lopp on Nostr: It's easy to miss the speed at which civilization is accelerating major technological ...
It's easy to miss the speed at which civilization is accelerating major technological advancements.
There have been roughly eight major turning points in human history. Most of them didn't involve any fundamentally new idea - they just used the advancements going on in the background to make a new thing work. And since those advancements built upon each other, so too were we able to make more and more small advancements at faster rates.
The first was language, around 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. Language allowed humans to begin preserving knowledge from generation to generation, meaning that each generation didn't have to relearn everything. Some other animals can pass on a few things - other primates teach their children how to use tools, for example - but not with the speed or detail allowed by human language.
The second was agriculture, around 10,000 years ago. Before the rise of agriculture, humans spent most of their time just getting enough food to live. After it, you could spare enough resources to have people start to become experts in things. One person could become an expert at computing things, another could become an expert tailor, and so on. Those specialists pushed the boundaries of their fields forward and shared what they learned through language.
The third was writing, around 5,500 years ago. Writing was a *huge* step forward. Now you could pass information on without having to have an expert sit down and tell you. You could keep track of things for generations, and find patterns in what you kept track of. For example, a lot of early mathematics was worked out to predict celestial events like eclipses, which you could only do if you had reliable records of when eclipses had occurred in the past.
The fourth was the printing press, around 600 years ago. This kicked writing into high gear and made information orders of magnitude more available (the printing press could produce copies of text around 100x faster than previous printing methods).
The fifth was the Scientific Method, around 400 years ago. While earlier scientists had existed, the scientific method turns out to be a much more effective way to test ideas than most previous frameworks, which tended to *start* with logic and try to *explain* observations, rather than *observing* observations and trying to design theories that fit them.
The sixth was the factory and mass production, around 150 years ago, which was made possible by massive advances in chemistry, engineering, and materials science enabled by the scientific method. This made the tools for experiments, data collection, and observation far more available, not just things that could be afforded by a few very wealthy researchers (or those funded by wealthy benefactors.) Automation wasn't new, but advancements in things like metallurgy, steam power, and electricity made automation *work* in a way the machines of the ancient world didn't.
The seventh was electronics, which was spread throughout the 20th century. The rise of electronic machinery allowed a whole new range of observations and a new level of precision. Again, this was only possible because factories permitted the mass-production of electronic components and because materials-science had advanced to the point that things like the transistor - a key component of all modern electronics that makes logical circuits possible - could be produced.
And the eighth major leap forward was networking, currently in the form of the Internet. The idea of a network, of course, was not new. Networks of information date back to the ancient world. But advancements in speed and precision via electronics, and the creation of vast networks of infrastructure through mass production, made it possible to instantly send vast amounts of information around the world on demand.
In general, it's best not to think of leaps in terms of "one big idea." Big ideas are enabled by a million small advancements, and many big ideas have been conceived numerous times before someone turns the big idea into a working thing. The pace of progress gets set by those small advancements, not by how many big ideas are thought up.
We stand upon the shoulders of giants who stood upon the shoulders of those whose names are lost to history. Will the next major turning point be AI? It's a bit early to say for sure, but it's certainly promising...
There have been roughly eight major turning points in human history. Most of them didn't involve any fundamentally new idea - they just used the advancements going on in the background to make a new thing work. And since those advancements built upon each other, so too were we able to make more and more small advancements at faster rates.
The first was language, around 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. Language allowed humans to begin preserving knowledge from generation to generation, meaning that each generation didn't have to relearn everything. Some other animals can pass on a few things - other primates teach their children how to use tools, for example - but not with the speed or detail allowed by human language.
The second was agriculture, around 10,000 years ago. Before the rise of agriculture, humans spent most of their time just getting enough food to live. After it, you could spare enough resources to have people start to become experts in things. One person could become an expert at computing things, another could become an expert tailor, and so on. Those specialists pushed the boundaries of their fields forward and shared what they learned through language.
The third was writing, around 5,500 years ago. Writing was a *huge* step forward. Now you could pass information on without having to have an expert sit down and tell you. You could keep track of things for generations, and find patterns in what you kept track of. For example, a lot of early mathematics was worked out to predict celestial events like eclipses, which you could only do if you had reliable records of when eclipses had occurred in the past.
The fourth was the printing press, around 600 years ago. This kicked writing into high gear and made information orders of magnitude more available (the printing press could produce copies of text around 100x faster than previous printing methods).
The fifth was the Scientific Method, around 400 years ago. While earlier scientists had existed, the scientific method turns out to be a much more effective way to test ideas than most previous frameworks, which tended to *start* with logic and try to *explain* observations, rather than *observing* observations and trying to design theories that fit them.
The sixth was the factory and mass production, around 150 years ago, which was made possible by massive advances in chemistry, engineering, and materials science enabled by the scientific method. This made the tools for experiments, data collection, and observation far more available, not just things that could be afforded by a few very wealthy researchers (or those funded by wealthy benefactors.) Automation wasn't new, but advancements in things like metallurgy, steam power, and electricity made automation *work* in a way the machines of the ancient world didn't.
The seventh was electronics, which was spread throughout the 20th century. The rise of electronic machinery allowed a whole new range of observations and a new level of precision. Again, this was only possible because factories permitted the mass-production of electronic components and because materials-science had advanced to the point that things like the transistor - a key component of all modern electronics that makes logical circuits possible - could be produced.
And the eighth major leap forward was networking, currently in the form of the Internet. The idea of a network, of course, was not new. Networks of information date back to the ancient world. But advancements in speed and precision via electronics, and the creation of vast networks of infrastructure through mass production, made it possible to instantly send vast amounts of information around the world on demand.
In general, it's best not to think of leaps in terms of "one big idea." Big ideas are enabled by a million small advancements, and many big ideas have been conceived numerous times before someone turns the big idea into a working thing. The pace of progress gets set by those small advancements, not by how many big ideas are thought up.
We stand upon the shoulders of giants who stood upon the shoulders of those whose names are lost to history. Will the next major turning point be AI? It's a bit early to say for sure, but it's certainly promising...