The myth that technology saves time

a reply to: crowdedskies

But then your two weeks sailing would be your wntire vacation... you cant have a 2 week vacation in the destination of your choice if it takes two weeks to get there... Even if it was only one week away, youd have to leave as soon as you got there. If your idea of a good vacation is sailing then yeah... But what if I want to meet my long lost family in Germany?

I get what you are saying. But you could fly to wherever, and not spend all your time on a smart device like you do at home. Then you will "feel" the full 2 weeks.

Technology is a dual edged sword. in the hands of the irresponsible, it can cause as much harm as good. And we all have the freedom to behave responsibly or irresponsibly.

originally posted by: 3n19m470
a reply to: crowdedskies

Technology is a dual edged sword. in the hands of the irresponsible, it can cause as much harm as good. And we all have the freedom to behave responsibly or irresponsibly.

I quite agree with that.

However, given that most are unable to manage time properly, my argument still holds true. Twice as much of what is saved through technology is then wasted through technology. It is a one step forward and two steps backwards scenario.

There is no point throwing basic logic into it. Of course, the two weeks sailing represents two weeks forgone on foreign land. The point is that we would live differently and at a much slower pace. Any holiday taken would need to be longer and have a stronger purpose that quickly passing through foreign cities and take some snapshots and then come back needing another holiday to rest from all the activities.

It is so sad that we have not only cut time but we have made the country and planet so small now that everywhere can be reached quickly. Small lifespan on a planet that is getting forever smaller.

There is hope however but, perhaps , not worth discussing the manipulation of time in this thread.

a reply to: crowdedskies


I read that the average speed of vehicles in London was four miles per hour. That's the same as a horse and cart. When I take a plane ride the time spent going through security and all the rigmarole, ends up the same as the flight. When I calculate the time spent working to buy the fuel for the car to do a trip, plus the cost of the car. You could well ask where the time gain from modern tech actually exists. Because the time spent earning the money for the trip, has to figure their somewhere.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: crowdedskies


I read that the average speed of vehicles in London was four miles per hour. That's the same as a horse and cart. When I take a plane ride the time spent going through security and all the rigmarole, ends up the same as the flight. When I calculate the time spent working to buy the fuel for the car to do a trip, plus the cost of the car. You could well ask where the time gain from modern tech actually exists. Because the time spent earning the money for the trip, has to figure their somewhere.

A very good observation !

You even bring in the time cost of earning the means to buy the technology.

a reply to: crowdedskies

However, I would suggest that if we move away from the word perception it becomes easier to investigate the phenomenon of time manipulation.

There is no time manipulation, you even gave examples to show that there isn't and then I did as well explaining how there is no time manipulation only ones perception of time is affected by the situation at hand and what the person is focused on.

If I can move twice as fast as my Kung Fu sparing partner , I have the advantage.

Yes and?

Being able to move faster has nothing to do time manipulation it just takes quicker to do something or get somewhere.

I know the experience you mentioned about visualising the next moves, etc. I always used to do it when high Jumping. I ran through the motion mentally and saw myself clearing the bar then I did the real thing. Still, I need to stress that it is not a mind game and nor a perception exercise.

It sounds like you haven't got a clue about what I was talking about.

Its not a visualization about what you are going do like jump over a pole before you start the run up or visualizing a track before you go out and race it.

No, not talking about that, that has nothing to do with time seeming to slow down in that moment.

There is real time manipulation happening in the background of all of this. In the case of the spectators and the performer , two separate times scales are in operation simutaneously; not two sets of perceptions. It is a paradox and within paradoxes lie many secrets.

If there are 20,000 spectators then its 20,000 + how ever may players there are perceptions.

There is no time manipulation its just the perception of time.

You keep trying to give examples but they are all about ones perception of time not any time manipulation.

I put it to you that it is a bit of magic; as if the audience froze and time stood still whilst the performer carried on moving. But where does all this fit in with the OP which seems to be about the relationship between speed of doing things and the passing of time. Well, you can shift the axis from Speed affecting time to Time affecting speed. Going back to my Kung Fu example, if I switch to another faster time plane I am able to make movements so fast that nobody can see it coming. If it was filmed on slow-motion camera, the audience as well as my sparring partner would look frozen whilst I would be making a dozen wide , swinging movements.

Faster time plane?

Sorry but I'm lost, you are making very little sense.


You are talking about human perception of time, giving examples earlier on that show human perception of time can differ but for some reason just don't want call it that.

a reply to: crowdedskies


Time can't be "saved". Time is spent. The question is not how to save time, but how to spend it.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Yes, there is good evidence that, for example, rats which learn how to progress through a certain type of maze & obtain a 'prize' at the end (tasty snack), once they have learnt, the progress of rats on other continents who also are shown the exact same maze, will suddenly be able to complete the maze in a confident & successful manner. As new generations of rats are born & subjected to the same tests, it is found that they seem to be born with the skill-set needed to complete that type of maze, to a far greater degree than ever before.

This indicates that some sort of epigenetic 'field' of memory exists, a collective unconscious within the species of rats, such that when a group of rats learn, subsequent generations are predisposed to improved capability. This effect is found in many species, including humans, and seems to show up at this time in a greater natural capability for complex gaming activities, far greater than anything that was witnessed when video games first became super popular in the early 90s.

For further insight on this front, please review the writings of Rupert Sheldrake, whose 'morphic resonance' hypothesis & ongoing research is simply astounding. He's a part of 'establishment' science in some respects, but is unafraid to compel interest in a non-traditional theories, and morphic resonance, as an hypothesis, is far superior to the traditional neo-darwinian BS describing how species appear in form & function, plus how they learn & adapt behaviour over time. Sheldrake's hypothesis suggests a solution to the key mechanism regarding the way that changes to the form/ shape/ functions of a particular animal or plant are so quickly adopted into the species as a whole, thus offering a much more sophisticated & common sense rationalisation regarding HOW evolution actually happens. Faulty/ Erroneous/ Mutated genes my backside - evolution is not blind - the morphic field of a particular species can literally survey the past to inform the future. The concept is connected to theory regarding the materia prima, cosmic ether, or astral/akashic medium - the multi-dimensional surface upon which our existence is transcribed.

Broken gene transcription should rationally lead to broken structures deviating blindly from the previous pattern of the organism, which assumedly had lived well enough before having its form randomly 'broken' by faulty transcription. Indeed, such episodic faulty transcription rationally should cause the organism's phenotype to veer off into unintended territory, an action highly likely to lead to failures in the form/ functionality of the offspring, leading to early death, leading to a weakened species posture within the weave of nature.

If the watchmaker is truly blind, as claimed, and cannot see the form/ function of the species overall, how can randomised failures in transcription lead to improvements in the form/ function? I know that supposedly vast stretches of time (many somehow survivable chain-linked transcription mutations later) cause a 'better' phenotype of form/functionality to be (God only knows how) achieved. But sincerely, the cumulative odds of multiple generation-linked, perfectly beneficial, non-harmful, survivable mutations, are extremely long - to the point that even many tens of millions of years of alleged blind 'improvements' cannot realistically ensure such chains of beneficial mutations in more than a relative handful of cases.

Surely the watchmaker is perfectly well-sighted! He is able to review the form & function of each organism, as he constructs their devices - nature's myriad forms - in the fulfillment of each genotype within niches which are surveyed by the innate intelligent programming methodology of DNA, accorded form & function within the pantheon of available lineages, each one connected to every other part in a symphonic harmony which enchants our rational, human reflection upon the grandeur of the natural world. Morphic resonance as an innate programming driver, to codify the DNA so that in future generations no 'attention' is needed to ensure the DNA will fulfill its task of producing the changed aspects of the organism, is far superior as a theory to posit the witnessed self-referential intelligence we perceive as being somehow operative in the processes of change within species, per the morphic resonance hypothesis, particularly so in light of the 'greatest loser hypothesis' of a blind, deaf, dumb & stupid watchmaker tinkering with equally blind, stupid genes.

In reality, fields of inherent memory containing all information on form & function, intelligently arrayed for transcription attempts in the development of improved offspring, are able to use the brain/ innate processing construct to interpret the qualia of the outcome of the attempts at genetic improvement from one generation to the next. This sort of theory would account for the witnessed rapid & sudden huge changes in the form, function & extension within the biomes they inhabit, of a vast proportion of widely different species, at certain times in history - as witnessed in the pre-Cambrian explosion event evident in the fossil record, which is otherwise unexplained by the 'random chains of linked mutations over millions of years' neo-Darwinian BS theory.

a reply to: madmac5150

Sounds miserable. You live in misery because of technology. Too many people in this world worry about not getting their daily call from daughter or mother. Its ruining society. This whole instant selfish demand and the stress it causes one party or the other.

They aren't okay or they would have called. Thats what you really think deep down in the areas you refuse to access,areas you can no longer access, thanks to technology. Thought processes you've eliminated from the equation.

100 years ago you would have been better equipped to not worry. No 4 hours of international news to read every morning. No whining customers and begging friends who know you got their message, and don't care about every other email in the pile. The only things people had to worry about 100 years ago was what was real and in front of them. Today's society smiles at funerals and cries every night thereafter. Shakes there hands in a tizzy when disaster comes knocking. Swerves to miss a squirrel and hits a kid on the sidewalk. Its twisted beyond belief what this society has become thanks to their own selfish greed, putting real life on hold because something more convenient and less demanding came along.