The magic of washing machines - you put in dirty laundry and you get out books

A year ago today, Hans Rosling, a great humanitarian and communicator, passed away. He spoke to people gently and with laughter.

I loved this passage in one of his TED talks. He was addressing the transformative magic of technology and how we cannot simply dismiss people's desire to own things that make a big difference to their worlds and wellbeing. He used washing machines as an example.

If you have democracy, people will vote for washing machines. They love them.

And what's the magic with them? My mother explained the magic with this machine the very, very first day. She said, "Now Hans, we have loaded the laundry. The machine will make the work. And now we can go to the library." Because this is the magic: you load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines, children's books. And mother got time to read for me. She loved this. I got the "ABC's" -- this is where I started my career as a professor, when my mother had time to read for me. And she also got books for herself. She managed to study English and learn that as a foreign language. And she read so many novels, so many different novels here. And we really, we really loved this machine.

And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books."

The benefits of technology often tend to be cumulative and ratcheting in nature. It is hard to remember just how transformative even the most mundane technological advances can be.

The talk:

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