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A comment on The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology (2021). Parent comment

Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by JohnFen on Sunday October 22, 2023 @12:55PM (#37977013)
I actually don't think this is true at all. While there will always be a percentage of people who would prefer that, my observations are that most people don't. They tend to have interests that drive them to put time and effort into doing things, instead.
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Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by ethbr1 on Monday October 23, 2023 @08:12AM (#37984544)
If I ever luck into wealth, I have a mad scientist social experiment I want to run.

Advertise a job, with midling-but-not-exceptional pay, and try the following with a few hundred people.

   - They report at exactly 9:00 am
   - They bring nothing with them
   - They enter a featureless room
   - They sit at a featureless desk
   - They sit there for 8 hours
   - They have 30 minutes for lunch
   - They have access to a featureless bathroom
   - They leave at the end of the day
   - They get paid weekly
The question is: how long would people willingly stay in that "job"?

My hypothesis is that it's a bimodal distribution. Some set of people would be perfectly fine with it, indefinitely. Some people would go batshit insane and quit quickly.

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Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by JohnFen on Monday October 23, 2023 @09:40AM (#37985468)
I wouldn't even consider such a job. For me, the worst possible job is one where I have nothing to do. I've had those, and they are a nightmare. I'd much rather be seriously overworked!
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Re:The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology ... by another2another on Monday October 23, 2023 @10:22AM (#37986043)
After a week or two, they'd probably call Sherlock Holmes.
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