The central focus of this article was the differential
cross-cultural development of technology.
It is interesting that today the gap between technological advancements
of different cultures is as wide as it is.
Now pretty much everywhere we look, there are people talking on their
smart phones. The fact is that six
months from now, the smart phones we have now will be outdated and seem
undesirable. In other parts of the
world, however, there are still several cultures and communities who lack the most
basic developments such as running water and electricity. Six months from now, there will likely be
little change if any within these cultural communities. Why is it that technological development
takes off exponentially in some cultures, yet remains relatively stagnant in
others? The article touched on several
possible rationales for this trend. Several
factors influence innovative advancement of cultures. The differential relative economic advantage,
combined with differential social value and economic prestige between cultures
can definitely have an effect on a culture’s willingness to adopt new
innovations.
That being said, this article really got me to start
thinking about what remarkable progressions our society has made in the last
century or so. The Wright Brothers did
not make their first flight until 1903.
The first affordable automobile did not hit the market until 1908. Yet by 1969, we had a man walking on the
moon. The key to this continual
progression is the fact that one tool can be developed and then used to further
develop more advanced tools and technologies. As the tools we have available
become more and more complex, the potential things that we can develop using
these tools will inevitably become more and more complex themselves. The article
touched on this idea. James Watt, for
example, did not wake up one morning and invent the steam engine. He actually used Thomas Newcomen’s steam
engine as a model, and further developed and expanded on the ideas Newcomen
already had in place. It is interesting
to consider what will come of our future should these technological
advancements continue at the exponential rate they have been progressing over
the last several years. With each technological advancement we increase
our human ability to understand and experience the world around us. Technology continues to push the limits of
what we can do as humans. Will we ever
get to a point where further technological advancements will not be humanly
possible? Or will these technological
advancements continue to progress, giving humanity power over the unimaginable? Five hundred years from now, will people be laughing at the technologies we find to be innovative today?
I also found "Necessity's Mother" very insightful in regard to the process of invention in varying cultures and geographic locations. Although necessity is thought of as the mother of invention, innovation often cultivates from curiosity, which can also fuel the desire to invent. As discussed in this chapter innovation is often borrowed from other societies. Similarly most inventors are inspired by a predecessor. Because of this, it was not surprising to read that James Watts is credited for inventing the steam engine despite having modeled Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine. History tends to credit those whom perfect an invention by societies standards.
ReplyDeleteDespite exponential growth in technological advancement why do certain societies continue to live in a primitive manner? How is it possible that a digital divide exists and will this gap ever begin to close?
I really agree with the idea that new technologies and materials act as a catalyst for the creation of new inventions. An example of this is the transistor, which is often regarded as the most important invention of the 20th century. Transistors opened the door for circuit boards, which could be easily mass-produced. As a result computers where then mass-produced and sold at an affordable price.
Overall the human race’s unique ability to find inspiration will likely continue to produce advancements in the way we live and understand the world. In a consumer society people are less concerned with how something works and more interested in usability. This introduces the idea of abstraction.
I very much enjoyed the rhetorical nature of your post - especially after hacking through the metaphorical rainforest of hard facts that comprised Diamond's book. Indeed, we/I've always in our generation heard it said that the advancement of technology is increasing exponentially, but nobody ever addressed the points that I perceived to make up the sheer impossibility of that statement; namely, whether there is ever a conceivable limit to the amount of knowledge that can be learned, or if there is a limit to how much the human mind can understand, or (perhaps most pressing) how on earth can our planet with its already limited resources possibly sustain an exponential advancement curve?
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to think that, in the very same way that technology has been gradually increasing exponentially throughout the past, so too will it continue onward to points where - as you postulated - people will find our advancements laughable in the same way that we see the technology of the past... and honestly I'll bet that that's exactly what ends up happening some 500-1000 years down the road. After all, was it not just as "unimaginable" for humans to fly not two centuries ago?
And yet I simply cannot shake the feeling that, of all the limitations I mentioned before, the capacity of the human brain has got to be the most limiting factor in this equation. Granted, our current brains aren't even being used to their full potential, but we are assuming that technology advances exponentially, and, with it, so does knowledge. Except (so far as I know) our initial mental faculties are not. Nobody is born knowing the things we have to learn all through school, and if we learn so very much more fundamental things, we could face whole generations that spend half their lives just learning enough to get by. And obviously it is conceivable that our brain capacity and mental faculties will evolve along with that in order to support such vast amounts of knowledge, but unless one of those evolutionary jumps includes children that know basic algebra upon birth, I cannot but doubt that our brains will be able to keep up with our societal technological advancements.
It’s interesting to consider what advancements we could make and the rate at which the changes could occur. Erin brings up a lot of good questions, namely if we will ever reach a limit with our technological advancements in various fields. At some point, maybe, but I don’t think that will be happening any time soon. The limit of human progress is perceived to be something implausible. But by admitting that something is unattainable, do we not allow the possibility that someday that feat will be accomplished, because we already acknowledge its existence? With this thinking, the limit would then have to be something beyond what we say is impossible. We will never know what that thing just beyond what we can conceive is because the limit is always being pushed back. As soon as we reach the impossible, there is a new impossible and beyond that a new temporary limit. So do we ever really have a limit? I understand there are various limiting factors, but weren’t limiting factors a concern for people 100 years ago, 200 years ago, etc.? I’m sure where we are now would have been beyond their concept of the impossible. Erin’s comment about the exponential growth is also something to consider. Are the “distances” between where we are now and the next big step growing larger? Or is it that we are making jumps at a faster rate? Or is it a combination of both? When it comes to the human ability to be creative, to want to break barriers, to do the impossible, I don’t think we can really quantify or limit it.
ReplyDeleteKeeping along those same lines, as we continue to advance, will we have to rely more and more upon AI for help, simply because we as humans cannot possibly learn and store all that information that is necessary to keep advancing. Will we hit a point where we will have to become part machines just so we can make use of technology that in today's world seems inconceivable? Or, will we hit get to a point where our planet no longer has the resources we need to make anymore advancements causing society to waiver? These are questions we should strongly consider as we begin our march into a new, and much more advance, millennium.
ReplyDeleteThis article really made me sit back and reflect on how just far we have come as a species. Just a mere hundred years ago we were just starting to make use of motorized vehicles, and now we have landed a rover on another planet. Not only did we land that rover there, we used technology to position a satellite we put over mars to watch the mars rover land on the planet. To add an extra topping to a an already giant cake of awesomeness, we landed that rover, the size of mini cooper, inside a crater that we had only ever seen from satellite images. All of that was controlled by a group of scientist in lab something like 225 MILLION kilometers away! I mean just take a second to think about how much math, science, technology, and innovation went into making that possible. When I think about it, I just think that the curiosity landing is just a stepping stone that will eventually lead to use humans inhabiting other plants in other galaxies.
One thing that this excerpt - and these posts - got me thinking about was how our society defines success. Technological inovation that promotes economic growth and progress is successful, most would say. But what about cultural innovations? Religious ones? What do those even look like, and why are they not afforded the same status as technological innovations? Perhaps because their outputs are much less tangible, but all the same: technological advancement should not be the only measuring stick we use when judging how far humanity has come as a spcies, or even how far a certain group of people have come. There are many facets of the word "advanced", and much is in the eye of the beholder. Advanced relative to what? I think that we must be careful when stating whether or not a certain culture or group is more "advanced" than another.
ReplyDeleteI think there are certain aspects to technological innovations that cultural and religious innovations don't have that allow us to consider technological progress as "successful" whereas the other, possibly equally radical innovations, simply lack. Namely, technological advances provide, an often easily measurable, benefit whereas cultural/religious innovations lack a clear metric by which we can determine their value and impact on society. For example, the accidental discovery of penicillin has had a clear and measurable impact on human flourishing in the 20th century. Whereas cultural/religious revolutions such as the rise of counter culture in the 50s and 60s, evolution of jazz music and the Second Vatican Council have much less clear cut means of measuring their "success." That is not to say these revolutions/innovations didn't have an impact. It is merely the case that the impact is difficult to quantify into terms of success or failure.
DeleteI must also agree whole heartedly with your perceptive comment on what human advancement actually means. In particular, i'm drawn to two conceptions of mans role within nature: man has dominion over nature versus man is a part of nature and should seek to live in harmony with it. The former view is fairly traditional to Judea-Christian thought and can be seen in virtually all aspects of the modern technological world. Whereas the later conception arises in Native American views on humanity's place in the world. While the underlaying conception of our ability to dominate the world has yielded many positive benefits to man, it is difficult for us to say that nature has not be adversely affected in a most concerning way. Pollution, resulting in ecological collapse, looms on the horizon as the best candidate for humanity's destruction. It seems that only recently have these considerations even been put on the table for discussion let alone implementation in our society. So, the native view, that nature should somehow be cherished, preserved and lived in harmony with is the more "advanced" position in terms of preserving life on this rock hurtling through space.
This reading was very interesting and going off of the original post I'd like to tie in another article I read in Scientific American magazine not too long ago. The said article had a group of researchers study the advancement of "intellect" by several different ways; math ability, language comprehension (in this case the command of English), and abstract thought (connections between two seemingly unrelated objects). This study has lasted for a few decades now to study the trends in these areas of intellect. It seems that this articles conclusion was that the two standard indicators of a populations intellectual prowess have pretty much hit a limit and are at oscillating around their peak performance but the abstract thought was still rising vigorously. The inference they pulled was the result new technology had on thought and that the electronic "buttons" as the newer generations are familiar with are abstractions of the physical analog buttons that peaked during the industrial and electrical revolutions.
ReplyDeleteTo tie this back into inventions it seems that these two articles compliment each other in as much as the Sci. Am. one verifies that either new technology increases abstract thought or abstract thought implements new technology. Once a new device has been introduced to the society the collective group accepts the new tech. and the abstract thought that goes along with it, sort of like a feedback loop. Other less advanced nations, but advanced enough, can then copy the tech. and throw themselves into the rat race and help foster competitive inventions.
In reference to Matthew's post on the limits of the human brain, it is interesting to consider what this means. In other words, does using a small portion of our brain limit us significantly, and how? If we could use more of our brain, could we think in more advanced ways or just think more. For instance, the ability to think abstractly is considered an advanced mental state. Would using more of our brain allow us to get to a completely new level of thinking? Also, sometimes the brain is associated with only logic but it also controls our emotions as well. So would an advanced human brain not only display supreme logic but also supreme emotion? There can already be conflict between hard logic and ethics/morals/emotional decisions. Would having a more capable brain create more conflict? Sometimes knowledge makes our decisions on ethical issues easier, but it has also proven to raise ethical dilemmas that were not previously existent.
ReplyDeleteErin's question on whether or not we will exhaust all improvements on technology is something I have always wondered. There are instances which I can imagine our society inventing and inventing until we leave earth to colonize new worlds and invent things on those planets we couldn't here or would need there that we didn't need in our time here. I can also just as easily imagine progressing to the end of our technologies. I will have to admit that I think the former of the two is more likely because in the latter, I think we'd get bored and that we will probably not want to be bored for long and that will spur us outward or something. Another thing, I do think that in many years time that people will be laughing at past technology. It's already happening, like with the radio. There aren't very many people who listen to presidential speeches (etc) on the radio anymore and many people would consider it amusing or weird to do so now.
ReplyDeleteAbout the human brain, it has been evolving since animals were evolving, so logic would have me believe that it will continue to evolve. I understand that the study done that Jamison mentioned would say we have reached our peak, but how can it really tell what the future holds? The part about abstract thought though was very interesting and it makes me wonder how much more abstract in thought we will be able to become. It boggles my mind like billions and trillions seem to confuse.
I also have to add in that my favorite part of the article was a brief mention of the author: that we are able to have so many possessions because our society condones and encourages sedentary lifestyles. The article also brought up a good point that it is only after we have an invention available to us that we decide that we "need" it, even if we actually don't.