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My field, aeronautical engineering, was the glamour profession from the 1930s through the 1960s. Most of the seminal contributions to the field were already made by the time that I was born, or at least when I was a child. From the viewpoint of seeing the heyday of my field, I do wish to have been born some 50 years earlier. But that is comparatively easy a straight white guy in good health. I can't imagine, of course, the adversities that realization of my wish might entail. And therefore this wish remains idly hypothetical and unrealistic. I don't really mean it.
Every age and epoch carries its unpleasantness and complexities. We can easily recite those of our age, because we're familiar with it. Other ages doubtless held their own unpleasantness - nowise less than ours.
Still, it's fun to fantasize. It's good distraction from our topical problems.
1960, The movie "The Apartment." A huge room at a large corporation, filled with white male low level staffers, and many white female typists.
All those females lost their jobs with the invention of the desk computer. Unless, of course, they learned the new fangled things, which would have been quite an undertaking. The mind did not work for computers. They typed.
But it wasn't that stark for many. Before there were desk computers, there were semi-computerized typewriters. One was a typewriter where typist could type in thousands of characters which wouldn't show. They went into a memory bank. This gave the typist an opportunity to make corrections, if she could tell she'd made one. After she finished typing, she'd put in paper & press a button, and the typewriter would spit out all that she had entered onto the paper. It was a miracle. If she needed three copies, she could press the button again and again...or she could make photocopies. If there were errors, she could use white-out, correct manually, then make photocopies. It shortened typing time quite a lot....and it was a partial computer.
But eventually there came computers. So thousands of women lost their jobs, and a fraction of that number were hired to use computers. A couple of computer users could do what it had previously taken a room full of typists to do.
I also remember elevator operators. Remember those? They lost their jobs.
The local Avon lady used to be a big deal in small city neighborhoods. Now, women can buy anything, including Avon, online. No need for so many Avon ladies, anymore.
It's rare to see a local ice cream truck, anymore. There are some, but they used to be all over the place.
My grandma used to get bottles of milk delivered. Those milk deliverers lost their jobs.
A small city where I'm from used to have two to three movie theaters at different times, even though the population was small. But now, until recently there was only one, even though the population is much larger. A second one (same company...a dinner theater version) just opened up. The concession kids, the ticket takers, the janitors and bathroom cleaners...lost their jobs in what would have been the extra theater, if theaters were still as frequented as in the old days.
Chemical plants and oil refineries have become more automated over the years. Those businesses have not replaced workers as they've retired, and they have cut down on the # of workers they need over the years. Those that were laid off at times were never hired back or replaced.
I know one thing the people born after 1980 missed: all the great music that came out of the 60s and 70s. Personally, I'm sorry I was born in the 50s. I'd far rather have been born in the 40s.
Do you think we were born too late, and that the economy will never be "great again"? I was born in 1991, I'm just sad for all the other adults my age and their children. The worse part is that there is nothing we can do to go back.
I am really sad to see all jobs being replaced by the robots and the AI.
I wish we can see another good age like America did at some point in the 20th century. Not going to happen as long as constant exponential improvement in robots and AI keep up. We can't physically stop it from happening (?)
I think that opportunities were better back then, but I also think that people worked harder and got by with less.
Like, yes, my grandfather had much better opportunities to make money in the 50s than I do now, but he also worked much harder than I do now. Both things are true simultaneously I think.
Being born in the mid 70's I kind of wish I was born an 80's baby. 7 to 10 years to be exact but only if I could be the same person if not better than I became. Does that make sense?
I also remember elevator operators. Remember those? They lost their jobs.
funny, this job isn't gone due to technology but cultural change
elevators have not functionally changed from 100 years ago, you go in, press a button and it goes up and down.
that's how technology gets rid of jobs, it changes the culture. for all the technology in the world, it does not actively replace jobs. it influences how people treat the job and people decided it was not worth the trouble to keep the job around
the culture before the 1980s or 2016 or 1900s, none of them are the same culturally, anyone who wishes they were born in a different time period, do you really think you would fit in with the culture of the period?
Didn't they just come out with a study that shows millennials today earn 20% less and have 50% less wealth compared to boomers at the same age.
There is no denying it, it was better in the past from a financial stand point, but I can see people not wanting to be born earlier because they enjoy today's technology and all it comes with.
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