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invent[w83,jmc]		We have fewer inventions to get used to

	It is a truism that the pace of technology is getting
faster and faster and that the citizen of today has much more
to get used to than his grandfather or greatgrandfather.  In some
sense the first part of the truism is true (technology is
accelerating), but the second part is false (there isn't as
much to get used to).

	Since World War II, the major changes in daily life
have involved television and the birth control pill.  In addition
the jet airplane has made travel more available to those inclined
in that direction.  I discount several technological advances as
not requiring adaptation.  Thus nuclear energy does not require
adaptation, because a person is not directly affected by whether
his electricity is nuclear or fossil.  Medical advances are also
discounted, because a person regards health as normal and sickness
as an imposition.  We also discount production efficiencies leading
to greater all around prosperity.  People find prosperity easy to
adjust to.

	We may also imagine that the fear of nuclear war is something
people have had to get used to even though there has been less
war involving the major industrial countries since World War II,
and the threat of Nazi world conquest has not really been replaced.
It is difficult to say what the change amounts to in terms of fear.

	In contrast to this consider the following inventions of
the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth
century.

	1. The telephone.

	2. Electricity in the home.

	3. Central heating.

	4. Indoor toilets.

	5. The automobile.

	6. Radio

	7. The airplane.

	8. Gas piped into the home.

	Another gradual factor was the fact that childhood death
became a rare event.  My mother remarked to me about 1950
that she considered it a great success that both my brother and I
had survived, whereas I took the survival of my children for granted.
I believe my mother's feeling was warranted; when she was a child,
more of then than not, some of the children in a family would not
survive.