4 ms·

> The world is more complex than it was a couple of generations ago. But is it, really? That was already the era of "information overload" and "future shock."

uniqueuid 2y ago
Sociological theory says yes, the world is a lot more (=superlinearly) complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_modernization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_modernization
- ranit 2y ago
  The changes in society are accelerating and thus people cannot adapt fast enough. The society doesn’t necessarily become more complex.
- maccard 2y ago
  That is quite the Wikipedia article. It’s not often that I diss content, but if there was ever a summary of a topic written that tried to sound like it was a novel idea by labelling everything under the sun, this is it. Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand it, but honestly after 4 tries I still don’t get what the point is. Also, the topic of “reflexive” came about in the early to mid 20th century, so for many people here, our parents have always existed in this reflexive modern. That doesn’t mean things have gotten more complex in the last generation
  - uniqueuid 2y ago
    Haha sorry, I understand that reaction to quite a lot of sociological theory. Personally I find this the easiest simple mental model for reflexive modernity: "Modernity linearly accelerated change. Reflexive modernity loops back on itself and accelerates the acceleration". So a bit of "singularity is near". The whole theory itself has quite a bit more baggage, but again I agree, the wikipedia article does not help at all. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89201-2 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89201-2
    - maccard 2y ago
      Honestly the Wikipedia article reads like it was written by someone who doesn’t understand the topic. The linked page to “reflexive” is much better, FWIW.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  I’m not seeing an asymptotic lower bound on the growth of societal complexity in this Wikipedia article.
- _Algernon_ 2y ago
  This article is basically a showcase of why one shouldn't take sociology seriously. Thin ideological concepts packaged in a veneer of scientific sounding terminology, performed as an exercise to basically only allow the ideological in-group to "understand" it. The entire field seems like an elaborate suppression technique against the ideological outgroup (and apparently quite a successful one at that. Meanwhile sociology was hardest hit by the replication crisis and I see no sign that they have done anything to improve replicability of their "research"
  - uniqueuid 2y ago
    Sorry but I don't think that's right. Do you have some sources for Sociology being hit harder than, say, Psychology, in the replication crisis? I personally don't even know of a many labs replication attempt from them (Sociology). So we probably don't know. That said, Sociology is the attempt to explain the most complex thing in the universe (collective behavior arising out of sentient individuals), so if you think there's a better way, I'd be extremely excited :)
- pkkm 2y ago
  I'm not seeing any empirical data in the article.
ajb 2y ago
That depends how you count. If you think of a generation as 20 years then that's the 80's which were fairly complex. If you think of it in terms of 'my grandparents life', well in many cases that was a lot simpler. Mine were born in the 1890's/1900s
- eesmith 2y ago
  The Economist article compares young adults now from those of two generations previous to the young adults of now. I'm using 1970s - 25 years per generation. The 1890s were a tumultuous time. You now had cities with a nightlife, because the arc light and other new technologies meant you no longer depended on candles. Photography and telegraphy was now decades old - by the 1880s news could travel around the world within hours. This fueled the presses, powered by Linotype machines that could churn out pages with ease. Telephony was now available in homes. The first X-ray was 1895. Hollerith's tabulating machine completed the 1890 census in only six years - two years less than the 1880 census - and transformed information processing. Astronomy was making exciting new discovery, polar explorers were getting closer to the poles. Steam engines were getting ever more powerful. The Turbinia - the first turbine-powered steamship, 1894 - upset old ideas on ship power. The chemical industry, with Germans in the lead, created amazing new products. Bayer produced Aspirin in the late 1890, and the new synthetic colors transformed the Victorian era. The 1890's/1900s were not a lot simpler.
emmelaich 2y ago
I'm sure it is more complex, but on the other hand you can cruise along and ignore the complexity that you could not hitherto.
- nthingtohide 2y ago
  It is difficult to be simple in a complex society. You can be simpleton though.
af3d 2y ago
Relatively speaking, perhaps, but things really have progressed by several orders of magnitude. When I was young we had access to very little "technology". (Maybe that's why people tended to be somewhat more down-to-earth?) I could change a tire by the age of ten, not to mention being fairly well-versed in a number of subjects. And I was certainly not the exception. Any given person was bound to be proficient at *something*. Younger folks these days however (on average) don't seem to think very deeply about things (probably too many distractions?) and as a result they can be surprisingly ignorant across the spectrum. Not all of them, of course, just an alarmingly high percentage....
- eesmith 2y ago
  I'm old enough that grocery stores had tube testers in them. Vacuum tubes are technology. So are canned goods, and milled flour, and white sugar, and refrigeration. My grandfather's shop included a lathe and welding torch. He and my dad swapped out the engine to a car in my Dad's carport. That's technology - the car, the tools to fix it, and parts supply system to make it possible. My mother had an automatic sewing machine which she used to make clothes. Sewing machines, motorized sewing machines, the looms to make the cloth, the machines to process the cotton - all technology. We had several hams in the neighborhood, and CB radios were a craze. That's technology. We got the city newspaper, which was possible from centuries of technological development - the printing press, ink and paper production, typesetting machines, distribution, vending machines. Most homes had a particle accelerator in them to watch TV. That's certainly technology. Compare a home now to one made two generations ago, and little has changed - assuming you are lucky enough to avoid the inherent death cycle of products tied to a smartphone. You've got easier access to shows and music, but people in the 1970s still had TV, radio, records, etc. Compare a home from 1925 to two generations before that, and there you'll see a whole lot more changed. Electricity is technology. Running water is technology. Municipal sewage is technology. Telephony is technology. Cheap aluminum is technology. Gasoline is technology. Weather forecasting is technology. The vertical filing system is technology. A card catalog is technology. Punched cards is technology. You had access to a lot of technology when you were young. Why do you dismiss it so?
  - 2y ago

uniqueuid 2y ago

Sociological theory says yes, the world is a lot more (=superlinearly) complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_modernization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_modernization

ranit 2y ago
The changes in society are accelerating and thus people cannot adapt fast enough. The society doesn’t necessarily become more complex.
maccard 2y ago
That is quite the Wikipedia article. It’s not often that I diss content, but if there was ever a summary of a topic written that tried to sound like it was a novel idea by labelling everything under the sun, this is it. Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand it, but honestly after 4 tries I still don’t get what the point is. Also, the topic of “reflexive” came about in the early to mid 20th century, so for many people here, our parents have always existed in this reflexive modern. That doesn’t mean things have gotten more complex in the last generation
- uniqueuid 2y ago
  Haha sorry, I understand that reaction to quite a lot of sociological theory. Personally I find this the easiest simple mental model for reflexive modernity: "Modernity linearly accelerated change. Reflexive modernity loops back on itself and accelerates the acceleration". So a bit of "singularity is near". The whole theory itself has quite a bit more baggage, but again I agree, the wikipedia article does not help at all. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89201-2 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89201-2
  - maccard 2y ago
    Honestly the Wikipedia article reads like it was written by someone who doesn’t understand the topic. The linked page to “reflexive” is much better, FWIW.
dullcrisp 2y ago
I’m not seeing an asymptotic lower bound on the growth of societal complexity in this Wikipedia article.
_Algernon_ 2y ago
This article is basically a showcase of why one shouldn't take sociology seriously. Thin ideological concepts packaged in a veneer of scientific sounding terminology, performed as an exercise to basically only allow the ideological in-group to "understand" it. The entire field seems like an elaborate suppression technique against the ideological outgroup (and apparently quite a successful one at that. Meanwhile sociology was hardest hit by the replication crisis and I see no sign that they have done anything to improve replicability of their "research"
- uniqueuid 2y ago
  Sorry but I don't think that's right. Do you have some sources for Sociology being hit harder than, say, Psychology, in the replication crisis? I personally don't even know of a many labs replication attempt from them (Sociology). So we probably don't know. That said, Sociology is the attempt to explain the most complex thing in the universe (collective behavior arising out of sentient individuals), so if you think there's a better way, I'd be extremely excited :)
pkkm 2y ago
I'm not seeing any empirical data in the article.

ajb 2y ago

That depends how you count. If you think of a generation as 20 years then that's the 80's which were fairly complex. If you think of it in terms of 'my grandparents life', well in many cases that was a lot simpler. Mine were born in the 1890's/1900s

eesmith 2y ago
The Economist article compares young adults now from those of two generations previous to the young adults of now. I'm using 1970s - 25 years per generation. The 1890s were a tumultuous time. You now had cities with a nightlife, because the arc light and other new technologies meant you no longer depended on candles. Photography and telegraphy was now decades old - by the 1880s news could travel around the world within hours. This fueled the presses, powered by Linotype machines that could churn out pages with ease. Telephony was now available in homes. The first X-ray was 1895. Hollerith's tabulating machine completed the 1890 census in only six years - two years less than the 1880 census - and transformed information processing. Astronomy was making exciting new discovery, polar explorers were getting closer to the poles. Steam engines were getting ever more powerful. The Turbinia - the first turbine-powered steamship, 1894 - upset old ideas on ship power. The chemical industry, with Germans in the lead, created amazing new products. Bayer produced Aspirin in the late 1890, and the new synthetic colors transformed the Victorian era. The 1890's/1900s were not a lot simpler.

emmelaich 2y ago

I'm sure it is more complex, but on the other hand you can cruise along and ignore the complexity that you could not hitherto.

nthingtohide 2y ago
It is difficult to be simple in a complex society. You can be simpleton though.

af3d 2y ago

Relatively speaking, perhaps, but things really have progressed by several orders of magnitude. When I was young we had access to very little "technology". (Maybe that's why people tended to be somewhat more down-to-earth?) I could change a tire by the age of ten, not to mention being fairly well-versed in a number of subjects. And I was certainly not the exception. Any given person was bound to be proficient at *something*. Younger folks these days however (on average) don't seem to think very deeply about things (probably too many distractions?) and as a result they can be surprisingly ignorant across the spectrum. Not all of them, of course, just an alarmingly high percentage....

eesmith 2y ago
I'm old enough that grocery stores had tube testers in them. Vacuum tubes are technology. So are canned goods, and milled flour, and white sugar, and refrigeration. My grandfather's shop included a lathe and welding torch. He and my dad swapped out the engine to a car in my Dad's carport. That's technology - the car, the tools to fix it, and parts supply system to make it possible. My mother had an automatic sewing machine which she used to make clothes. Sewing machines, motorized sewing machines, the looms to make the cloth, the machines to process the cotton - all technology. We had several hams in the neighborhood, and CB radios were a craze. That's technology. We got the city newspaper, which was possible from centuries of technological development - the printing press, ink and paper production, typesetting machines, distribution, vending machines. Most homes had a particle accelerator in them to watch TV. That's certainly technology. Compare a home now to one made two generations ago, and little has changed - assuming you are lucky enough to avoid the inherent death cycle of products tied to a smartphone. You've got easier access to shows and music, but people in the 1970s still had TV, radio, records, etc. Compare a home from 1925 to two generations before that, and there you'll see a whole lot more changed. Electricity is technology. Running water is technology. Municipal sewage is technology. Telephony is technology. Cheap aluminum is technology. Gasoline is technology. Weather forecasting is technology. The vertical filing system is technology. A card catalog is technology. Punched cards is technology. You had access to a lot of technology when you were young. Why do you dismiss it so?
- 2y ago