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You can't just point the finger at technology because it existed at the same time these events occurred. Those revolutions wouldn't have happened if there wasn'
by jart 4y ago
You can't just point the finger at technology because it existed at the same time these events occurred. Those revolutions wouldn't have happened if there wasn't some kind of underlying problem to begin with. If what you're saying were true, then Occupy Wall Street would have overthrown the government, or the early Christians for instance would have had to have been using some kind of new technology to subvert the established order of Ancient Rome. Or what about the times when new forms of communication came about that didn't result in bloodbaths? For example, carrier pigeons and high-frequency trading.
- ajuc 4y agoThere's always problems. Most of the time they are ignored. Very rarely they get solved proactively. Usually they cause one conflict after another until somebody solves it (and creates a new problems in the process). New communication technologies make this feedback loop much quicker which means the usual systems created to ignore these problems can't keep up - and all the hidden problems surface at once and cause "interesting times". Of course not all communication technologies have this power - carrier pigeons are 1-to-1 communication and don't scale. And high-frequency trading is communication only in the most dry technical sense. But once in a while there's a development which disrupts the system. And there are revolutions that happen without technological breakthroughs. It's not a "X if and only if Y", it's "vastly more X if Y". > If what you're saying were true, then Occupy Wall Street would have overthrown the government Why? I'm not saying every revolution needs to be successful. Not every reformation era war was won by the reformers. Totalitarian regimes have about 50% success rate short term and close to 0% long term.