X-Message-Number: 33299
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: progress
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 17:38:05 -0000


Mark Plus had the sense for about 20 years now that economic and technological 
progress in the U.S. has broken down somehow. 


I wonder whether that is really true for everyone. Maybe it is the middle 
classes where progress has slowed. The cost of better working conditions and the
availability of things for poor people has to be met somehow and the price is 
slower progress for the middle and upper classes. 


I recall how in the 1960s there was a prevailing opinion that things had got 
worse "since the war". What at really meant that things were not so easy for the
middle classes who could no longer afford to keep servants or to buy services 
at a reasonable price in relation to what they earned. 


Economic progress is hard to define. So many people earn money for doing nothing
of value, but it very much a matter of opinion as to what value is. Value could
be regarded as "making things" but if the things don't last and have to be 
replaced every six months, can they really be regarded as wealth. Regulation 
compliance surely isn't adding any value, but it could be regarded as making 
information structure even if no one really wants it.


A huge amount of effort has gone into creating a mass of rules and regulations, 
which require a sort of occupying army of lawyers to enforce. Is this progress? 
Is this work being done at the expense of development of Jetsons type 
technology?


Of course some machines have proved to be harder to implement than writers who 
originally conceive of them supposed, but then this has always been so.


In the case of cryonics it does not matter too much as long as the patients can 
remain preserved.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

 Content-Type: text/html;

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33299