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Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
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So here I am at 0815 EST upstairs in my NN hotel room working on the Top Comments.
All of you wondered WHY did he VOLUNTEER for this on his vacation?
Because I am on a mission.
You see, I'm on FIRE.
Let's get the music trailer out of the way first...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The real story is a few weeks ago I applied for a spot on the inaugural Netroots Nation Ignite program - and I got a spot!
For those who might not know, Ignite is a five minute speed lecture on any topic you want. Their motto is "Enlighten us, but make it quick."
I've been fired up about the opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics. The challenge has been making it happen in 20 slides ... and five minutes.
And I'm not widely known for my brevity. I do try.
So... what I've done as a service to all you folks who can't attend the Ignite show (because of not being here or, ahem, being drafted by yours truly to be on the defending champion MinnesONoz Pub Quiz team in my stead) and as needful practice...
I'm posting the slides via youtube and a draft of my commentary that, by Friday night, I hope to have nailed down.
Note: I added an original music track but it's old stuff so you can just turn down the volume for this exercise.
So... deep breath... let me know what you think (notes follow in slide order).
An Economic (Future) History of Inspiration
1. The first technologies were simple isolated innovations - better sticks and stones, if you will. Like the new jewelry and, er, musical instrument our two friends here have discovered.
And all kidding aside, we might never have gotten past advanced sticks and stones unless we discovered something revolutionary…
2. … how to talk and share. Communication and cooperation enabled the first societies to combine knowledge in new ways – when they worked, they could be used and taught to more people. New generations and trade groups alike. Discoveries went from being in parallel to being more in series.
3. What does technology need to proceed? The basics are: sufficient resources, a population of learners, knowledge to share with the peeps, and time to organize all of the above for creative and experimental activities. In short: Resourceful People Know Time
4. I am out to explain why the pace of change CHANGES. To do that effectively, I need to explain why progress was so glacial until the sudden surge over the last three centuries… and then suddenly started slowing down. That’s not easy because no one had compiled the data needed to ask such questions.
5. Sources - I tried chronologies and lists – they weren’t helpful. Wikipedia had data in historical articles to describe about 500 tech threads. Then I gathered 310 speculative technologies from various futurist and sci fi sources. That was just the first step.
6. I needed a model to fit all the pieces together, so I pulled up an MBA concept – the “Product Life Cycle”. My premise was that, whatever the concept at hand, there was always a standard pattern of inspiration, testing, push to market, push to productivity and eventual senescence.
7. Example - Social Web Media. From humble beginnings we’ve seen a progression that’s culminated in Facebook. Anyway, this is a mature space now, like first-generation search engines. And now both technologies are about to be replaced by newer iterations.
8. Technologies build on technologies. New innovations build on the old and these stages of iterative improvement tend to start up just as the precursor tech matures. In case of Social Media, the next big thing is almost certainly already in development now.
9. A historical example is bronze, which started out as an alloy of copper and arsenic. Then along came tin bronze, which proliferated into a number of advanced varieties - from bell metal (around for at least 3000 years) to more recent gunmetal.
10. Now, progress is not just linear. Cross Pollination = Breakthroughs. Did you know that radar is a failed ‘death ray’ concept? But it opened up the mechanics to pursue other things – for starters, the microwave oven and, indirectly, the development of first the maser and then the laser: an actual “death ray”!
11. Here’s a chart of Population and GWP growth over time. We see very little wealth relative to population in most of this chart. Yet by the late 1600s GDP accelerates upward and by the 1800s it is practically a singularity event. What happened?
12. Let’s look in more detail at Wealth, Population and Emerging Techs. Generally, from 1840- 1990, growth in Emergent Techs faster than Population. But as of about 1990, new techs are emerging slower than population growth – and the slowdown started sooner. What’s up?
13. Let’s Work This Out with RPKT. Resources – we’re hitting real limits – not just oil but water! Population growth IS ending, be it planned or unplanned. Knowledge – we’re not sharing it and some of us are rejecting it. Time – we risk running out of it.
14. When in doubt, go Greek or go home. Aristotle’s views on arête was about maximizing ‘excellence’ (or more generally, ‘the good life’) for the few on the servitude of the many. That pattern of existence is for a world of perpetual poverty. Are we going back to it?
15. My answer is, when you extend existing tech trends – nothing exotic, nothing unexpected, the answer is no. the “Stasis horse” has left the barn. Technological progress of some kind will continue but on a reduced ‘progress budget’, set by RPKT boundaries that MAY be dropping.
16. Ok, some good news – we’re stocked up on ideas we’ve yet to develop. 230 of the 502 historical tech threads arose in the 20th century. Altogether 81 of them are still works in progress… dark energy, quantum computers… cloud computing. All we have to do is not despair.
17. Yet we DO despair. We fear the future in a way not seen since the Cold War, perhaps since the Great Depression drove many into the embrace of totalitarianism. The ancient breakthroughs of communication and sharing seem beyond us despite our powers. War may be on the move.
18. And in some lands war is already on the move or threatens to do so – water is used not just for human consumption but for industry. It is not just life it is wealth and power. And people fight for such things. Look at this map from the 1930s…then circa 2010… where were/are the wars?
19. Yet we DO Have A Choice. If our ‘progress budget’ is tight, spend it on positive ends. If you research rejuvenation serum and limb regeneration you can’t necessarily invest so much in new improved bombs and land mines. It might save life and limb, literally.
20. To conclude - there are always possibilities. We’re a long way from sticks and stones and we covered half that trek in the last century. Maybe a slowdown is what we need – to take stock of past choices and make more focused positive choices going forward. Then we might buy ourselves the time we need to get you that flying car.
TOP COMMENTS
June 6, 2012
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
from Milton333
I'm nominating this comment from matching mole in [Joan's McCarter's] diary on Rick Scott's illegal voter purge. Excellent work on reasoning out the miniscule scale of the supposed problem, puts this into perspective nicely.
from RhymesWithUrple
Tonight's diary from chaunceydevega was truly amazing. And early in the comment threads - chimpy responded to chicago minx on a question I'm pretty sure we've all heard.
Take note y'all -- This is something everyone should write down (though I hope I'll never need to - it was just that great). It doesn't matter who you're talking to - your family, friends, neighbors and definitely for your November GOTV (door to door walks and calls).
It doesn't get any better than this -- Hear, hear chimpy!!!
Thanks for everything you do (y'all!) and have a great night!
Likewise, Urple :)
from ozsea1
My suggestion... [Onomastic's FINE channeling of Tolkein in Say Who Else Doesn't Think We Lost...
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TOP PHOTOS
June 5, 2012
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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