I feel like this analysis do not take into account the true magnitude of computing in respect to language.<p>Long ago we invented writing, so a literal tradition (as opposed to an oral tradition) was possible. But the transition took thousands of years.<p>The transition from the law being what a monarch speaks (the scribes may use writing but what is written is only the law because of who spoke it) to a state governed not by some monarch's speech but by a written document.<p>Walter J. Ong made a career studying the impact of technology on language and culture.<p>Thus, IMHO computing is an evolution of language on the same league as the transition from oral cultures to literal cultures. It's reasonable to expect this transformation to take hundreds of years (at least). And so this analysis is incomplete; it does not take into account the magnitude of this transition.
This still feels to "tech exogenous to the economy" for me. Society changed faster when we had fuller employment, as automation gets more investment when workers are scares, expensive, and unruly. Crazy population growth in the 19th century would prop up aggregate demand even when there wasn't that much individual consumption going on (by modern standards).<p>To avoid stagnation, I see 3 options:<p>- Raise labor costs by collective decision<p>- Reduce working hours per person by collective decision<p>- Do more fiscal policy to boost demand (and avoid cooking ourselves)<p>Ideally, some of each. Otherwise, no one will need us programmers: labor is too damn cheap, especially once the climate refuges start pouring in.
I know people like to force things into patterns, and this seems like one of those cases.<p>The information revolution started with the invention of paper in China, combined with movable type, and the screw press. Gutenberg is one key figure in this story, but not the only one, as it is still ongoing.<p>The rapid spread and democratization of publishing resulted in books such as Gregorius Agricola's "De Re Metallica", one of the first practical handbooks on the mining, refining, and crafting of metals.<p>This along with the freedom of inquiry that resulted from the fracturing of the Holy Roman Empire, and the financial innovations from the Dutch and others, led to a new entrepreneurial spirit.<p>The threads from this point are diverse, and can be woven into an almost infinite number of tapestries, of course Jacquard's idea to weave using data stored on a chain of linked cards would go on to be another theme.<p>Those cards became the basis of Hollerith cards, and the true industrialized information explosion of the 1890s.<p>... and you see how it keeps going, and going... it's all one revolution, the information revolution ... and we're nowhere near done yet.
Good read. I think this age's "turning point" is going to last quite a while, many decades probably. Trust in governments is at an all-time low; they no longer work for the people and for the betterment of society anymore, rather they are actively against the people. And the people have little to no recourse. Something has to change with governance before the technology is of benefit to society. Or people need to have a mass awakening with how technology is being actively used to erode our society. Not hopeful about either.
that reminds me of "Summa technologiae" by Stanislaw Lem, and how he juxtaposes the evolutions: biological, technological, social... How all grows and grows and then dies out, giving way to smaller-and-mobiler forms (lizards...dinosaurs -> mammals; baloons...dirigibles -> airplanes)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae</a>
and what happens when "the singularity" spawns tech so fast that a new tech curve begins before a previous one achieves maturity? Pile curves on top of curves and different shapes will appear.<p>When we start seeing "heirloom" laptops maybe, but right now the tech curves are defined by disposable, generational tech items.
The next technological revolution will be biotech. The mRNA vaccines are the vanguard of that. The key technology is now in place - being able to design a gene letter by letter, and inserting that into the genome.<p>We don't know how that will play out, just like we didn't know how the microprocessor would play out (scifi fell flat on its face there). But it will change everything.
> “capitalism really only becomes legitimate when the greed of some is for the benefit of the many.”<p>> “Crypto, though, is about the introduction of scarcity; its payoff is decentralization, at the cost, at least for now, of convenience and speed.”<p>ergo, crypto is,<p>- decentralizing the “greed of some” away from centralized tech companies.<p>- decentralizing the “benefits to many” away from centralized governments.<p>if this is true, and this will lead the vanguard of the next revolution, then his closing point is that crypto is still in its installation period. and a turning point in ~10 years, and a widespread deployment in ~20 (if we follow the mac and mosaic timelines and shorten them by a bit).<p>society in 20y has the potential to have ridiculously different distributions of wealth than we can imagine!