Time-saving technologies may form a zero-sum or negative-sum time game

Evidence

My thesis is that this requires the deciphering of the logic of acceleration. In the context of the story it seems natural to start with the suggestion that the time Longheart gains simply gets lost again because the copier, the photo apparatus, and the heating system that help him save so much time have themselves to be manufactured or earned in the first place. If we assume that even in Kairos things are produced by a division of a labor, then after the “invention” of technology Longheart has to copy proportionately more books than before (which itself presupposes that the demand for books in Utempus correspondingly increases as well). In this way the relationship between one’s available budget of time and the promises of technology may have become a zero-sum game (or even a negative-sum game): the inhabitants of Utempus would need just as much or even more time to produce and earn the time-saving devices as they save by using them. This reminds one of the story, told in many places and in different versions, of the poor fisherman and the successful entrepreneur. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 59

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Jevons paradox / rebound effect in energy economics, and to the evolutionary-pressure view that technological gains are absorbed rather than pocketed as leisure. — connects to: Technical acceleration delivers abundant free time and banishes boredom — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 55; Time-saving technology coexists with unprecedented felt time scarcity; Microtasking platforms reduce human time to saleable divisible units. (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Time-saving technology coexists with unprecedented felt time scarcity #corroborates (0.85)
• Time scarcity despite technical acceleration forms a distinct third acceleration category #expands (0.80) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 228
• Microtasking platforms reduce human time to saleable divisible units. #exemplifies (0.75)
• Time-saving technologies become the means of extracting more labor time #contradicts (0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 451