I think you’re missing one life extension semi-dystopia: anxious grinding forever at shifting, precarious jobs. The longer you live the more likely you are to hit an event that wipes out your savings (fraud, medical bankruptcy, etc). With a much longer life to save for, how do you know when you have enough to step back from the workforce, even for a time?
We probably are on the cusp of a blooming in tech & science which will solve some big problems, only to be replaced by even bigger problems. And that’s a good thing! There is no utopia, just bigger and better problems to solve.
David Deutsch, inventor of the quantum computer, has written some good books about this.
It seems to me that "we get the technology we deserve" or something to that effect is the right way to think about it. Our cultural preoccupations determine which technological paths we linger on and how we use our already extant technologies. China's treasure ships didn't result in a world-straddling Confucian empire. In the hands of the Portuguese and Spanish however...
What confuses me most about the above graph is the assumption of unabated exponential growth indefinitely. No physical system ever displays unabated exponential growth, why should technology? This is the issue with the twats who preach the Gospel of the Singularity: :only perhaps the size of the universe with a positive cosmoloigcal constant will grow exponentially indefinitely. Otherwise conservation laws prohibit this. But de Sitter universes are not a very useful counterexample.
This is not to say we have hit our physical limits in technological improvement in all areas, far be it. But one day, that may happen. It is just physics: if technology, at the end of the day, is just the extraction of energy from the environment for other controlled purposeful ends (making babies, growing more food, creating systems for the easy distribution of ideas, goods, and people), then there will be limits to what we can do. No matter how clever the engineer, an engine will never be more efficient at stealing energy between two equilibria than Carnot's. There are fun cheats, like DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.030602 (arXiv:1308.5935), but not of the sort that powers civilizations.
Perhaps this time science can unleash a new period of enhanced productivity, until we begin to hit the physical limits of that paradigm. But there is no guarantee that this will happen indefinitely, and in fact every reason not to expect it. I don't think we are there yet, it remains to be seen the extent to which machine leaning will enhance productivity, for instance. (In fact, I think it is telling that we now look to machines to replace our meat bag brains in order to extract great efficiencies. That is why industry is all in on ML.)
But two things I would say are certain: technological paradigms have a physical upper limit in productivity, and there will be a physical upper limit to the number of paradigms. It took 500 years for Europe to double in population during the middle ages, with long periods of stagnation, and life expectancy didn't really change at all, and the basic technological paradigms were not all that different than the Romans.
And sure, changing the politics, inventing science, or mixing up the religious scene of Europe may have added or subtracted a bit of the population here and there thru the Renaissance. But the real inflection point was the steam engine with a working governor. At that symbolic point, population and life expectancy exploded. .
But now we are hitting the point where the physical limits of that paradigm are becoming manifest. There are technologies that could break us out. But these technologies are also trying to control and extract efficiencies from systems whose complexity and size are hitherto only dreamt of.
But I guess I circle back to my original point: no physical system has indefinite exponential growth, because of conservation laws.
As an aside, I find it interesting though that the author, an intellectual on matters of economics, religion, and society, seems (but correct me if I am wrong) to see technological progress as primarily a social or economic problem (regulations! monopolies! complacent entertainment!) rather than one of physics or mathematics (unless P=NP, some problems will just be hard, and not even quantum computing magic will help). And certainly this is a critical part of it, even may be the most important one at the moment.
Would be useful to have the total factor productivity chart back to, say, 1910, on a semilogarithmic plot. Before about 1920 is before the main productivity revolution in farming then manufacturing. The heart of it is 1920 to 1950, the fastest productivity growth ever seen. 1950 to 1975 was also good, although not as dramatic. Since 1975, the growth has been halting, some good periods, much sluggishness. Of course, even this slower growth is amazing by historical standards. But we have a notion in our heads that 1920 to 1950 should be the norm, all the time. And our politicians since the 1970s have been making promises as if that growth would last forever.
"If the US pulls out of Saudi Arabia, war between the Saudis and the Iranians becomes likely. Which means oil shipments to Asia get disrupted. Which means global chaos."
I am very suspicious of any reasoning that proposes the US is in the Middle East to prevent war with Iran. War is prevented by making peace, not by overwhelming force deployed for instant attack. Even with the USSR, we had détente when warfare was not a promising alternative, from the end of Vietnam to Reagan's Star Wars bonanza of military spending and rearmament.
"This could be a spur to dynamism" OR it could be the off ramp to massive rearmament as a spending cure for the economy and payoff of that industry and its overwhelming political donors.
Great post. I'm optimistic that we'll finally see the technological era spill into real world applications, but share your fear of it being wasted by a culture and society adrift in vacuousness.
It is popular to assign broad societal blame for public fascination with frippery, but the public has people leading it's conversations. If conversation leaders didn't drone on about Dr. Seuss as if it were the the start of fascism it might make a difference. I think they know this but getting people worked up about stupid things works for you if you have a particular kind of demented politics.
I think you’re missing one life extension semi-dystopia: anxious grinding forever at shifting, precarious jobs. The longer you live the more likely you are to hit an event that wipes out your savings (fraud, medical bankruptcy, etc). With a much longer life to save for, how do you know when you have enough to step back from the workforce, even for a time?
We probably are on the cusp of a blooming in tech & science which will solve some big problems, only to be replaced by even bigger problems. And that’s a good thing! There is no utopia, just bigger and better problems to solve.
David Deutsch, inventor of the quantum computer, has written some good books about this.
It seems to me that "we get the technology we deserve" or something to that effect is the right way to think about it. Our cultural preoccupations determine which technological paths we linger on and how we use our already extant technologies. China's treasure ships didn't result in a world-straddling Confucian empire. In the hands of the Portuguese and Spanish however...
What confuses me most about the above graph is the assumption of unabated exponential growth indefinitely. No physical system ever displays unabated exponential growth, why should technology? This is the issue with the twats who preach the Gospel of the Singularity: :only perhaps the size of the universe with a positive cosmoloigcal constant will grow exponentially indefinitely. Otherwise conservation laws prohibit this. But de Sitter universes are not a very useful counterexample.
This is not to say we have hit our physical limits in technological improvement in all areas, far be it. But one day, that may happen. It is just physics: if technology, at the end of the day, is just the extraction of energy from the environment for other controlled purposeful ends (making babies, growing more food, creating systems for the easy distribution of ideas, goods, and people), then there will be limits to what we can do. No matter how clever the engineer, an engine will never be more efficient at stealing energy between two equilibria than Carnot's. There are fun cheats, like DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.030602 (arXiv:1308.5935), but not of the sort that powers civilizations.
Perhaps this time science can unleash a new period of enhanced productivity, until we begin to hit the physical limits of that paradigm. But there is no guarantee that this will happen indefinitely, and in fact every reason not to expect it. I don't think we are there yet, it remains to be seen the extent to which machine leaning will enhance productivity, for instance. (In fact, I think it is telling that we now look to machines to replace our meat bag brains in order to extract great efficiencies. That is why industry is all in on ML.)
But two things I would say are certain: technological paradigms have a physical upper limit in productivity, and there will be a physical upper limit to the number of paradigms. It took 500 years for Europe to double in population during the middle ages, with long periods of stagnation, and life expectancy didn't really change at all, and the basic technological paradigms were not all that different than the Romans.
And sure, changing the politics, inventing science, or mixing up the religious scene of Europe may have added or subtracted a bit of the population here and there thru the Renaissance. But the real inflection point was the steam engine with a working governor. At that symbolic point, population and life expectancy exploded. .
But now we are hitting the point where the physical limits of that paradigm are becoming manifest. There are technologies that could break us out. But these technologies are also trying to control and extract efficiencies from systems whose complexity and size are hitherto only dreamt of.
But I guess I circle back to my original point: no physical system has indefinite exponential growth, because of conservation laws.
As an aside, I find it interesting though that the author, an intellectual on matters of economics, religion, and society, seems (but correct me if I am wrong) to see technological progress as primarily a social or economic problem (regulations! monopolies! complacent entertainment!) rather than one of physics or mathematics (unless P=NP, some problems will just be hard, and not even quantum computing magic will help). And certainly this is a critical part of it, even may be the most important one at the moment.
Would be useful to have the total factor productivity chart back to, say, 1910, on a semilogarithmic plot. Before about 1920 is before the main productivity revolution in farming then manufacturing. The heart of it is 1920 to 1950, the fastest productivity growth ever seen. 1950 to 1975 was also good, although not as dramatic. Since 1975, the growth has been halting, some good periods, much sluggishness. Of course, even this slower growth is amazing by historical standards. But we have a notion in our heads that 1920 to 1950 should be the norm, all the time. And our politicians since the 1970s have been making promises as if that growth would last forever.
"If the US pulls out of Saudi Arabia, war between the Saudis and the Iranians becomes likely. Which means oil shipments to Asia get disrupted. Which means global chaos."
I am very suspicious of any reasoning that proposes the US is in the Middle East to prevent war with Iran. War is prevented by making peace, not by overwhelming force deployed for instant attack. Even with the USSR, we had détente when warfare was not a promising alternative, from the end of Vietnam to Reagan's Star Wars bonanza of military spending and rearmament.
"This could be a spur to dynamism" OR it could be the off ramp to massive rearmament as a spending cure for the economy and payoff of that industry and its overwhelming political donors.
Great post. I'm optimistic that we'll finally see the technological era spill into real world applications, but share your fear of it being wasted by a culture and society adrift in vacuousness.
No mention of https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ ?
It is popular to assign broad societal blame for public fascination with frippery, but the public has people leading it's conversations. If conversation leaders didn't drone on about Dr. Seuss as if it were the the start of fascism it might make a difference. I think they know this but getting people worked up about stupid things works for you if you have a particular kind of demented politics.
Excellent, but looking forward to posts on how "decadence" looks from the perspective of China, India, Africa, etc.