...yep...and that was about when I started in computers! I understand the scepticism about my thoughts, but you have to look at the changes that have occurred since then. The computer I worked on fitted into a room about 20ftx20ft and had 16k of memory - hard wired boards. A calculator has more memory and processing power now. Because computers don't know time, since then we have developed the 24 hour society. You can get anything at virtually any time of day on any day of the year. The internet doesn't sleep.
When Boris talks of increasing efficiency and productivity, that isn't Joe Bloggs making an extra couple of hats an hour, it's Hat Corp investing in an internet linked automated system that makes 2000+ hats more an hour and that links direct to the orders coming in. OK, so we'll open another chain of coffee shops and train people to degree level to be 'baristas' - but what is there that a computer can't do better today? Want a diagnosis? Talk to a computer? What an x-ray looked at? Talk to a computer. Want to play Go? Talk to a computer. Surely you've seen that you can't talk to a human anymore? Chatbots.. What on earth are they? But they're everywhere. I heard a chap (got an award for new business) talking about the Insurance company he'd set up to give better car insurance to EU workers coming to the UK - and he was emphasising how good their FAQs were and how, if they didn't help, their Chatbots would - you may be lucky in the end to talk to someone.
In a little over 50 years we've seen computer chips influence so much that when we had a shortage of chips recently, it stopped car production and factories shut. IPV6 was a boon as all devices can now be chipped and be 'known' on the net - the internet of things. Self diagnosing fridges. Remote control anything.
I saw it done on a big dead tree alongside the M4 a few years ago. It looked very whimsical, although I'm not sure the woodpeckers would have agreed. There's plenty of ugly things to wrap without having to pick on trees.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
@Hostafan1, no, it wasn't Maggie Thatcher, I was determined not to end up in a council house with kids in the late 1960's, went to college, got my qualifications, worked dammed hard, saved like mad, went without holidays and bought our first house in about 1968, long before Right to Buy. Interest rates were sky high, lived through the shortages and electricity rationing in 1973. We survived and life got better under Thatcher.
With every major change over the decades there have been claims that mass unemployment would be the result. The reality is that the UK had a population of about 30 million in 1900 and over 30 million in employment in 2019. The doom mongers have been wrong so far. I won't predict the future but past experience doesn't seem so bad after all.
Same here @Lizzie27 I think a lot of our participants in this conversation were just children at the time, and don’t quite remember how hard those times were, our mortgage, like your 19.+% it was a struggle. Going out to collect some coal wherever you could. It was better under Thatcher.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I remember how hard the times were. The issue I had with Thacher was that it inspired the " loadsa money" culture. It gave some people a sense of entitlement and unachievable aspirations. For every council house sold they should have built another one but the councils were prevented from doing this. We can't all be at the top of the pile .
I was paying 17% interest on my mortgage on 1992, Thatcher asset stripped the county and sold it off , all undervalued. Record unemployment, record bankrupsies, record business failure. Negative equity, record hospital waiting lists, record house repossession. The Poll Tax. Unemployment in my home town of Greenock hit 34% at one point, yeah Great work Thatcher you hate filled witch. If she was so great , why was the the first PM ever booted out of office by her own party?
Posts
Tree stockings knitted by patients in a local hospital (La Rochelle) as physio and brain therapy.
@Hostafan1, no, it wasn't Maggie Thatcher, I was determined not to end up in a council house with kids in the late 1960's, went to college, got my qualifications, worked dammed hard, saved like mad, went without holidays and bought our first house in about 1968, long before Right to Buy. Interest rates were sky high, lived through the shortages and electricity rationing in 1973. We survived and life got better under Thatcher.
We can't all be at the top of the pile .
Thatcher asset stripped the county and sold it off , all undervalued.
Record unemployment, record bankrupsies, record business failure.
Negative equity, record hospital waiting lists, record house repossession. The Poll Tax.
Unemployment in my home town of Greenock hit 34% at one point, yeah
Great work Thatcher you hate filled witch.
If she was so great , why was the the first PM ever booted out of office by her own party?