Tech Progress Is Slowing Down

Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by samtho on Saturday February 18, 2023 @02:02PM (#34849922)

Airplanes are a relatively poor anecdote. They have advanced in small but steady changes over time. The prevalence of the single aisle, 6 abreast seating of the 737 and A320 came about because airlines could reliably fill short to medium haul flight and were cost effective in other ways. We have more efficient engines, systems have gotten safer, etc. There is a lot of work behind the scenes with aircraft.

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by credit_guy on Saturday February 18, 2023 @03:41PM (#34850849)

Wright's brother's first flight happened in 1903. Within 15 years there were dogfights in WW1. In 31 years the first commercial service over the Atlantic started (cargo) and 5 years later (1939) the first commercial passenger transatlantic line was opened. Three decades later, the man got to the Moon. A few years later Concorde started regular supersonic commercial transatlantic flights.

After that we got what? Less noise, improved fuel efficiency, increased range? I started flying about 25 years ago. I don't remember that flights were noisier. As for efficiency and range, I don't give a hoot. I care about ticket prices and flights happening on schedule. Prices have gone up, innovative fees piled up on top of them, delays are oh-so-common. As for safety, 25 years ago planes were crashing about as frequently as now. For regular people like me, the advances in safety were imperceptible.

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by Oxidation on Saturday February 18, 2023 @06:52PM (#34852414)

A lot more passenger miles are flown then 25 years ago: there are more flights and they go further. Fatalities per passenger mile are something on the order of 5-10 times less than in the 90s.

You also hear about every single one of them now, partly as they're rare and exciting to the media and partly because the Internet makes everything "nearby", whereas in the 90s you'd have probably only gotten a quick radio segment and a mid-paper article on a remote air crash.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fatalities_per_reven...

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by sokoloff on Saturday February 18, 2023 @07:00PM (#34852473)

I can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but airline flights seem incredibly cheap to me and substantially safer than 40 years ago. It’s true that most of the safety in US scheduled aviation had been achieved by 2000.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, flights were expensive and rarely taken by regular people. Now, they’re readily accessible to most everyone.

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by eyelidlessness on Saturday February 18, 2023 @07:23PM (#34852675)

To be fair, every single one of your complaints can be attributed to innovations of capitalism. You’re experiencing fewer innovations not because they’re not happening, but because they’re serving an insatiable demand for profits for centers or capital.

That’s not to say it isn’t disappointing! Just that your marginally-the-same flight experience is that way because improvements in flight are designed to enhance the lives of executives and investors rather than passengers. If anything, they’ve made the flight experience worse for you and me as much as we'll bear, while improving flight objectively at the same time… because profits demand ever more growth.

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by peyton on Saturday February 18, 2023 @07:39PM (#34852794)

Looking at the DoT’s stats on financials of 24 US airlines, I dunno if this critique is rooted in reality. I think domestic airlines aren’t doing a great job for their investors, either. Can’t comment on executives.

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Re:Tech Progress Is Slowing Down by eyelidlessness on Saturday February 18, 2023 @08:06PM (#34852977)

Being bad at capitalism doesn’t mean capitalism is not their MO. I don’t mean this argumentatively, just so that point is clear: I’d apply the same logic to the various banking and investment shenanigans which lead to the housing market crash in the aughts, despite the fact that those services to capital ultimately proved highly counterproductive in many cases.

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