27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Measuring Progress by the Cost of Light
Time is not the only life-enriching resource granted to us by technology. Another is light. Light is so empowering that it serves as the metaphor of choice for a superior intellectual and spiritual state: enlightenment. In the natural world we are plunged into darkness for half of our existence, but human-made light allows us to take back the night for reading, moving about, seeing people’s faces, and otherwise engaging with our surroundings. The economist William Nordhaus has cited the plung...Folksonomies: human progress quantification
Folksonomies: human progress quantification
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Problem of Measuring Productivity
Although the official productivity statistics are encouraging, they are far from perfect. They don’t do a very good job of accounting for quality, variety, timeliness, customer service, or other hard-to-measure aspects of output. While bushels of wheat and tons of steel are relatively easy to count, the quality of a teacher’s instruction, the value of more cereal choices in a supermarket, or the ability to get money from an ATM 24 hours a day is harder to assess. Compounding this measurement...Folksonomies: employment productivity
Folksonomies: employment productivity
Productivity doesn't take into account improved qualities of life, free digital content online, or other non-quantifiable qualitative improvements in our lives.