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Our economy and intellectual progress is massively predicated on specialisation of labor. When I consider any single aspect of our life, even something as "simp
by whack 8y ago
Our economy and intellectual progress is massively predicated on specialisation of labor. When I consider any single aspect of our life, even something as "simple" as how elevators work, it's astounding the amount of complexity that goes into it. Complexity that we can handle because we divvy it up amongst many many people who are completely specialized in understanding and fulfilling that task.
Gradual increases in population don't really scare me. Technological progress has always scaled with population, and technology can free us of natural resource constraints. But in a world of shrinking population, entire fields of practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever.
- collyw 8y ago>entire fields of practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever. Plenty of examples of that happening as a result of technology.
- dahfizz 8y agoCan you give an example? Technology may remove the need for physical skills, but I don't really see how it would wipe out fields of knowledge.
- rficcaglia 8y agonavigate by stars and moon and position of the sun vs chronometers vs gps?
- dahfizz 8y agoYes, the practical skill of navigating by stars is not practiced by most people because we have better navigation methods. But the knowledge of how to navigate by stars was not erased by the invention of the gps. That's still part of humanity's body of knowledge.
- jdbernard 8y agoMaybe, but if you're talking about recorded knowledge I'd argue we're still losing a bulk of it. Recorded knowledge fails to capture all the layers of depth that lived experience contains. Hopefully the recorded knowledge is enough to jump-start a new learner if no masters remain, but even that is not guaranteed.
- pintxo 8y agoThe cause as per the GP is not technology: > But in a world of shrinking population, entire fields of practical human knowledge and know-how can be lost forever.
- monetus 8y agoI'm having trouble finding a source with a search engine, but I've heard of bronze age shields that were impossible to reproduce with current metallurgy. Ancient concrete recipes are rediscovered occasionally. These aren't fields though. The loss probably wasn't as simple as older technology being surplanted by newer tech. I think what you are looking for my be found in farming though. I would think there are entire avenues of research abandoned.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoSmithing for instance. Used to be there were folks throughout the world that understood hand-working metal intimately. Now its almost died out.
- tomjen3 8y agoCan you create abortificiants/contraceptives from local plants? Most of that knowledge, which used to be widespread among women, was never written down, and with modern pills nobody needs to.
- matt4077 8y agoThe trend of lower birth rates depends on increased development and education. The net effect is you could have a third of today’s population, and still more specialized elevator music backup vocals mixing engineers than before.
- everdrive 8y agoThis cuts both ways, though. Elevators are quite nice, but what about nuclear weapons and Skinner boxes? (aka, smartphones) I'm not trying to paint a broad brush where technology is either all good or evil. But, quite a bit of the magic of population size and telecommunications are wasted on useless or evil efforts. And, at some point, there will be too many people. We can debate on the number the Earth can safely support, but we must agree it's lower than infinity. So, there must be some balance to overpopulation and destruction it brings, and underpopulation and the progress it halts. Do you think there's a good balance we can / should arrive at? Do you think we're anywhere close to it?
- bamboozled 8y agoI often think about this too, are people who understand incredibly complex things dying off / retiring faster than technology can keep up with it ? I think about maitaitining really complex infrastructure, you kind of see this in Japan. So much complicated infrastructure, so many people checking out.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago> So much complicated infrastructure, so many people checking out. Do we know if Japanese businesses realized this at all? I think here in North America companies are still thinking it'll all be fine and the knowledge will somehow magically transfer to the next generation that they couldn't be bothered to train, largely as a lot of baby boomers haven't left yet, but they are going to, and soon.
- bamboozled 8y agoSomeone has realised it as Japan has finally warmed up to the idea of increasing immigration numbers sharply after resisting to do so for a very long time.
- magduf 8y agoThey don't need to train them, and it will be "all fine": the executives making these decisions will be able to collect their golden parachutes and retire in luxury by the time the boomers retire, and their companies will flounder and die only after this point, so the executives have little to worry about.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoAs it happens most of those executives are Boomers as well, so it works out quite nicely all around!
- detcader 8y agoCan you give an example of why this is bad? What more do we really need in terms of technology, to survive as nations and be happy? Could this point in our achievement be enough? Maybe a drought of elevator specialists decreases the amount of elevators we can have. We have to walk up stairs more often. Not ideal. But maybe more people spend less time having and raising kids and more time working on themselves. Mental health improves and people are more compassionate toward themselves and others. I would choose that world, not actively fight against it.
- pixl97 8y ago>What more do we really need in terms of technology, to survive as nations and be happy? What timeline are we talking about. > Could this point in our achievement be enough? To ensure eventual extinction, yes. Modern technology is wholly dependant on a great number of unstable and unsustainable systems. Fossil fuels are the best example of a great technological boost that is destroying our atmosphere. Renewables, while so much better, are not without their drawbacks at a world civilization size. Still, it could create a nice, clean, and happy doomed world. Below us vast volcanoes, things not seen for tens of thousands of years, wait to explode below us threatening to blot out the sun for a decade (hope you don't depend on solar panels). Above us rocks the size of mountains race through the blackness of space at insane speeds waiting to find a gravity well and vaporize what is at the bottom of it. There exists threats, ones we've only come to realize exist in the past century, that can wipe mankind off earth in the blink of an eye. The solution to most of these is making sure we just aren't on earth, and become a spacefaring civilization. For that we will need technology far beyond what we have now.
- detcader 8y agoIt's almost as if we are in Omelas, our worldwide festival of novelty and technology relying on a hidden destruction of the environment we do not pay attention to except once in a while (not to mention the countries.) I don't believe space travel is worth it if we get there through war, interpersonal alienation and violence required by the only current system poised to do it. Sometimes we have to entertain the idea of letting go of preventing every possible bad outcome and focus on what is needed in the current moment. Regrettably I'm not the most persuasive philosopher; Gil Scott-Heron has a song called "Whitey on the Moon" if one wants to think more poetically about it.
- jopsen 8y agoYou suggest that technology would progress to free us of natural resource constraints, why wouldn't it also free us of manpower constraints? (after all the robots are coming). As for population going to zero, I suspect it'll be a while -- and that we could increase birth rates with financial incentives, 2-3 years parental leave wouldn't be very dystopian :)