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I was reading Why Nations Fail, recently, and came across a similar sentiment: > While the Egyptians were building the great pyramids of Giza around 2500 BC, t

by dvdhsu 12y ago

I was reading Why Nations Fail, recently, and came across a similar sentiment: > While the Egyptians were building the great pyramids of Giza around 2500 BC, the English constructed their most famous ancient monument, the stone circle at Stonehenge. Not bad by English standards, but not even large enough to have housed one of the ceremonial boats buried at the foot of King Khufu’s pyramid. England continued to lag behind and to borrow from the Middle East and the rest of Europe up to and including the Roman period. So, the Great Pyramid of Giza: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza, versus Stonehenge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge. Now it's completely different. The Middle East (largely), is far behind western civilization. What's happened since then? It's hard to comprehend how quickly nations and cultures can fall, as well how quickly they can rise. The y-intercept generally doesn't matter. The slope does. This reminds me of pg's Black Swan Farming: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html. Black swans (e.g. Gutenburg's printing press) are the driving force for advancement in society. Since black swans beget more black swans (since one black swan in a certain society -> society supporting more of them), the effect is cumulative, and societies can rise and fall quickly. What does that mean today? Will Africa have their own black swans? Will South America?

GuiA 12y ago
You can only connect the dots looking backward. How do we know that our society won't be viewed 500 years from now the same way we view the Roman empire or Egyptian kingdom?
- Solarsail 12y ago
  Would that be a bad thing? Unless you're referring to the current 'golden age' ending, wouldn't it be a good thing if modern day achievements are still that well regarded 5 centuries from now? (I suppose you could say that the current phase of western civilization falling, eventually, would be a bad thing. But isn't it inevitable that any single civilization will end, eventually?)
- otakucode 12y ago
  I don't think it's entirely true that you can only connect the dots looking backward... certainly it is an order of magnitude more difficult to be objective about ones own time, but it can be done if approached correctly. For instance, we can look back at the past and realize that choices were made in certain situations that were flat out in opposition to reality, and in such a way that the people of the time KNEW (or had the tools to know) that it was the wrong choice. Looking at present society through this kind of lens, ignoring social convention and analyzing things objectively, is, I think, helpful. For instance, it would not surprise me if within 100 years our current culture is looked down upon for being extremely oppressive and prejudiced against adolescents, harming them tremendously by denigrating them during a very formative period of their lives. It follows the pattern of every form of prejudice we have overthrown in the past. We view ourselves as superior, construct very poor scientific arguments for that superiority, and go about enacting great oppression, controlling the group 'for their own good' while expecting the worst of them (humans react poorly to oppression, so this expectation will be met). Similarly, it is very likely that we will find many of the general ideas we have about sexuality will be shown to be very destructive and unhealthy. Our research already shows that increasing sexual activity by any amount results in real measurable health benefits. And history can show us that we exist in the most non-sexually-active period in human history. We'll certainly correct that at some point, history pretty much guarantees it. Wherever our society is a freakish unique outlier on something as basic as that, I think it's safe to expect it to be shown to be folly later.

by dvdhsu 12y ago

GuiA 12y ago

You can only connect the dots looking backward. How do we know that our society won't be viewed 500 years from now the same way we view the Roman empire or Egyptian kingdom?

Solarsail 12y ago
Would that be a bad thing? Unless you're referring to the current 'golden age' ending, wouldn't it be a good thing if modern day achievements are still that well regarded 5 centuries from now? (I suppose you could say that the current phase of western civilization falling, eventually, would be a bad thing. But isn't it inevitable that any single civilization will end, eventually?)
otakucode 12y ago
I don't think it's entirely true that you can only connect the dots looking backward... certainly it is an order of magnitude more difficult to be objective about ones own time, but it can be done if approached correctly. For instance, we can look back at the past and realize that choices were made in certain situations that were flat out in opposition to reality, and in such a way that the people of the time KNEW (or had the tools to know) that it was the wrong choice. Looking at present society through this kind of lens, ignoring social convention and analyzing things objectively, is, I think, helpful. For instance, it would not surprise me if within 100 years our current culture is looked down upon for being extremely oppressive and prejudiced against adolescents, harming them tremendously by denigrating them during a very formative period of their lives. It follows the pattern of every form of prejudice we have overthrown in the past. We view ourselves as superior, construct very poor scientific arguments for that superiority, and go about enacting great oppression, controlling the group 'for their own good' while expecting the worst of them (humans react poorly to oppression, so this expectation will be met). Similarly, it is very likely that we will find many of the general ideas we have about sexuality will be shown to be very destructive and unhealthy. Our research already shows that increasing sexual activity by any amount results in real measurable health benefits. And history can show us that we exist in the most non-sexually-active period in human history. We'll certainly correct that at some point, history pretty much guarantees it. Wherever our society is a freakish unique outlier on something as basic as that, I think it's safe to expect it to be shown to be folly later.