🌰 it's not that machines can do everything-- it's that we left behind anything they can't do

I think we forget sometimes that it’s not that machines can do everything– it’s that we left behind anything they couldn’t do.

Like, sometimes the free market solution to a really hard thing¹ isn’t to automate it. It’s to automate something close enough. It becomes so cheap that the other option might be forgotten.

This isn’t bad or good: it’s awesome that we can make sweaters accessible!

But think of this: every sweater you’ve ever bought off a rack was knit. Machines can’t crochet. So there’s a whole world of sweater textures that may have been extremely popular in the 1800s but would be impossible to buy today.

Or like lace! You can get lace on anything, which is super cool! But some lace styles are still only possible to achieve by hand. So when you look at a lace handkerchief from the 1700s: it might be just as expensive to create now as it was then, if not more.

I read once that the real killing at estate sales and antique/vintage stores is the handmade lace. Low demand means they’re priced very cheaply. But in reality the craftsmanship and hours required would make those same pieces impossible to buy brand new: literally priceless.

Info:

• Source/Inspiration: https://mastodon.social/@person72443/111792934351265640
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1. What constitutes “hard” is fascinating in its own right. A robust public transit system in big cities costs far fewer dollars than spending decades designing and developing self-driving cars. And yet in the US, we’re closer to self-driving cars than we are to strong public transit. Apparently when you account for time and political capital costs, self-driving cars are cheaper. Incredible. ↩

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