4 ms·

For thousands of years the economic level of humanity was basically a straight line with a very slow upward trend. then in the late 1700's things changed the ec

by somat 2y ago

For thousands of years the economic level of humanity was basically a straight line with a very slow upward trend. then in the late 1700's things changed the economic graph went exponential and has not slowed down since. There is this concept of a technological singularity, Some days I feel it has already happened. And collectively we all are in a sort of tech time dilation, caught up in them, we barely notice the exponential tides.

icapybara 2y ago
Well put
TeMPOraL 2y ago
There's a mind-blowing moment when you realize that pretty much everything about modern life has been made in the last 100-150 years. Medicine stopped being voodoo and became reliably useful in that time. All scientific fields graduated from goofing around to serious discovery machines in that time. Meanwhile, half the items you see and use for fun and work and chores, exist because of petrochemical industry that developed in the past century. At least in the western world, the last 100-150 years have been a step change in human experience, so when someone questions if this time it's different, my answer is: yes, this time is really different. I never thought about it in terms of being past the singularity event horizon, but the more I ponder on what you wrote, the more I feel you may be right: we're already experiencing what technological singularity feels from inside. We're riding the exponents already, but are still early enough that we don't notice. (Or at least didn't notice. I thought progress of technology got boring in the past decade or two, but last couple years made me feel things are changing again, and faster than I can keep track of.)
- jhbadger 2y ago
  I'd say the 1920s (so 100 years ago) is the earliest time someone from today could go back to and still be able to live more or less the life they have today. In the 1920s, at least in urbanized areas in the developed world, you had access to electricity, indoor plumbing, the modern appliances (vacuum cleaners and refrigerators became common in this decade), cars had stopped being luxuries and were rapidly becoming essentials, movies (even with sound towards the end of the decade), and radio (which also served as a forerunner for TV as there were a lot of dramas in addition to music on it)
  - eru 2y ago
    No computers though.
    - cynicalsecurity 2y ago
      Perfect.
  - leobg 2y ago
    True even for Tesla drivers. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc
  - ben_w 2y ago
    You could if you were rich and urbanised (and didn't mind all those examples being much worse), but from what I heard, indoor plumbing was a luxury even in 1930. I also don't think many of us can even undo mobile phones and the internet, so even going back half that far to 1970, even with unlimited money, it would no longer be possible to have the life we have today. To be always connected to everyone; to be unable to get lost; to always have more than most libraries at your fingertips, able to show you the step-by-step basics of any task you've never seen before at any time… it's a very different way of living. I learned C and the basics of MacOS (classic) programming from books I took out of the library. I wasn't allowed to take out more than 4 at a time.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  At times, I have thought about trying to explain the modern world to someone from 1920. "Well, we've got automobiles, but they're much faster and require less maintenance, and we have better roads for them. And we've got airplanes, but they're much bigger, and they crash far less often. And we've got better machines for farming, and better medicines..." You could explain television. You could explain transistors - they had vacuum tubes. Computers would be harder - they had mechanical adding machines, but the many-order-of-magnitude-faster computers is a qualitative change that makes them not "like" anything that existed in 1920. But when I think about trying to explain to someone from 1820, you can't explain anything. They were 40 years before Maxwell's Equations, so no electricity, no radio, no telegraph, no telephone. They were before the first common-carrier railroad. The first internal combustion powered automobile was 1808, but they were not yet practical in any sense. The precursors aren't there. (Yes, the industrial revolution is starting. The products of the industrial revolution that will change how we live aren't there yet, though.)
  - automatic6131 2y ago
    >And we've got airplanes, but they're much bigger, and they crash far less often And just about everyone who speaks English as a first language can afford to use them - for leisurely travel.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Most modern tech I can explain in terms of what it does, what it's like to live with. I think this is how I'd explain TV to someone from 1920, but it would be just as easy as explaining it to someone from 1820: "It's a sheet of glass, and moving pictures with sounds appear on it." "How does it work?" "I don't know. It involves several dozen separate inventions, of which I understand perhaps three individual ones well enough to discuss." -- Of course, to really blow the minds of people from 1920, you can either show them anything related to space travel (especially the Apollo missions, but also GPS); or tell them about basically any organ transplant; or show them a 3D printer (you know Bakelite? We found better plastics, and we made a machine that can, without ongoing intervention, use that make any shaped structure we ask it to… and those machines can also do metal, and yes that includes the engines of those spaceships we showed you earlier. Also houses).
csomar 2y ago
> has not slowed down since We are on a slow down. The first nuclear power plant was back in 1954. That's roughly 70 years ago. Except for tech/computers, not much has really happened in the world.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I don't agree. I think things flatten off a bit in some areas -- power production, transportation. But I also think we might be on the cusp of things going hockey stick vertical before the end of the decade.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Even since 1954, the changes have been enormous. Medicine is radically better: some diseases eliminated entirely (smallpox), others reduced to manageable conditions (HIV), even novel pandemics get multiple vaccines within a few years; the first successful transplant was 1954, a kidney between two identical twins, because they didn't have a good way to do immunosuppression until 1970. PV and batteries weren't impressive until suddenly each was a revolution. Long-distance travel became cheap, widely accessible. My uncle moved to Australia (from the UK) to get away from his mum, my first trip abroad (aged, I think, 8) was to visit him. Tech and computers enabled so many other things that I don't think it's reasonable to prefix them with an "except for". Even just going from 1954 to 2000 was approximately my Dad's career, and that included "we're sending you on a two day training course on this new thing called 'software'" (he worked for a UK defence contractor, writing simulation software for IFF radar systems).

by somat 2y ago

icapybara 2y ago

Well put

TeMPOraL 2y ago

There's a mind-blowing moment when you realize that pretty much everything about modern life has been made in the last 100-150 years. Medicine stopped being voodoo and became reliably useful in that time. All scientific fields graduated from goofing around to serious discovery machines in that time. Meanwhile, half the items you see and use for fun and work and chores, exist because of petrochemical industry that developed in the past century. At least in the western world, the last 100-150 years have been a step change in human experience, so when someone questions if this time it's different, my answer is: yes, this time is really different. I never thought about it in terms of being past the singularity event horizon, but the more I ponder on what you wrote, the more I feel you may be right: we're already experiencing what technological singularity feels from inside. We're riding the exponents already, but are still early enough that we don't notice. (Or at least didn't notice. I thought progress of technology got boring in the past decade or two, but last couple years made me feel things are changing again, and faster than I can keep track of.)

jhbadger 2y ago
I'd say the 1920s (so 100 years ago) is the earliest time someone from today could go back to and still be able to live more or less the life they have today. In the 1920s, at least in urbanized areas in the developed world, you had access to electricity, indoor plumbing, the modern appliances (vacuum cleaners and refrigerators became common in this decade), cars had stopped being luxuries and were rapidly becoming essentials, movies (even with sound towards the end of the decade), and radio (which also served as a forerunner for TV as there were a lot of dramas in addition to music on it)
- eru 2y ago
  No computers though.
  - cynicalsecurity 2y ago
    Perfect.
- leobg 2y ago
  True even for Tesla drivers. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc
- ben_w 2y ago
  You could if you were rich and urbanised (and didn't mind all those examples being much worse), but from what I heard, indoor plumbing was a luxury even in 1930. I also don't think many of us can even undo mobile phones and the internet, so even going back half that far to 1970, even with unlimited money, it would no longer be possible to have the life we have today. To be always connected to everyone; to be unable to get lost; to always have more than most libraries at your fingertips, able to show you the step-by-step basics of any task you've never seen before at any time… it's a very different way of living. I learned C and the basics of MacOS (classic) programming from books I took out of the library. I wasn't allowed to take out more than 4 at a time.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
At times, I have thought about trying to explain the modern world to someone from 1920. "Well, we've got automobiles, but they're much faster and require less maintenance, and we have better roads for them. And we've got airplanes, but they're much bigger, and they crash far less often. And we've got better machines for farming, and better medicines..." You could explain television. You could explain transistors - they had vacuum tubes. Computers would be harder - they had mechanical adding machines, but the many-order-of-magnitude-faster computers is a qualitative change that makes them not "like" anything that existed in 1920. But when I think about trying to explain to someone from 1820, you can't explain anything. They were 40 years before Maxwell's Equations, so no electricity, no radio, no telegraph, no telephone. They were before the first common-carrier railroad. The first internal combustion powered automobile was 1808, but they were not yet practical in any sense. The precursors aren't there. (Yes, the industrial revolution is starting. The products of the industrial revolution that will change how we live aren't there yet, though.)
- automatic6131 2y ago
  >And we've got airplanes, but they're much bigger, and they crash far less often And just about everyone who speaks English as a first language can afford to use them - for leisurely travel.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Most modern tech I can explain in terms of what it does, what it's like to live with. I think this is how I'd explain TV to someone from 1920, but it would be just as easy as explaining it to someone from 1820: "It's a sheet of glass, and moving pictures with sounds appear on it." "How does it work?" "I don't know. It involves several dozen separate inventions, of which I understand perhaps three individual ones well enough to discuss." -- Of course, to really blow the minds of people from 1920, you can either show them anything related to space travel (especially the Apollo missions, but also GPS); or tell them about basically any organ transplant; or show them a 3D printer (you know Bakelite? We found better plastics, and we made a machine that can, without ongoing intervention, use that make any shaped structure we ask it to… and those machines can also do metal, and yes that includes the engines of those spaceships we showed you earlier. Also houses).

csomar 2y ago

> has not slowed down since We are on a slow down. The first nuclear power plant was back in 1954. That's roughly 70 years ago. Except for tech/computers, not much has really happened in the world.

qingcharles 2y ago
I don't agree. I think things flatten off a bit in some areas -- power production, transportation. But I also think we might be on the cusp of things going hockey stick vertical before the end of the decade.
ben_w 2y ago
Even since 1954, the changes have been enormous. Medicine is radically better: some diseases eliminated entirely (smallpox), others reduced to manageable conditions (HIV), even novel pandemics get multiple vaccines within a few years; the first successful transplant was 1954, a kidney between two identical twins, because they didn't have a good way to do immunosuppression until 1970. PV and batteries weren't impressive until suddenly each was a revolution. Long-distance travel became cheap, widely accessible. My uncle moved to Australia (from the UK) to get away from his mum, my first trip abroad (aged, I think, 8) was to visit him. Tech and computers enabled so many other things that I don't think it's reasonable to prefix them with an "except for". Even just going from 1954 to 2000 was approximately my Dad's career, and that included "we're sending you on a two day training course on this new thing called 'software'" (he worked for a UK defence contractor, writing simulation software for IFF radar systems).