The New Epoch We Live In

Feb 18, 2010 21:49

We are past the threshold. Our grandparents and great-grandparents were the pioneers. There was no precise date, it happened slowly by our modern standards, although in the history of the universe, it was the blink of an eye. Everything has changed, but only a few realize it, because to us, it has been the same our entire lives. It's just that our lives are so short, that we simply can't comprehend the forces that shape existence which require millennia to function. It took billions of years to form the stars in the sky; billions of years for God to weave together life from nothingness; billions of years for humans to form from that weave of creation. But in the blink of 200 years, mankind has become something unrecognizable from what we were. Not our physical forms, but our society, our technology and our way of life.

Those of you reading this have probably read my essay on why be optimistic, but I realize now that what I was trying to say wasn't optimism, it's that society has become something different. I sent my essay to a missionary's daughter I met in Oxford, and the response I got was to the effect that people aren't really going to be better people with all this stuff, and there is still unkindness, etc. I realized I wasn't trying to say that people have become better people, they've become different entirely. Our society is as different from the 1700s as hunter gatherers were from them, whose society is in turn closer to the society of chimpanzees than it is to our society. Our form hasn't changed too much, although our teeth have gotten smaller and we're getting smarter. If a hunter-gatherer showed up in our society today, it would be like showing up to a termite nest and they were building a rocket to the moon.

In 1965, Moore noticed that processing power doubled every 2 years. His law isn't limited to computers; it applies to nearly everything in modern human society: speed of travel, efficiency of lighting, battery capacity and economic growth. Economic Growth has continued for nearly a century at around 2% in the rich world. That means it doubles every 35 years. At this rate, we'll be 8 times richer in 100 years, 64 times richer in 200 years and 512 times richer in 300 years. 300 years might seem like a long time, but in terms of human history, America is only 300 years old. The Roman Empire lasted a thousand. 300 years ago, the average income in America and Europe was around $300 a year. Today, it is around $50,000, an increase of around 180 times. Even if economic growth in the next 300 years slows down (from last century's growth) to match the growth rate of the last 300 years, the average income will be $10,000,000 per year. People really don't get what exponential growth means. It means that when the numbers get big, the slope gets bigger. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the average person in 100 years will have a better lifestyle than someone who makes a million dollars a year today now enjoys. The average person today enjoys a better lifestyle than all but the very richest living 100 years ago. They have access to the internet, lasik eye surgery, intercontinental flight, antibiotics, 60 inch plasma televisions, safer and better tasting food, a wider variety of arts to enjoy, etc etc. In fact, the only stuff that the extremely rich of the past had better than today's middle class are things that don't really change much over time: they owned more land and had more servants. When you consider that most of the things the servants did - wash clothes and dishes, mow the lawn, etc can now be done by machines, really the only way that Andrew Carnegie or John Rockefeller were better off was land. All because of exponential growth.

Technology has been increasing exponentially as well. The reason for this is quite simple: more people spend more time "doing science". There are over 6 billion people today. There are far more college educated people, and only 2% of our population is farmers. More people are scientists or professors than grow the food we need to survive. (I looked it up on the census bureau once, but don't have the citation.) The scientists who are alive today are also more effective than scientists in years past. They can communicate with others around the globe, they have more resources to do experiments, they are able to stand on the shoulders of more giants, they are well paid by historical standards, etc. Our society respects scientists. Unlike years past, they will not be prosecuted for telling the truth. No one is burned at the stake for writing a paper in a scientific journal. There are still problems with peer review being biased, etc but in all honesty, you can get the truth out, no matter how controversial in our society. Science works because it constantly tests ideas and throws out what doesn't work and reinforces what does. Science is an evolutionary system for memes. Variation is provided by new ideas; selection is provided by experimentation and inheritance is provided by teaching.

Being an economist, I have to plug liberal democracy and market capitalism as additional driving forces. Both systems use competition to promote what works and get rid of what doesn't work. Politicians who pursue unpopular and ineffective policies are eventually voted out of office (although not quickly enough for some). Having multiple states allows the U.S. to experiment as see what works while still remaining under a solid basic set of rules. As long as people are free to travel, they can leave areas with ineffective rules and enter areas with better rules. People have both exit (you can leave stuff you don't like) and voice (you can change the system to something you like better). Market capitalism also has this function. Companies that people do not like can be boycotted, in the exact same way that politicians can be voted out. Those who do not satisfy the needs of the consumer lose money and those that do are profitable. The inefficient are continually replaced by the efficient. Entrepreneurs are continually experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. Not only is our society discovering things at a rapid pace, we are always discovering rules that allow us to discover other things at a rapid pace. In other words, we're continually discovering how to discover better. I eagerly await what will come next in the epic tale of humanity. Truly, these are interesting times.

Another related interesting article:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/08/progression_of.php
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