This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Keith Ray. Original Post: Efficient Feed Title: MemoRanda Feed URL: http://homepage.mac.com/1/homepage404ErrorPage.html Feed Description: Keith Ray's notes to be remembered on agile software development, project management, oo programming, and other topics. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Keith Ray Latest Posts From MemoRanda

Cats are one of the most efficient predators, and they spend most of their time sleeping. CPUs are more powerful than ever and they spend most of their time idle or sleeping. Does this apply to humans? Apparently not. American Farmers are (making up a number) 100 times more efficient than they were 100 years ago, but instead of resting more, they farm 100 times more land or animals (and there are fewer farmers).

Programmers can develop more powerful applications than they could 30 years ago, but more of them are spending longer hours than ever. Other American workers are also spending more hours at work. According to business magazines, most CEOs spend 60 hours a week or more at work. Compare that to our hunter-gatherer ancestors who only needed to hunt/gather 15 hours a week. Is this progress? (OK yes, we have medicine, Beethoven's 9th symphony on CD and mpg, TV, and books...)

Eventually we or our descendants will be living in a world in which the only things we won't be able to manufacture for nearly-free would be (new) entertainments and some services. What will we do then? Will a few workers and companies have money, and everyone else subsists, or will we live in a post-capitalist society? Look for deflation in everything except real-estate and entertainment. Maybe computers count as entertainment.