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Comment by ronilan | Hacker News Reader

Correct.

Senators are required, since the installation of dial phones in the Capitol, to perform the duties of telephone operators

And also seems that it was more than UX that bothered them...

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But since they weren't performing the duties of telephone operators - a machine was - this was just an expression of the problem, namely they didn't like the ui. Previously, they communicated to a human being the identification of the person they want to connect to, and a human being connected the wires.

Now, they connected to a machine and told the machine an identification standing for the person they wanted to connect to, and the machine connects them. There was no substantial difference to the responsibilities of the senators, except that they no needed to know an additional way of identifying a person.

If they had spoken into a computer and said the name of the person who they wanted to talk to, and the computer routed the call, they would have been doing the duties of telephone operators exactly as much as they were when they were twisting a disc with their finger.

But they would not have objected to the ux and they would not have said they were "required ... to perform the duties of telephone operators".

It is important to understand what a person is saying when trying to interpret their meaning. Give as full force to their words as possible, without turning them into a fool or an idiot who says things that are patently untrue.

I think that statement is more an expression of perceived motive. The senators were used to having a trained human employee making their connections "just work", suddenly this technology puts the onus on the end user. Why? Because in the long run, the technology is cheaper than employing a trained human. Are the telephone companies going to pass this saving on to the tax payer? Unlikely, certainly not in the near-term.

So the senators are objecting to having to put their cup of coffee down, steady the phone with one hand, turn the dial with all their might with another hand - five (?) whole times - pick up their coffee again, only to find out that they've misdialled and have to start the whole process again. Just so that some telecoms fat cat gets a bigger paycheck.

> they weren't performing the duties of telephone operators - a machine was [...] There was no substantial difference to the responsibilities of the senators

Would you also say there is no substantial difference between typing a document yourself and dictating a document to a typist?

Does the last paragraph still holds? Today a lot of public talk is about the manipulation (as opposed to genuinely convincing, i.e. presenting the actual argument and not the most effective and machiavellistic argument ) of public opinion, and when we have masses of people specializing in this sort of manipulation, with help from social (psychology etc) scientists, and automated ('machine learning') optimization. In this climate, I'm not sure if it does.

That's bad, because we lost the basic trust in human communication to say what you mean. Of course this is not meant to be nostalgic, deception was always present, but never so normalized, natural and _not_ a social taboo as it is today.

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