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I've always been fascinated by his follow up series "the day the universe changed". He points out that as our beliefs and understandings shift, our universally

I've always been fascinated by his follow up series "the day the universe changed". He points out that as our beliefs and understandings shift, our universally perceived reality changes. He demonstrates this with a witch burning three hundred years ago. Those people believed that everything the felt and did was absolutely justified - if not required - by the universe they inhabited. It has always made me wonder what a future society will not be able to relate to how we live now. Personally, I suspect eating meat will be off the table, as it were. (And I say this as a carnivore with a tin of bacon fat in the fridge.) When informing people whom they should vote for (I can be annoying like that) I try to get them to vote for someone that can inch us to the future they want to see. Not surprisingly, universal healthcare, decreased poverty and things that taste like bacon but aren't really bacon are all things people seem to expect in 1000 years.

norea-armozel 11y ago
I doubt meat will be off the table. If anything I expect it to be there so long as there's an economical meats to produce it. Global warming may end it's consumption among the middle class, but I bet there will be restaurants in the future that boost of serving burgers as it is was gourmet. Hah, that would be a trip.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Lobsters, at least the American kind, used to be considered trash food. Even prisoners rioted to avoid being served it. But then the fish stocks got depleted, and various restaurants started putting them on the menu...
chiph 11y ago
The witch inquiry was an amazing example of how cause & effect changed over time. "Did you not have angry words with him, and his cow later became ill?"
adrianN 11y ago
Regarding meat, I think lab grown meat will replace "real" meat. I guess it can be produced more cheaply, it's ethically clean, and it's a lot less disgusting to think about where it comes from.
CWuestefeld 11y ago
I try to get them to vote for someone that can inch us to the future they want to see. I don't mean to get too political. But I want to point out the widespread fallacy that our increasing scientific understanding of the world around us will somehow enable us to engineer a better social order. Things like society and the economy are emergent phenomena. They're incredibly complex, involving (literally) countless forces that tug at various phenomena in unforeseeable ways. Because of their distributed nature, it's impossible for any entity to have access to the entire set of data that the system is operating on, and thus impossible to direct it with any confidence. And because of its vast interconnectivity, its also impossible for us to make changes to its infrastructure without changing the effects of those forces. The complexity of these things is no less than the complexity of the human organism. It seems pretty well accepted that it would be absurd folly to engineer changes into that organism; even tweaking around the margins is fraught. We should be every bit as wary of meddling with the operation of our society or economy.
- xsmasher 11y ago
  That sounds pretty defeatist; you can't stay inactive just because you lack 100% certainty, especially if someone else is meddling in a manner contrary to your long-term interests.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
To my ear, Connections hangs on the conceptual nail that that future is already being formed and nudging people towards it may or may not have any affect. It nearly screams "change is like a lightning bolt but one that may take a long time." It's one of the most Whiggish-progress things I can think of. For me, this is Useful because it makes it less frustrating when I try to advocate for change. The last 200 years are vanishingly close to inexplicable in terms of the rest of human history.
digi_owl 11y ago
Thanks, now i have Soylent Green passing before my eyes...

norea-armozel 11y ago

I doubt meat will be off the table. If anything I expect it to be there so long as there's an economical meats to produce it. Global warming may end it's consumption among the middle class, but I bet there will be restaurants in the future that boost of serving burgers as it is was gourmet. Hah, that would be a trip.

digi_owl 11y ago
Lobsters, at least the American kind, used to be considered trash food. Even prisoners rioted to avoid being served it. But then the fish stocks got depleted, and various restaurants started putting them on the menu...

chiph 11y ago

The witch inquiry was an amazing example of how cause & effect changed over time. "Did you not have angry words with him, and his cow later became ill?"

adrianN 11y ago

Regarding meat, I think lab grown meat will replace "real" meat. I guess it can be produced more cheaply, it's ethically clean, and it's a lot less disgusting to think about where it comes from.

CWuestefeld 11y ago

I try to get them to vote for someone that can inch us to the future they want to see. I don't mean to get too political. But I want to point out the widespread fallacy that our increasing scientific understanding of the world around us will somehow enable us to engineer a better social order. Things like society and the economy are emergent phenomena. They're incredibly complex, involving (literally) countless forces that tug at various phenomena in unforeseeable ways. Because of their distributed nature, it's impossible for any entity to have access to the entire set of data that the system is operating on, and thus impossible to direct it with any confidence. And because of its vast interconnectivity, its also impossible for us to make changes to its infrastructure without changing the effects of those forces. The complexity of these things is no less than the complexity of the human organism. It seems pretty well accepted that it would be absurd folly to engineer changes into that organism; even tweaking around the margins is fraught. We should be every bit as wary of meddling with the operation of our society or economy.

xsmasher 11y ago
That sounds pretty defeatist; you can't stay inactive just because you lack 100% certainty, especially if someone else is meddling in a manner contrary to your long-term interests.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

To my ear, Connections hangs on the conceptual nail that that future is already being formed and nudging people towards it may or may not have any affect. It nearly screams "change is like a lightning bolt but one that may take a long time." It's one of the most Whiggish-progress things I can think of. For me, this is Useful because it makes it less frustrating when I try to advocate for change. The last 200 years are vanishingly close to inexplicable in terms of the rest of human history.

digi_owl 11y ago

Thanks, now i have Soylent Green passing before my eyes...