Re:Wikipedia is fixing one of the Internet’s biggest flaws
by derefr on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @02:20AM
(#12794297)
I took this as an indictment by Adams of things like "always-on" immediate-reply-expected communication—and high-frequency trading—rather than an actual shot at digital watches.
In other words, what's really a bad idea—that digital watches are a symptom of—is the notion that humans have a need to know the time with absolute precision. Having that information available—literally, on hand—seems to result in nothing but bad incentives (in much the same way that having access to stock-market quotes at an hourly granularity, when going long, results in nothing but bad investment decisions.)
I once read an article claiming that the invention of the bell-tower that struck once per hour was the proximate cause of people keeping 9-5 business hours, and that a lot of other things about modern labor followed from this. Whether or not this is true, I still have a vague feeling that we would be happier (and be annoyed with people for being "late" to things less) if all clocks were randomly skewed by ~15 minutes.
In other words, what's really a bad idea—that digital watches are a symptom of—is the notion that humans have a need to know the time with absolute precision. Having that information available—literally, on hand—seems to result in nothing but bad incentives (in much the same way that having access to stock-market quotes at an hourly granularity, when going long, results in nothing but bad investment decisions.)
I once read an article claiming that the invention of the bell-tower that struck once per hour was the proximate cause of people keeping 9-5 business hours, and that a lot of other things about modern labor followed from this. Whether or not this is true, I still have a vague feeling that we would be happier (and be annoyed with people for being "late" to things less) if all clocks were randomly skewed by ~15 minutes.