or six were sent into horrible minds to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. life expectancy fell sharply because cities where people started gathering, were so unhealthy, so polluted, infectious diseases run rampant and real wages did not increase. the factory system was a pretty draconian place, with very harsh discipline. long hours, little economy. definitely, but as you say all that and i can almost feel and see and hear the giants of tech in the united states, from bill gates to elon musk, rolling their eyes and saying, come on, get real, professor, what we are delivering to the people right now are technologies that are actually in many ways, opening up knowledge and information, in extremely egalitarian ways to humanity. is that not the truth?
sharply because cities where people started gathering, were so unhealthy, so polluted, infectious diseases run rampant and real wages did not increase. the factory system was a pretty draconian place, with very harsh discipline. long hours, little economy. definitely, but as you say all that and i can almost feel and see and hear the giants of tech in the united states, from bill gates to elon musk, rolling their eyes and saying, come on, get real, professor acemoglu, what we are delivering to the people right now are technologies that are, actually, in many ways, opening up knowledge and information, in extremely egalitarian ways to humanity . is that not the truth? well, i do not think that is the truth. that potential was there. there were many inspired people
important about the british industrial revolution was that it was truly different from what came before it, it was driven by the vision of people rising from relatively modest backgrounds, and trying to transform society, and that sounds really exciting, but at the end a lot of it exactly like you said, was pretty bad for the working classes, for about eight years, 90 years. the early phase is characterised by steam engines but what that meant was children as young as five or six were sent into horrible minds to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. life expectancy fell sharply because cities where people started gathering, were so unhealthy, so polluted, infectious diseases run rampant and real wages did not increase, the factory system was a pretty draconian place, with very harsh discipline. long hours, little economy.
Goethe was eerily prescient in his predictions about the “unstoppable force” of mechanization. But he didn’t call for a pause in technological advances. More than 200 years ago, he predicted with surprising accuracy how technological and industrial developments would change our world.