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What Would the World be Like if computers and cellphones were never invented

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I'd probably be even more of a bookworm, and probably be doing a more manual job like I wanted to before I got into IT.
 
The booming typewriter industry would employ millions of Indian and Chinese off shore workers while the decline in typewriter manufacturing domestically would lead to the collapse of the middle class.
 
we'd be trying to invent them, as such inventions were inevitable. computation and communication are fundamental aspects of life and we are just continuing evolution's work.
 
Ruptga said:
4x? Here's a fairly well known ad from 1951.
IBM_150_Extra_Engineers_1951.jpg


Whether you're comparing analog or vacuum-tube computers to those of today, you're still off by quite a few orders of magnitude.



People did a lot of mindblowing things before cheap computing, including advanced rocket design, aerospace engineering, and models of theoretical physics that are still being explored today. Remember last week, the proof of gravitational waves that was announced? Einstein predicted those in 1916. However, I would not like to live in a world without modern computing, considering what I know now. Without modern computing our knowledge would be greatly reduced in many fields, not the least of which would be medicine.

You could argue that technology is causing all kinds of problems, but you would be wrong and only repeating your forebears. People cause most problems, just as people fix most problems. If you want a better future (or today) find ways to improve the human condition.
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Dude looks like the Professor.
 
The Apple II didn't come out until 1977 and cellphones in the mid 1980s so you're really asking what life was like in and before the 1970s. According to the Wikipedia article VCRs started to gain mass market traction in 1975.
 
The world wide web wasn't invented until 1989 and Amazon.com didn't start until 1995. Those two really started the big changes in life.
 
Another really big change was when Arkansas repealed the blue law which said you couldn't buy anything but food or medicine on Sunday. Sundays were really really boring.
 
Good lord pick something for which there aren't like four billion people still alive who existed before these things were developed (including me, though computer existed in the 70s, not too many people used them). Check some 70s and 80s movies, does it seem like everyone is so despondent that they on the verge of doing a triple gainer off the nearest bridge, but for the lack of computers and mobile phones?
 
Kadarin said:
Well, if they hadn't built the Antikythera Mechanism back in 100BC or so, the dreaded Kythera would have killed us all.
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Kythera would have brought forth an age of grace and human achievement to beggar this modern age. Those meddling Greeks ruined everything.
 
Ruptga said:
People did a lot of mindblowing things before cheap computing, including advanced rocket design, aerospace engineering, and models of theoretical physics that are still being explored today. Remember last week, the proof of gravitational waves that was announced? Einstein predicted those in 1916. However, I would not like to live in a world without modern computing, considering what I know now. Without modern computing our knowledge would be greatly reduced in many fields, not the least of which would be medicine.
Click to expand...

Most things you use a computer for today can be done by hand. It's just time consuming. You could either have a room full of people calculating artillery tables for days on end or have ENIAC do it in under an hour. When there's a war on, and you need to shoot something before someone else shoots you, time makes a big difference.

Same with design. Prior to CAD, you built an aircraft in the same way early aviation pioneers did. You built a scale model and tested it, tweaked the design, built another model, and tested it again. Lather, rinse, and repeat. There's a photo out there from Concorde's early design phases. It's a room filled with dozens of different test models before they settled on the final design. Today this can all be done in CAD and test things on the fly under any condition, then tweak it right there.

Computers do make our lives and jobs significantly easier. It's just we abuse them, and that's what makes us unhappy. You don't really need to be glued to your cell phone or staring at random web pages all day and getting nothing done. Nor should the governments and corporations be using them to censor and spy on civilians. As with any technology though, the good does outweigh the bad. You just have to try and mitigate the downsides.
 
Oh for heaven sakes people :smack:. We will all know what the world will be like 🙄. It would be like the 1950s. Computers would be very expensive, something no one would buy.
 
In 1984 all engineering students had to take mechanical drawing class even electrical engineering majors.
 
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