We don't want easy
Random thought, probably wrong but I want to pull it out for further examination.

In my long and emotional piece on the Chappe telegraph I wrote:

This system required considerable skill and brute strength. The stationnaires were expected to work 12/7/365 for 38 francs a month, roughly $150 now. They had to watch up and down the line for messages from other telegraphs, and then twist their wrists and bodies to resend the message. No wonder they were easy to bribe.

By contrast, the early dial telegraphs required no skill and no strength, and Morse requires considerable skill and no strength.

Raises an interesting question: Successful systems required either physical strength or mental skill. Telegraphs that anyone could operate didn't succeed.

Is this a general rule? We presume that every improvement in convenience, every decrease in strength or skill, should be immediately popular. In fact it doesn't work that way.

I can think of several examples in the history of automobiles. Synchromesh made shifting much easier, but it wasn't a major selling point. The first full automatic by Sturtevant in 1905 didn't even get noticed; Reo's Self-Shifter in 1933 didn't sell; Hydramatic took 10 years to become popular. Power brakes, relieving effort and improving safety, appeared on most big cars in the '30s then disappeared, and didn't return until the mid '50s.

In household appliances: Automatic ironers were introduced after WW2. A few people bought them, but most preferred the manual way. Kitchens of the '20s were designed so the housewife could sit down while washing dishes or cooking. Later kitchens returned to full standup, and nobody complained.

The same presumption is behind the current push toward "autonomous" cars. Again it's pretty clear from sales and polling that most people would rather do their own driving, and most people are exactly right. In this case the "innovation" is NOT innocent and misguided. The "innovation" is genocide.

LIFE IS PURPOSE.

Within limits, most creatures would rather accomplish their purpose by using and improving their own skills. An invention that eliminates dangerous or extreme exertion will succeed, but an invention that goes beyond the optimum will fail.

= = = = =

This is intimately related to the idiotic Repooflican Tocqueville cultists, who constantly tell us that politicians win because they give free LARGESSE to the "47% Takers". I decisively and definitively debunked Tocqueville. In fact people vote AGAINST largesse, and vote FOR real jobs.

Labels: Asked and sort of answered, skill-estate

  ¶ 5:58 AM