Tech Progress Makes Us Discontented. And That’s OK!

 

In a recent podcast chat with me, economist Tyler Cowen spoke about his new book, “The Complacent Class,” which posits America as a stagnant society. Not moving to take a new job. Not starting businesses. Not taking risks. Cowen: “Life is safer, more convenient and more comfortable – no one wants to say those are bad things. But, at the margin, if you don’t take enough risk, there does come a time where you start moving backwards, can’t pay the bills, or have decent governance. So over the longer run it’s a bad thing.”

Indeed, perpetual discontent is at the heart of innovative modern capitalism. Good enough never is, at least not for too long. What’s the latest? Perhaps this idea is best summed up by technology writer Kevin Kelly (another podcast guest of mine) in his latest book, “The Inevitable.” Kelly writes:

If we are honest, we must admit that one aspect of the ceaseless upgrades and eternal becoming of the Technium is to make holes in our heart. One day, not too long ago, we (all of us) decided we cannot live another day unless we have a smart phone; a dozen years earlier this need would have dumbfounded us. Now we get angry if the network is slow. But before, when we were innocent, we had no thoughts of the network at all.

We keep inventing new things that make new longings, new holes that must be filled. Some people are furious that our hearts are pierced this way by the things we make. They see this ever-neediness as a debasement, a lowering of human nobility, the source of our continual discontentment. I agree that technology is the source. The momentum of technologies pushes us to chase the newest, which are always disappearing beneath the advent of the next newer thing so satisfaction continues to recede from our grasp.

But I celebrate the never-ending discontentment that technology brings. We are different from animal ancestors in that we are not content to merely survive, but have been incredibly busy making up new itches that we have to scratch, creating new desires we’ve never had before. This discontent is the trigger for ingenuity and growth.

Of course Kelly is hardly the first to recognize the restlessness of Americans, and how important it is to who were as Americans. Tocqueville had a fair bit to say about restlessness, as well.

Published in Economics, Science & Technology
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  1. GroovinDrJarvis Inactive
    GroovinDrJarvis
    @GroovinDrJarvis

    If necessity is the mother of invention, then I don’t think we’ll ever really be content with anything, technology or otherwise.  Finding contentment is an industry unto itself.  Not happy? Do yoga, or read more, or eat this, or do this, or that.  As far as American society being complacent? Nah.  The huddles masses will always keep yearnin’!

    I don’t fear complacency (I will always want a faster network), but I do fear the lack of human connection, the lack of relationships and joy that can come from smiling at someone, laughing with someone, reaching out to someone and serving someone.  After all, there is nothing more existentially odd than leering at pictures of someone else’s kids on a social network, justified only by the superficial connection that you once played soccer with them in high school.  Nevermind the fact that social anxiety and depression are prescribed as a catch all for the problems associated with comparing everyone’s online “best” with our seemingly crappy life.  It leads to give-up-itis, which, ultimately, might be the complacency that the cited article is describing.  But what do I know. Anyway, here’s a cat video.

    • #1
  2. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    “Doctor  will my daughter live?”

    “wait I’m giving this chick a smiley face emoji, chicks love smiley faces.   Ok what’s your question”.

    “Will my child live or die doc? “.

    “Wait , she texted back, I’m gonna hit that stuff yo”.

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  3. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    There is good evidence that the Millenial generation is less interested in more things than they are in experiences. That is why you have 20 somethings that live in their parents basement, but still take international vacations once a year.

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  4. GroovinDrJarvis Inactive
    GroovinDrJarvis
    @GroovinDrJarvis

    Z in MT (View Comment):
    There is good evidence that the Millenial generation is less interested in more things than they are in experiences. That is why you have 20 somethings that live in their parents basement, but still take international vacations once a year.

    Instagramming an international vacation is cooler than instagramming the payments you’re making on a newly leased car.

    In all seriousness, the real shame (I’m a millennial, btw) is the whole trend in saying “adulting”.  As if being responsible is a humorously foreign objective, something to take pictures of and giggle at.  What exactly will maturity look like in 10 years when everyone my age is in a constant holding pattern of perpetual adolescence?  Anyway, here’s another cat video.

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  5. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    There is something going on that’s new at least to us.  Cowen is getting at something.  There is complacency and it’s not just lack of material desire that seemed to have been part of economic expansion.  That drive that built this country, or Athens, or Rome or imperial Spain, England or the Netherlands, had a materialist component, but that wasn’t the whole story by a long shot, it’s as if it were  a measuring rod, or a not fully unintended consequence of individual efforts toward what ever free people pursued.   However, it wasn’t just technological discomfort.   Change breaks up cliques, groups, comfort, the status quo, entrenched interests, the barnacles that grow up in periods of peace and prosperity.   The barnacles were winning and the ship was sinking.

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