Industrial Revolution

[teacher]

After reading the linked article express your personal point of view about the argumentation contained.

[AMarrazzo]

I think the author of the article is too pessimistic about the progress, even if we consider all the inequalities the average of well-being has increased compared with a hundred years ago at least as much as it had increased from a hundred year before.
I list some elements contrasting author's thesis (it's a post not an essay )

1)A lot of people starved in Europe in 1900, now very few do

2)All the possibilities of the "London citizen" affected just richest classes, most of people couldn't afford those things for sure. Now almost everybody can afford to order dinner at phone or to talk with another person across the world.

3)Meanwhile some people have gone on the Moon (and they even came back ), literacy has increased, universal suffrage is applied in all the Europe and America and it keeps on spreading (considering decades), and so on

4)Medicine made some giant leaps in the last fifty years, more than it had ever probably done before

The difference is that nowadays we have got the economic and technological means to eliminate poverty and inequalities, but we are not doing so.
_________________
"Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." A.Einstein
"If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize" R. Feynman
"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" A. Zimmerman

[SZuppel]

COMPUTER WEB

I think writer’s opinion is wrong because between 60-80 in Italian we had the economic boom.
In that period the economy increased thanks to higher wages.
The increase of wages helped workers because they could buy more and more goods. As a consequence economy became better.
I believe the invention of the pc isn’t linked to economic boom.
Computer helped the speed trade but the old rules of the economy had not changed because pc wasn’t an invention that change the rules of economy like electricity, telegraph.
Finally I can say that the computer is final invention thanks to the studies in the fields of electricity, Telecommunications.

[ATurato]

I don't agree with the author's opinion.
It's true that at the end of the XIX century lots of innovations were introduced by the Industrial Revolution. Water frame, mule, steam-engine and others new technologies made life and work better than before.
But in my opinion the use of computer and especially Internet must be considered a great innovation.
Computer can do many things in less time and this is an advantage for the economy.
I believe that Internet is the best solution to the problem of communication and economy. By using the Web, we can safe our time and we can communicate with the whole world. It's useful for commerce and business people.
In addition to this, I can say that computer and Internet have to be considered a new kind of progress because they are connected with innovations of the XIX century: they come from studies of electricity and communication. Without research, nowadays we cannot talk about these new technologies. So research creates progress.

[SDorigo]

Although the writer says that computers and web hadn't led to a social and economical revolution, I don't completely agree with his thesis. Indeed, in the first years of the XX century only some people could afford tecnology, and now everyone can. Computers and web led to a real globalization, helped industries and all the businesses to save time (and so money), made all the world closer and especially brought the tecnology in the houses of all the citizens, opening the possibility to communicate everywhere with everyone easier, to collect informations and to spread ideas throughout internet.
To sum up, it is real that in the second Industrial Revolution we find the basis of all the following inventions, but computers and web can't be only the consequence of all the inventions made in the first years of the XX century, but another great bounce, which allowed to bring technology near all the people.

But I have to quote text's achievement:

[SDean]

COMPUTER AND WEB: SOCIAL INVENTIONS OF THE CENTURY
During the five years the 1995-2000 increase of the productivity of the United States has quickly a strong resumption and has caught up advanced rates of growth to that of the “gold period” of 1913-72. Consequently many observatories have declared the New Economy (Internet and the consequent acceleration of the technological change in the computers and telecommunications) of being an industrial revolution the same importance, or more important, as regards the second industrial revolution of 1860-1900, than it has given electric power to us, motors, transports airplane, cinema, radius and hydraulic system inside of the buildings.
Between the mass media, which the telegraph, I telephone, the radius, the television, than during the one and a half slid century, they have progressively eliminated the time and the space like obstacles to the communication between a great number of persons. Internet is most recent and for many aspects most powerful. Its impact on the individuals, the nations, and the community of the nations is already enormous and increases from day to day.
Web initially was planned for a social scope, it is to allow the people to collaborate, and not like technical toy . The aim of the Web is to support and to improve our existence, that of the disabled people and the old ones.
Internet advantages are:
• Contained prices
• Fast communications
• Information accessible 24/24 hours
• Audience almost infinite than addressees
• Permanent contents

[ETosoratti]

I think that the autor is pessimistic about 1900 because every century is important to evolution in every fields.
I think taht computer is very important today because every people use a computer and computer is a part of life in the 21 century. With computer we can communicate, work and do moreand more things(computer is not only internet).

[FDalForno]

I don't agree with this opinion. At the end of the XIX century lots of innovations were introduced by the Industrial Revolution. These innovation made work better than the medieval age
But in my opinion the use of Technology had a great success.
By giving computer you might interact whit the world. It is an essential part of our life because it is very convenient and time-saving and this is an advantage for the economy.

[SNicola]

I agree with the thesis of the Author.
He essentially said that the II^ industrial revolution lead to a radical change in social and economic life, while Web and Computers had produced a less essential, but however important off course, rilevant change in our lifestyle.
I think that's true,for example in 1850 the elettrical energy was discovered,that caused a complete and heavy shift in our daily life, more than a pc instead of an E-mail box.
As reguards Globalization is not a recent phenomenon,but today it has reached bigger dimensions than in past.
To summarize my tought: no a radical change,just progress.

Nicola S.

[TZentilin]

In the text read, the author shows that computers aren’t as important as innovation of 18-19th Century.
Indeed innovations carried by Industrial Revolution were more important for the population; as a matter of fact they caused a real change in their life, because they introduced many new thing never existed before. I can quote not only industrial machines or railways but also small objects for everyday life, as the radio or the light bulb.
However the computer has even changed our life. We can do everything with it, from working to enjoying ourselves, using games or web-sites. But the main positive aspect is that we are connected with every part of the world. So it can be used to many workers to their business.
Moreover they can be used by everyone because they are cheap and easy, not as telephones of the past, which were used only by richest people.
All things considered in my opinion computers can be considered as important as others innovations.

[ARazza]

I agree with the author's opinion. I think that computers are such an important and revolutionary invention that they have not been useful enough for world economy yet.
During the period before the Belle Epoque lots of innovations have been introduced. Nations understood that they could take advantage of them to improve economy, system of production and distribution of goods. Also revolution in communicating helped economy, making smaller the globe.
Instead computer and web have only helped communication, not the economy. Only for three or four years the Web has began to be a business object. I'm referring to Big Sites which are used by millions of people all around the world (Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Yahoo...). They are valued billions of dollars, and they are more and more full of advertisement. Nowadays advertisement is basic for Occidental consumistic economy, as a consequence sites with lots of slogans and advertisement banners help it, though people cannot realize it.
In addition, I appeal to the writer's language, that is Italian. In Italy digitalization of documents is very far from our reality. In the rest of Europe computers are used to write most of the acts and documents, saving time, money and paper, which still loads Italian offices.
Therefore I think that the writer's pessimistic opinion is well-founded, but it is reduced in Italian situation.

[MJenco]

I think that the author is too strict to judge the new technologies.

I believe that in the past the invention of the water frame, electricity, telegraph, mule, steam-engine were very important but also computer and internet, changed our world.

With internet we can communicate in any time we want in every part in the world in few seconds. It improves the diffusion of notices, helps the business world and the relationship between people, moreover with internet is easier to find information and to improve our knowledge.

Maybe computer and internet aren't fundamental for our life ( but telegraphs and steam engine, too!) but they improve our life and we should recognize this great jump of the technology.

[MTurello]

We must know that the story is always the same and the economy too since the first industrial revolution. The most were in the XVIII century and are now socialism and liberism. In my opinion we can not speack about a new economy but a new way to do economy on the bases of this two systems of thought.
As reguards the progress the writer focus his attection only on the innovation of way of communication. Probably is true that in this sector the innovations do not change the life of the people, but he neglets
others sciences that really change the life of poor people in XIX century like the medicine that with her innovations has found med treatments for cancer and other diseases.
However althoug i do not like that the writer considere only one aspect of progress i agree with his expression that computer are not foundamental in human life and only people who can use that very well
(not for facebook) can create a innovation.

[RBiffi]

I agree with the author opinion: almost all the important discovers were known within the end of the Belle époque (for important discovers I mean inventions that have changed men’s life like phone, electricity and engine).
Today and since some time we don’t have such innovative tools like fifty years ago, this because we are aiming to an other purpose: spread of technologies and personalisation. This as my view: once we have got the inventions that allow us to improve our wellbeing, we started to share them with people, and not only with the middle-class members. Afterward, since living condition and familiar economic matters were good, we began to personalise the wellbeing for economic reasons and for personal satisfaction reasons.
All in all, in opposition to what the author say, I believe we live in a better era, an era of detailed specialisation, but on the other hand, we stuck; we are too busy in looking for new personalised wellbeing to the people (but which allows to specialise in a specific field) that we aren’t more interested in real revolutionary inventions. What is better? Micro or macro evolution? Time will show us.

[EInfante]

Well, I think the author is too much pessimistic!!!
Without computer and all innovations that the 19th century brought us, who would we be and where would we been?
The use of computer is, in my opinion, basic for evolution, for a real globalization and for imrovements in every fields.
In my opinion, the computer and, above all, Internet, must be considered as great innovations too. Not only telegraph, telephone and the other discoveries that the writer quote in the text have chenged our life, but also the computer! Today computer are used for different functions: many use it for their job, other for explore the Net, students for school, and not only for informatic subjects, but also English, Philosophy,Maths, History, Science...etc, therefore Internert is not only something that teenagers use for playing games, chatting with friends and having fun on Facebook, but is basic for the personal cultural growth. On Internet you can find what you need in few minutes and, therefore, you save time and, to be honest, also money, becuse Interne is cheap. (maybe except me, that usufruct of Internet point service )