What I love about this is how you simultaneously hold an appreciation for the marvels of our modern existence and a clear-eyed observation of the existential risk embodied within it. Thank you for not condemning modernity. At the same time, and more important in my view, thank you for seeing it clearly and articulating the challenges we face. This is a gift.
Well said Peter, and thank you Brian for another excellent article. If there is one thing that I've learnt from Archaeology it is the importance of taking the long view which this article brilliantly does. Perhaps a future article might explore the "longue duree" trends on which our short term gyrations pivot ?
In a hundred years will citizens get an appointment from the Ministry of Neuroscience for their psychopath screening test - a positive would disqualify you from public office. A white ball from the giant urn of possibility (perhaps).
Another difference I want to add (that's tied to trends you've already addressed): In the past few generations, music went from being something that nearly everyone participated making in to something that only a tiny minority of people participate in making, but that it's much easier than it was in the past to passively consume.
You note the bar in Togo playing the Pussycat Dolls--an example of this passive consumption of homogenized global pop culture. But if we go back to 1900, basically everyone in Togo--and London, and West Virginia, and everywhere else--makes music with other people on a very regular basis. There's no real way of sharing recorded versions of this music yet, which keeps Togo's music very distinct from West Virginia's; but also since it's passed down mainly orally and through practice, songs do evolve over time.
I think it's easy for us moderns to forget what a universal experience music-making was in the past, because we're so used to it being something for experts like, say, the Pussycat Dolls, and we assume other people were like we are now, expect that maybe just the wealthiest people got to see performances. But actually, just normal people were singing all the time at work and at worship, and figuring out how to make new musical instruments with whatever was available. This is a once-universal avenue of creativity we've largely cut ourselves off from.
Music-making is also a previously near-universal means of community-building. Playing/singing music with other people has psychological effects that tie people together in a way I never understood until I took up an instrument and started playing with others as an adult. Speaking for myself, a former appreciator of music I passively consumed and current producer of (not nearly as polished!) music with my friends, I think that moderns who merely listen to music are profoundly ignorant of what we gave up when we stopped making music together.
Great point -- this is certainly true for storytelling, too, and plenty of other communal activities which are now outsourced to specialists as we become ever-more narrow in our activities.
This excellent summary leaves me in grief because with everything laid out here we still can't execute simple task like kindness, sharing, compassion, tolerance, respect, or cooperation.
This article echoes Isaac Asimov’s point in his 1989 presentation to the Humanist Society: our technological advancement has given us the ability to write our own history.
Around 1995 (when use of html lead to browsers), we changed from making copies using atoms to using bits. So it became trivial to make a million copies, easy to comment/criticize on anything, and steal records which use to on paper and now where in bits on a disk. The world became very noisy and privacy disappeared.
What I love about this is how you simultaneously hold an appreciation for the marvels of our modern existence and a clear-eyed observation of the existential risk embodied within it. Thank you for not condemning modernity. At the same time, and more important in my view, thank you for seeing it clearly and articulating the challenges we face. This is a gift.
Thank you, Peter! Awe-inspiring, disorienting, and scary all at once.
Well said Peter, and thank you Brian for another excellent article. If there is one thing that I've learnt from Archaeology it is the importance of taking the long view which this article brilliantly does. Perhaps a future article might explore the "longue duree" trends on which our short term gyrations pivot ?
In a hundred years will citizens get an appointment from the Ministry of Neuroscience for their psychopath screening test - a positive would disqualify you from public office. A white ball from the giant urn of possibility (perhaps).
This is a comment that only makes sense to someone who knows my previous writing very well. Bravo!
….and long may your writing continue.
“I didn’t know we ‘ad a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.”
"How do you know he's a king?
"He hasn't got shit on him."
Awesome post!
Another difference I want to add (that's tied to trends you've already addressed): In the past few generations, music went from being something that nearly everyone participated making in to something that only a tiny minority of people participate in making, but that it's much easier than it was in the past to passively consume.
You note the bar in Togo playing the Pussycat Dolls--an example of this passive consumption of homogenized global pop culture. But if we go back to 1900, basically everyone in Togo--and London, and West Virginia, and everywhere else--makes music with other people on a very regular basis. There's no real way of sharing recorded versions of this music yet, which keeps Togo's music very distinct from West Virginia's; but also since it's passed down mainly orally and through practice, songs do evolve over time.
I think it's easy for us moderns to forget what a universal experience music-making was in the past, because we're so used to it being something for experts like, say, the Pussycat Dolls, and we assume other people were like we are now, expect that maybe just the wealthiest people got to see performances. But actually, just normal people were singing all the time at work and at worship, and figuring out how to make new musical instruments with whatever was available. This is a once-universal avenue of creativity we've largely cut ourselves off from.
Music-making is also a previously near-universal means of community-building. Playing/singing music with other people has psychological effects that tie people together in a way I never understood until I took up an instrument and started playing with others as an adult. Speaking for myself, a former appreciator of music I passively consumed and current producer of (not nearly as polished!) music with my friends, I think that moderns who merely listen to music are profoundly ignorant of what we gave up when we stopped making music together.
Great point -- this is certainly true for storytelling, too, and plenty of other communal activities which are now outsourced to specialists as we become ever-more narrow in our activities.
This excellent summary leaves me in grief because with everything laid out here we still can't execute simple task like kindness, sharing, compassion, tolerance, respect, or cooperation.
This article echoes Isaac Asimov’s point in his 1989 presentation to the Humanist Society: our technological advancement has given us the ability to write our own history.
Around 1995 (when use of html lead to browsers), we changed from making copies using atoms to using bits. So it became trivial to make a million copies, easy to comment/criticize on anything, and steal records which use to on paper and now where in bits on a disk. The world became very noisy and privacy disappeared.