Technology Connections
7 HN recommenders · recommended in 11 months, 2019–2024
18:31 · 4.2M views · May 14, 2018
Technology Connections explains how LED traffic lights, which do not melt snow, drew complaints and were blamed for accidents. He uses it to illustrate the 'but sometimes' fallacy against new technology.
Cited constantly as the name and example of the 'but sometimes' argument, where edge cases are used to resist better technology such as EVs and solar.
16 comments from Hacker News
I love Technology Connections' take on this line of argument [0]: > When there's a new innovation which changes how we do things for the better, its benefits are obvious. ... However when the "But Sometimes" rears its ugly head, people tend to freak out. Suddenly all those benefits go away, because in this one particular facet of stoplight functionality, the wasteful and maintenance-heavy incandescent lamp is accidentally superior. Suddenly, when a new solution presents a new problem, all we think about is the problem. Yes, there are problems that exist with solar that don't exist with other electrical generation systems. That is not, by itself, evidence that solar will not be sufficient by itself as we solve those problems, and it's not a good reason to slow adoption of a piece of technology that is better in almost every way. Everything suggests we're going to fix the "but sometimes"—as others have noted there are many different paths being successfully explored at this point—and everything suggests that solar will still be both cheaper and better for the environment even when you factor in the fix. [0] this video
The one on traffic lights is way more interesting than it sounds! Everybody should check it out. There's also a really interesting point he makes at the end that applies to something a lot of people on HN might relate with this video The toaster one is alright, it kinda bothered me when he said there was "literally NO reason" to design something the way it was (I think it had to do with the position of the coils) - obviously there is, it's probably just not a reason he'd like (cost, ease of manufacturing, etc). It makes me wonder if there was other info he skipped on because it "wasn't important" or "stupid". That's a pretty minor point though, overall his videos are very good.
I watched a YouTube video [0] this morning which actually does a fantastic job of explaining the pros and cons of LED-based traffic lights. Short answer: it's complicated. [0]: this video
Your coin flip is in a vacuum though. What is this innovation replacing? Did I previously have to roll a 100-sided die? If so, that coin flip sounds really damn good. I feel like Technology Connections did a better approach to the same topic of innovation: this video The idea is "But Sometimes". That is, this new innovation is great in all these areas, but sometimes it's worse. That then becomes a locus for the FUD campaigns -- justified or not. It's also the same kind of thing heard in "no one was ever fired for picking IBM". Fear of an unknown potentially bad outcome outweighs all the known bad outcomes which are improved by the innovation.
>Apropos of nothing... I also remember a story about a northern country replacing traffic lights with LEDs and then spending even more money adding heaters because the old lights were naturally warm, and melted any ice that stuck to the lights. Can't find a link to it at the moment. The Technology Connections channel on YouTube has an excellent video on this, called 'The LED Traffic Light and the Danger of "But Sometimes!"': this video