3 ms·

Indeed. A guy named Hans Rosling did a Ted talk about 10 years ago arguing that the washing machine had one of the biggest impacts of any invention from the In

Indeed. A guy named Hans Rosling did a Ted talk about 10 years ago arguing that the washing machine had one of the biggest impacts of any invention from the Industrial Revolution. It's worth looking up if you have 10 minutes to burn, he makes a good case.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
It's a strong argument for a belief I currently have, in what I think is essentially "technological determinism". I sum it up like this: the shape of human societies are essentially determined by economic landscape (that, I would hope, is an obvious point). Scientific and technological progress is what reshapes the economic landscape. Therefore, culture is downstream from sci/tech. Washing machines freeing enormous amount of time for people (particularly mothers, who could use that time to e.g. read books to children or educate themselves) are one example. The other I like is the Reformation: why did Martin Luther succeed where previous attempts at reforming the Church have failed? Because the newly invented printing press allowed for the theses to spread across the Old World much faster than the Church could control it.
- xtian 6y ago
  That's just historical materialism, FYI.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Looking at Wikipedia, this, technological determinism and economical determinism are related concepts (with the same names appearing in articles about them). I'll need to look into getting my taxonomy straight, but my current view is mostly contained in the explanation I gave in the comment above: inventions shape the landscape of the economy, and ideas/culture are like water flowing in that landscape (and perhaps slowly eroding it).
    - xtian 6y ago
      Right, historical materialism doesn't conflict with any of that, but it extends its analysis to the power structures that arise in society as a result of the material economic conditions.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    An example of beliefs affecting technology is the coal industry's wildly successful astroturfing campaign against nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s. Nuclear power was an existential threat to coal mining but was derailed almost completely by manipulating people's beliefs.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  This is one of those long-running debates in the social sciences. The economist Dierdre McCloskey, for instance, argues forcefully that the revolution started with the idea that all souls weigh the same -- i.e., people are all equal under God. [1] That conviction led to the belief that people should be allowed to read the Bible for themselves, which led to widespread literacy, which led to a demand for books, which allowed the printing press to survive and spread. After much to-ing and fro-ing I think I'm more inclined to McCloskey's view, that cultural beliefs and values determine institutions, and so determine which technologies survive and which die out. Of course these things are not one-way. Technology affects beliefs and institutions. But other things do, too, and McCloskey thinks the other things are at least equally as important. [1] McCloskey D., Bourgeois Equality.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

It's a strong argument for a belief I currently have, in what I think is essentially "technological determinism". I sum it up like this: the shape of human societies are essentially determined by economic landscape (that, I would hope, is an obvious point). Scientific and technological progress is what reshapes the economic landscape. Therefore, culture is downstream from sci/tech. Washing machines freeing enormous amount of time for people (particularly mothers, who could use that time to e.g. read books to children or educate themselves) are one example. The other I like is the Reformation: why did Martin Luther succeed where previous attempts at reforming the Church have failed? Because the newly invented printing press allowed for the theses to spread across the Old World much faster than the Church could control it.

xtian 6y ago
That's just historical materialism, FYI.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Looking at Wikipedia, this, technological determinism and economical determinism are related concepts (with the same names appearing in articles about them). I'll need to look into getting my taxonomy straight, but my current view is mostly contained in the explanation I gave in the comment above: inventions shape the landscape of the economy, and ideas/culture are like water flowing in that landscape (and perhaps slowly eroding it).
  - xtian 6y ago
    Right, historical materialism doesn't conflict with any of that, but it extends its analysis to the power structures that arise in society as a result of the material economic conditions.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  An example of beliefs affecting technology is the coal industry's wildly successful astroturfing campaign against nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s. Nuclear power was an existential threat to coal mining but was derailed almost completely by manipulating people's beliefs.
tuatoru 6y ago
This is one of those long-running debates in the social sciences. The economist Dierdre McCloskey, for instance, argues forcefully that the revolution started with the idea that all souls weigh the same -- i.e., people are all equal under God. [1] That conviction led to the belief that people should be allowed to read the Bible for themselves, which led to widespread literacy, which led to a demand for books, which allowed the printing press to survive and spread. After much to-ing and fro-ing I think I'm more inclined to McCloskey's view, that cultural beliefs and values determine institutions, and so determine which technologies survive and which die out. Of course these things are not one-way. Technology affects beliefs and institutions. But other things do, too, and McCloskey thinks the other things are at least equally as important. [1] McCloskey D., Bourgeois Equality.