The first difference between us and most of our ancestors that came to mind was splitting the atom, for both good and evil. The ability to instantly kill hundreds of thousands, or heat and illuminate their homes. Trying to explain to your great, great grand parents that it is essentially the sun, here on earth would be impossible, and end up having you institutionalized. That's ignoring the moral and ethical problems having such power contains.
Hi, just in case you use this argument in cocktail party conversation and happen to run into a pointy headed natural scientist, there is no atom splitting happening in the sun. It is all nuclear fusion. Of course, we harnessed that too, in thermonuclear bombs. The gist of your argument remains. Cheers
Alain, my buddy! Saving me from cocktail party humiliation! Well, at least on this topic. You'd be amazed at my talent for humiliation. It spans volumes. I was trained as an attorney, so I know just enough science to get me into trouble. You're my internet wingman. Thanks.
All this right here is one of the biggest reasons I'm so annoyed with the idea that we, but especially the younger generations, are suffering from ever shorter attentions spans as if it's some sort of individual moral failing. No, maybe human beings just can't have possibly evolved in the last 30 to 40 years to process the onslaught of 24/7 global information with our brains which are structurally the same as they've been for 200,000+ years. And then in the car-centric countries smoothbrain capitalists thought it would be a cool idea to make driving an essential-to-life function that millions of distracted anxious apes have to guide one-ton hunks of metal everywhere and then some other smoothbrain capitalists shrug over mass death and injury because a whole industry has sprung up to make injury and death profitable and villainous techbro charlatans strategically crush any sensible mass transportation infrastructure initiatives and yet another industry peddles focus drugs that slowly kill us but at least we'll be more hyperfocused and therefore productive while we live in service to someone else's interests instead of our own. More and more I fantasize about jumping to an alternate timeline where maybe an EMP took out all this technology in my childhood and spared humanity the insanity of this timeline. As my Gen Z offspring says, everybody really needs to just go touch grass.
Brian, there is one common carrier to all the technology of the last 3.5 generations that you have completely omitted: Electricity and electric power. Yes, this goes back to the early 1880s, but it is the foundation for the society we live in today. We have power systems to deliver electric energy to homes that are in effect a single large machine. In the EU, out to and including Ukraine now, it is a single synchronized system operating at 50 Hz and a hiccup in the UK can be felt in Ukraine. In the US, the eastern interconnection tuns from the Canadian Maritimes to the gulf coast of the US to the edge of the Rockies (Texas and Quebec have their own separate systems). This power runs every house, industrial facility, and powers our devices. On a micro level, this gives us circuitry and in effect “mini power systems” that drove the space program in the 1960s and even on board flight gadgets we enjoy today.
I think about here in the US that there were still places in the 1930s and 40s that still had no access to electricity. In Africa electrification rates are awful, but South Africa is a notable exception moving from about 1/3 at the end of apartheid to over 90% today. (Never mind the other issues). We still have a long way to go globally.
Paul, you’re astute as always, but the 1880s breaks the rules!! But a great point. (And yes, I think about this problem a lot, as so much of Madagascar, a country I care deeply about, doesn’t have electricity even in 2023).
Rules were made to be broken! But the whole electricity issue is one that has brought the world to the brink of environmental disaster (acid rain, horrible air pollution, climate change, water and ground pollution) This is bringing it back to post WW II now! So now, how do we change the big machines we have created (these interconnections are largely post WW II as well) and manage with resources that are variable and intermittent? And how to use natural gas as the “bridge fuel” with about 1/3 the CO2 emissions of coal for every MWh produced? It can all be done...but we need to change our mindset of how we view power consumption and humans are notoriously bad at making changes once anchored.
What comes to mind for me, among the technology avalanche, is the advances in reproductive health that have transformed families and social life. The combo of the birth control pill and accurate parental testing particularly changed the human condition and allowed an evolution in morality, as far as I can tell. The sexual revolution and gender equality are less than 60 years old and its hard to imagine social life without them.
Ed, I so agree. The biggest difference, by far, between my mother’s generation and mine (I’m 70) is women’s control of our own reproduction. My mother had six children, and it destroyed her. I had choices (thank goddess!) and seeing those choices snatched away makes me furious. I live in Texas, so make that “furious x 100”.
I came here to say this as well. Excellent article, but for about 50% of the total population, at least in most developed countries, the ability to control our reproductive responsibilities has been earth-shattering. The advent of effective birth control has had and will continue to have a huge impact on human kind.
Well crafted and absorbing. Have we reached a point where the impact and rapid advancement of tech has forced us to increasingly utilize it as a critical adjunct to our brains - an artificial coping mechanism?
In many important ways, we are not different from our ancestors. We spend most of our time experiencing love, hate, fear, worry. anxiety and etc., just as our ancestors did. The disconnect from nature is one of the most worrisome changes. On a personal level connection with nature is vital to mental health. On a species level we are killing the nature we depend on. Perhaps most important are the questions of whether our human experience is any more meaningful than that of our ancestors, and are we any happier?
I don’t know about you, but much of this makes me sad. Disconnected from nature? Permanently living on technology? Global instability? We don’t have real experiences anymore. And bioengineering is a whole other can of worms. On the other hand, I’m grateful for modern medicine.
Well, two companion pieces from earlier editions might help...The Red Queen Fallacy and Why the World Isn’t As Bad as You Think. I share your sadness, in some ways, but a) it comes with extraordinary benefits; and b) if we think about our lives a bit differently, we can counteract that alienation. I don’t think it has to be sad...and I don’t think we have to accept the stripped out barrenness of much of modern life.
I am new to Brian’s Substack and am making my way through older essays which is why my reply is a year late. I completely agree about and am grateful for modern medicine.
My child was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
Surgery to repair the spine and was just two hours after birth. Two days later surgery was performed to insert a shunt into the brain to keep the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) flowing which prevents a buildup of fluid (hydrocephalus). These two surgeries kept the spine related disabilities from worsening and the brain from being crushed by a build up of fluid.
Two months later while driving to a checkup my vehicle broke down on a country road. The house we ended up in front of was owned by an older, friendly couple. The man was able to get my car running again. While he worked on it I was invited in for sandwiches and tea. The conversation turned to my child’s condition given the obvious healing scar from shunt surgery. It turned out this couple was very familiar with both conditions. Their child was born with both, not long after WWII. There weren’t any surgeries for spina bifida or hydrocephalus then so they were told, kindly and sadly the woman said, to take their child home until it died. (They were taught how to care for the spinal dehiscence but that was the extent of medical care.) The surgeries my child had gone through seemed like science fiction to them.
Surgery can now be performed to close the spine during pregnancy which drastically reduces, and can even fully negate, potential disabilities. This astonishing surgery seems like science fiction to me.
The advances in medicine that humanity has made since WWII are mind-boggling. They remind me what we are capable of when not focusing on fear and hate. (One thing would be creating a national healthcare system in America so everyone can have access to excellent care.)
Of all our axis points of change, this 11 second phase may be the one most changing our human brains.
As we construct our technology, our technology constructs us!
It may be hard to see the extent of the change in our brains since we are caught in a bit of a feedback loop-- our main tool for discerning is the very thing we are examining. Unlike that iconic earth picture we cannot get far enough away from our own brains (yet?) to see what is happening.
Maybe only for the past 1 second of the 11 have we developed the imaging technology that allows us to non- invasively "see" our brains and track functions and extensions to the rest of our bodies ( muscle memory). So, despite past brains in formaldehyde, without a past base digital tracking image for comparison we are in some ways starting from scratch.
It will be left to future generations of humans, (and perhaps humanoids) to "see" the brain construct our technology has wrought but I am sure it will be significant-- not only in the realm of information processing but also in what we have called the more affective spheres.
Thank you so much for the question which made me think and judging from the astute comments made others think too!
Thanks for reminding us that we do live in very unusual times, something that I find people often forget to consider when they comment on what is happening now in the world. I was a bit surprised though that, as a political scientist, you did not focus more on social change. At least in industrialized societies, we live in increasingly secular and individualized societies, two concepts that were completely foreign to the quasi-totality of previous generations. Also, many of us happily live in democracies where leaders are bound by the rule of law, something that the vast majority of people in human history did not experience, and still don't. This is basically what the sociologist Heinrich would call WEIRD people. What do you think of Heinrich's ideas that our WEIRD modern psychology developed from social changes instigated by the catholic church during the early to mid- middle ages? if there is any merit to his argument, then maybe we are better adapted to the modern world that seemed to appear so suddenly.
The amount of energy humanity has access to has increased multi-fold, even compared to the early industrial era. Of course, the vast majority of this comes from the fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas. While this has brought enormous benefits in terms of serving a growing human population (and indeed was responsible for it), the downsides in terms of pollution, biodiversity loss and global warming will soon outweigh these benefits.
What about the change in respect (or not: SCOTUS) for women? Except for a few matriarchal societies, there just weren't as many women in positions of real authority and power before now. This could change, but so far, so good.
269 years ago (10 generations) my access and exposure to #1 would have been very limited--were I a resident of Europe, China, S. America...or the Australian bush. If I was an elite, I might know a little more. But, most of my Information and Knowledge was locally acquired, and almost all utilitarian: harvesting, hunting, courtship, family, societal practices and norms. Stuff I needed to know: whether Australian bush, or heart of Paris. (If I was an elite, I might know something of Confucius, or Shakespeare, or how the stars move, or how to bind a leg. But, likely, not all 4.) My exposure or access to #2--Lies, was, basically, zero.The odd lie, or liar, might convince me to give my money to a snake oil salesman; go to war for my King; join a cult. Otherwise, BS notions/quasi-truths were not prominent (village gossip? spiritual beliefs?). Nor was there much leisure to indulge oneself in them. Who had time for the trivial? We are now different; humanity's never had the exposure--nor the leisure--to the amount of #2 out there, being consumed, globally, by millions. (This planet now has too many vaccine experts.) Mythinformation has been monetized, and will grow...consequences? TBD.
Those are really interesting thoughts. I'm not sure I believe there were no lies but perhaps the effect of them was not as large as it could be today or as easily spread. Two examples I can think of immediately but am sure every culture or society would have something. (1) My Indian grandmother would say you should not wash your hair on certain days, even after we were in the UK. There may have been a good reason generations ago but it definitely is wrong in the UK. (2) in a certain culture in West Africa, Albinos are believed to be magic and/or a bad omen, so are often kicked out of their families or even sometimes killed by witches for use in medicine. These notions are wrong but go back for generations.
However modern lies can indeed by more easily shared, harder to detect/filter out and cause more damage. Now anybody can create an account and start/spread lies that would have been ignored in local settings.
Population…the sheer density. Made worse by income inequality and profit- and resource-taking by unaccountable corporate entities. Also the adaptations that density requires. It boggles.
Another very important way we differ from previous generations is the demands modern life makes on our brains/minds. Specifically, it makes demands on our prefrontal cortex which controls executive functions (concentration, abstraction, and other related functions). This powerful suite of functions is meant to be used in times of leisure contemplation, but now is how we live our lives. It does not work well in times of stress. The results are more psychological problems as this area is also the center of mental disorders as we know them. This may seem like quite a leap--and it is!--but it is all made clear in my book "Frontal Fatigue. The Impact of Modern Life and Technology on Mental Illness." It is all based on established neuropsychology not cutting edge studies that will likely fall to the wayside. For a briefer view see my blog on Psychology Today May 10, 2022 thru June 6.
Thank you for a fascinating post. I am new to your work and am enjoying it and the discussions that follow.
What (else) arrived with the Age of Information? Heightened ability to misinform.
Lies and liars; BS and fanciful interpretations of Reality...not 'new', but dangerously accelerated; dangerously prominent.
Adam Smith stated that 'the bad money drives out the good'--we are now witnessing this with Information. Seductive BS is winning out over unadorned Reality; enhancedc explanations are making Truth a wallflower.
" The real is only the base. But it is the base"
- Wallace Stevens, Adagia
'...we no longer have phenomena; only reports of phenomena'
The first difference between us and most of our ancestors that came to mind was splitting the atom, for both good and evil. The ability to instantly kill hundreds of thousands, or heat and illuminate their homes. Trying to explain to your great, great grand parents that it is essentially the sun, here on earth would be impossible, and end up having you institutionalized. That's ignoring the moral and ethical problems having such power contains.
Yes, that’s a great point. We are the first species in the history of the known universe that can make itself extinct.
Hi, just in case you use this argument in cocktail party conversation and happen to run into a pointy headed natural scientist, there is no atom splitting happening in the sun. It is all nuclear fusion. Of course, we harnessed that too, in thermonuclear bombs. The gist of your argument remains. Cheers
Alain, my buddy! Saving me from cocktail party humiliation! Well, at least on this topic. You'd be amazed at my talent for humiliation. It spans volumes. I was trained as an attorney, so I know just enough science to get me into trouble. You're my internet wingman. Thanks.
All this right here is one of the biggest reasons I'm so annoyed with the idea that we, but especially the younger generations, are suffering from ever shorter attentions spans as if it's some sort of individual moral failing. No, maybe human beings just can't have possibly evolved in the last 30 to 40 years to process the onslaught of 24/7 global information with our brains which are structurally the same as they've been for 200,000+ years. And then in the car-centric countries smoothbrain capitalists thought it would be a cool idea to make driving an essential-to-life function that millions of distracted anxious apes have to guide one-ton hunks of metal everywhere and then some other smoothbrain capitalists shrug over mass death and injury because a whole industry has sprung up to make injury and death profitable and villainous techbro charlatans strategically crush any sensible mass transportation infrastructure initiatives and yet another industry peddles focus drugs that slowly kill us but at least we'll be more hyperfocused and therefore productive while we live in service to someone else's interests instead of our own. More and more I fantasize about jumping to an alternate timeline where maybe an EMP took out all this technology in my childhood and spared humanity the insanity of this timeline. As my Gen Z offspring says, everybody really needs to just go touch grass.
Brian, there is one common carrier to all the technology of the last 3.5 generations that you have completely omitted: Electricity and electric power. Yes, this goes back to the early 1880s, but it is the foundation for the society we live in today. We have power systems to deliver electric energy to homes that are in effect a single large machine. In the EU, out to and including Ukraine now, it is a single synchronized system operating at 50 Hz and a hiccup in the UK can be felt in Ukraine. In the US, the eastern interconnection tuns from the Canadian Maritimes to the gulf coast of the US to the edge of the Rockies (Texas and Quebec have their own separate systems). This power runs every house, industrial facility, and powers our devices. On a micro level, this gives us circuitry and in effect “mini power systems” that drove the space program in the 1960s and even on board flight gadgets we enjoy today.
I think about here in the US that there were still places in the 1930s and 40s that still had no access to electricity. In Africa electrification rates are awful, but South Africa is a notable exception moving from about 1/3 at the end of apartheid to over 90% today. (Never mind the other issues). We still have a long way to go globally.
Paul, you’re astute as always, but the 1880s breaks the rules!! But a great point. (And yes, I think about this problem a lot, as so much of Madagascar, a country I care deeply about, doesn’t have electricity even in 2023).
Rules were made to be broken! But the whole electricity issue is one that has brought the world to the brink of environmental disaster (acid rain, horrible air pollution, climate change, water and ground pollution) This is bringing it back to post WW II now! So now, how do we change the big machines we have created (these interconnections are largely post WW II as well) and manage with resources that are variable and intermittent? And how to use natural gas as the “bridge fuel” with about 1/3 the CO2 emissions of coal for every MWh produced? It can all be done...but we need to change our mindset of how we view power consumption and humans are notoriously bad at making changes once anchored.
Other recent changes are ultra processed foods (only gradually beginning to be understood what harmful effects this has on humans).
Really fascinating thank you again
What comes to mind for me, among the technology avalanche, is the advances in reproductive health that have transformed families and social life. The combo of the birth control pill and accurate parental testing particularly changed the human condition and allowed an evolution in morality, as far as I can tell. The sexual revolution and gender equality are less than 60 years old and its hard to imagine social life without them.
Ed, I so agree. The biggest difference, by far, between my mother’s generation and mine (I’m 70) is women’s control of our own reproduction. My mother had six children, and it destroyed her. I had choices (thank goddess!) and seeing those choices snatched away makes me furious. I live in Texas, so make that “furious x 100”.
I came here to say this as well. Excellent article, but for about 50% of the total population, at least in most developed countries, the ability to control our reproductive responsibilities has been earth-shattering. The advent of effective birth control has had and will continue to have a huge impact on human kind.
Well crafted and absorbing. Have we reached a point where the impact and rapid advancement of tech has forced us to increasingly utilize it as a critical adjunct to our brains - an artificial coping mechanism?
In many important ways, we are not different from our ancestors. We spend most of our time experiencing love, hate, fear, worry. anxiety and etc., just as our ancestors did. The disconnect from nature is one of the most worrisome changes. On a personal level connection with nature is vital to mental health. On a species level we are killing the nature we depend on. Perhaps most important are the questions of whether our human experience is any more meaningful than that of our ancestors, and are we any happier?
I don’t know about you, but much of this makes me sad. Disconnected from nature? Permanently living on technology? Global instability? We don’t have real experiences anymore. And bioengineering is a whole other can of worms. On the other hand, I’m grateful for modern medicine.
Well, two companion pieces from earlier editions might help...The Red Queen Fallacy and Why the World Isn’t As Bad as You Think. I share your sadness, in some ways, but a) it comes with extraordinary benefits; and b) if we think about our lives a bit differently, we can counteract that alienation. I don’t think it has to be sad...and I don’t think we have to accept the stripped out barrenness of much of modern life.
I am new to Brian’s Substack and am making my way through older essays which is why my reply is a year late. I completely agree about and am grateful for modern medicine.
My child was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
Surgery to repair the spine and was just two hours after birth. Two days later surgery was performed to insert a shunt into the brain to keep the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) flowing which prevents a buildup of fluid (hydrocephalus). These two surgeries kept the spine related disabilities from worsening and the brain from being crushed by a build up of fluid.
Two months later while driving to a checkup my vehicle broke down on a country road. The house we ended up in front of was owned by an older, friendly couple. The man was able to get my car running again. While he worked on it I was invited in for sandwiches and tea. The conversation turned to my child’s condition given the obvious healing scar from shunt surgery. It turned out this couple was very familiar with both conditions. Their child was born with both, not long after WWII. There weren’t any surgeries for spina bifida or hydrocephalus then so they were told, kindly and sadly the woman said, to take their child home until it died. (They were taught how to care for the spinal dehiscence but that was the extent of medical care.) The surgeries my child had gone through seemed like science fiction to them.
Surgery can now be performed to close the spine during pregnancy which drastically reduces, and can even fully negate, potential disabilities. This astonishing surgery seems like science fiction to me.
The advances in medicine that humanity has made since WWII are mind-boggling. They remind me what we are capable of when not focusing on fear and hate. (One thing would be creating a national healthcare system in America so everyone can have access to excellent care.)
Of all our axis points of change, this 11 second phase may be the one most changing our human brains.
As we construct our technology, our technology constructs us!
It may be hard to see the extent of the change in our brains since we are caught in a bit of a feedback loop-- our main tool for discerning is the very thing we are examining. Unlike that iconic earth picture we cannot get far enough away from our own brains (yet?) to see what is happening.
Maybe only for the past 1 second of the 11 have we developed the imaging technology that allows us to non- invasively "see" our brains and track functions and extensions to the rest of our bodies ( muscle memory). So, despite past brains in formaldehyde, without a past base digital tracking image for comparison we are in some ways starting from scratch.
It will be left to future generations of humans, (and perhaps humanoids) to "see" the brain construct our technology has wrought but I am sure it will be significant-- not only in the realm of information processing but also in what we have called the more affective spheres.
Thank you so much for the question which made me think and judging from the astute comments made others think too!
Thanks for reminding us that we do live in very unusual times, something that I find people often forget to consider when they comment on what is happening now in the world. I was a bit surprised though that, as a political scientist, you did not focus more on social change. At least in industrialized societies, we live in increasingly secular and individualized societies, two concepts that were completely foreign to the quasi-totality of previous generations. Also, many of us happily live in democracies where leaders are bound by the rule of law, something that the vast majority of people in human history did not experience, and still don't. This is basically what the sociologist Heinrich would call WEIRD people. What do you think of Heinrich's ideas that our WEIRD modern psychology developed from social changes instigated by the catholic church during the early to mid- middle ages? if there is any merit to his argument, then maybe we are better adapted to the modern world that seemed to appear so suddenly.
The amount of energy humanity has access to has increased multi-fold, even compared to the early industrial era. Of course, the vast majority of this comes from the fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas. While this has brought enormous benefits in terms of serving a growing human population (and indeed was responsible for it), the downsides in terms of pollution, biodiversity loss and global warming will soon outweigh these benefits.
What about the change in respect (or not: SCOTUS) for women? Except for a few matriarchal societies, there just weren't as many women in positions of real authority and power before now. This could change, but so far, so good.
1) Information and Knowledge
2) Mythinformation and Quasi-Truth
269 years ago (10 generations) my access and exposure to #1 would have been very limited--were I a resident of Europe, China, S. America...or the Australian bush. If I was an elite, I might know a little more. But, most of my Information and Knowledge was locally acquired, and almost all utilitarian: harvesting, hunting, courtship, family, societal practices and norms. Stuff I needed to know: whether Australian bush, or heart of Paris. (If I was an elite, I might know something of Confucius, or Shakespeare, or how the stars move, or how to bind a leg. But, likely, not all 4.) My exposure or access to #2--Lies, was, basically, zero.The odd lie, or liar, might convince me to give my money to a snake oil salesman; go to war for my King; join a cult. Otherwise, BS notions/quasi-truths were not prominent (village gossip? spiritual beliefs?). Nor was there much leisure to indulge oneself in them. Who had time for the trivial? We are now different; humanity's never had the exposure--nor the leisure--to the amount of #2 out there, being consumed, globally, by millions. (This planet now has too many vaccine experts.) Mythinformation has been monetized, and will grow...consequences? TBD.
Those are really interesting thoughts. I'm not sure I believe there were no lies but perhaps the effect of them was not as large as it could be today or as easily spread. Two examples I can think of immediately but am sure every culture or society would have something. (1) My Indian grandmother would say you should not wash your hair on certain days, even after we were in the UK. There may have been a good reason generations ago but it definitely is wrong in the UK. (2) in a certain culture in West Africa, Albinos are believed to be magic and/or a bad omen, so are often kicked out of their families or even sometimes killed by witches for use in medicine. These notions are wrong but go back for generations.
However modern lies can indeed by more easily shared, harder to detect/filter out and cause more damage. Now anybody can create an account and start/spread lies that would have been ignored in local settings.
Population…the sheer density. Made worse by income inequality and profit- and resource-taking by unaccountable corporate entities. Also the adaptations that density requires. It boggles.
Another very important way we differ from previous generations is the demands modern life makes on our brains/minds. Specifically, it makes demands on our prefrontal cortex which controls executive functions (concentration, abstraction, and other related functions). This powerful suite of functions is meant to be used in times of leisure contemplation, but now is how we live our lives. It does not work well in times of stress. The results are more psychological problems as this area is also the center of mental disorders as we know them. This may seem like quite a leap--and it is!--but it is all made clear in my book "Frontal Fatigue. The Impact of Modern Life and Technology on Mental Illness." It is all based on established neuropsychology not cutting edge studies that will likely fall to the wayside. For a briefer view see my blog on Psychology Today May 10, 2022 thru June 6.
Thank you for a fascinating post. I am new to your work and am enjoying it and the discussions that follow.
What (else) arrived with the Age of Information? Heightened ability to misinform.
Lies and liars; BS and fanciful interpretations of Reality...not 'new', but dangerously accelerated; dangerously prominent.
Adam Smith stated that 'the bad money drives out the good'--we are now witnessing this with Information. Seductive BS is winning out over unadorned Reality; enhancedc explanations are making Truth a wallflower.
" The real is only the base. But it is the base"
- Wallace Stevens, Adagia
'...we no longer have phenomena; only reports of phenomena'
- Nietzsche