and commercial services.
Though I can give an odd example where it's not immediately obvious which is better and in what way, and one that might strike a chord with you, 'cos its mathematical.
If I want to solve an awkward arithmetical problem I reach for my calculator; as most people would do since the early-1970s. One evening, I could not find it. Nor could I find my slide-rule; and had to use logarithms (I think the "sum" involved an awkward square-root.).
In that case, before I owned a computer that also includes a scientific-calculator and a comprehensive but very easy units-converter, I had mislaid the thing. However, I would have been similarly stuck had the calculator broken down, or (more likely) its battery had expired.
Now, the easiest and certainly most accurate choice was the calculator, the log-tables second in both respects, the slide-rule second for ease but third for accuracy. Irrespective of that comparison, I had the choice; I had an alternative way to solve the problem.
This shows how I think about changes: are they improvments qualitatively and in greater simplicity? For now, if something fails, often we have fewer workable alternatives, fewer choices anyway.
Also, unlike the calculator, the changes are not always primarily to benefit we users. They might be good in some respects, but not if we find them difficult and inconvenient, or they break, and we are denied alternatives.
.
Oh - I did subsequently find the calculator... after buying a replacement! I knew I can't possibly have put it in the drawer where it was hiding. And the slide-rule. So now I have two scientific calculators (plus those on this PC), slide-rule and printed mathematical tables; and can use all three. My first choice? The calculator.