Innovation and Its Discontents

David Boaz passes along this eyepopping excerpt from a New York Times editor's review of the book They Made America, a history of American innovators:

Too much exposure to the glow of ''They Made America'' may generate another nagging suspicion as well: if many of these stories were told from another perspective, they would be evidence of why the United States is the Great Satan. Sir Harold's innovators filled needs, but they also generated demand -- for Model T's, for plastics (Leo Hendrik Baekeland), for Maidenform bras (Ida Rosenthal), for hip-hop (Russell Simmons). They helped create the consumer culture, and in parts of the world that is nothing to be proud of. It's easy to imagine someone in a far-off place reading this book's interesting account of Elisha Otis's elevators and seeing the germ of the World Trade Center disaster.

Yeah, in that book and in that damn 19th Amendment, I guess. The author continues:

You may also find it, somewhat perversely, to be an argument for a moratorium on innovating. Somewhere along the journey from the steamboat (John Fitch) to the Google search (Larry Page and Sergey Brin), it may occur to you that innovations have morphed from being things that make life easier to being things that simultaneously make life easier and more complicated.

The steamboat? Sure, an improvement; much better than pack mules. The electric light bulb? You bet; simpler and safer and more reliable than flame. Air travel? Hmm -- flights to catch, luggage to lose. Venture capital (Georges Doriot)? Don't understand it. Biotechnology (Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson)? Really don't understand it. Twenty-four-hour news (Ted Turner)? Too much information.

Damned if that doesn't sound oddly familiar. Where have we heard this before? Ah, yeah:

One would like to ask: is there, then, no positive gain in pleasure, no unequivocal increase in my feelings of happiness, if I can, as often as I please, hear the voice of a child of mine who is living hundreds of miles away or if I can learn in the shortest possible time after a friend has reached his destination that he has come through the long and difficult voyage unharmed? Does it mean nothing that medicine has succeeded in enormously reducing infant mortality and the danger of infection for women in childbirth, and, indeed, in considerably lengthening the average life of a civilized man?

If there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no phone to hear his voice; if traveling across the ocean by ship had not been introduced, my friend would not have embarked on his sea-voyage and I should not need a cable to relieve my anxiety about him. What is the use of reducing infantile mortality when it is precisely that reduction which imposes the greatest restraint on us in the begetting of children, so that, taken all round, we nevertheless rear no more children than in the days before the reign of hygiene, while at the same time we have created difficult conditions for our sexual life in marriage….And, finally, what good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer.

Addendum: You know, today's Friday Funny is arguably an example of this… though unlike the editor, the cartoonist presumably means it to be a joke.

Comments

[joe]

I'd like to see what a libertarian response to the issues raised, other than "Yeah, but look at all this stuff!" would be.

Yes, the stuff is great. Could you respond to the issues, please?

[Julian Sanchez]

If you think any of that merits a response, I'm not sure what to tell ya.

[joe]

Is there anything libertarians have to say to people dislocated by "future shock" other than "suck it up" and "look at all this neat stuff?"

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

What exactly are the issues? That some luddite is decrying innovation and thinks that life in the 19th century was better than it is today?

You honestly feel that this warrants a serious response?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

If you think any of that merits a response, I'm not sure what to tell ya.

You said it more succinctly than I.

[asg]

Someone needs to watch 1900 House. Or Frontier House.

[Matt]

joe-
The reviewer's argument assumes that innovation has outstripped the human capacity to take advantage of it - that marginal returns on innovation, once positive, are now negative.

His implicit argument is: "We have reached the limits of human self-betterment, and it's time to prohibit or narrowly circumscribe further attempts at material improvement of our lives."

The burden of argument is on anyone who posits that argument, not on those who would refute it. Especially since it is conditional - it assumes that a some specific historical moment (between the light bulb and the plane), innovation got good enough and started to be come a net drag on human welfare.

But rather than actually make the case, or discuss "the issues," as you put it, the writer uses all the following weasely phrases, just in the excerpt:

"...may generate another nagging suspicion..."
"...It's easy to imagine..."
"...You may also find it..."
"...it may occur to you..."

Language like that doesn't leave many issues to respond to.

[Matt]

Looks like everyone above said it better, and quicker, than I did.

[joe]

"Someone needs to watch 1900 House. Or Frontier House."

See, that's what I'm complaining about. To even raise the issue in these parts results, inevitably, in "what, don't you like indoor plumbing?" It's the intellectual equivalent of, "You want the king of England to take over your house? Huh? Do you?"

There is a real phenomenon going on here - the increasing pace of technological advancement is causing dislocation at a such a rate that the normal psychological, economic and social capacity to adjust. This problem doesn't go away because a new antibiotic works well, or you can take pictures with your cell phone - as great as those things are.

This just seems to be a gap in libertarian philosophy - I've yet to see a good answer to this question, just "would you rather die of TB" type bullying.

[Anon]

I agree with Julian that the article is idiotic, but I also agree with joe that the issues the author of the review is ineptly trying to get at can be raised in a serious manner. I feel libertarians should take these issues seriously because, in general, libertarians are very good about resisting utopian ideologies, and that is what excessive glamorization of innovation is, a notion that all technological change is _necessarily_ good. Innovation is not _inherently_ good -- some innovations are good, some innovations are bad. And I think joe would agree with me that the judgement of whether an innovation is good or not should _not_ be a function of its success in the market. Conflating moral/ethical questions with market questions is wrong, regardless of your personal economic preference.

And frankly, I am tired of the notion that anyone who tries to bring up these issues is a Luddite. These are simply questions of what type of world we would like to live in, and what tradeoffs we are willing to make to live that way. I am also tired of the "things weren't better in the [xth] century" that today retort. Are you claiming that we live in the best of conditions for all people ever in the history of humanity, and that things are only getting better and better, and will continue to get better and better forever? How it not utopian idiocy?

To reiterate, the book review is asinine. There's no further point to make about that. But the underlying issue is an interesting one and deserves to be addressed.

Anon

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

There's no further point to make about that. But the underlying issue is an interesting one and deserves to be addressed.

Then bring about the issue in a manner that ISN'T luddite-like in it's presentation.

[Anon]

You know, I was going to summarize E.P. Thompson's discussio of the Luddites, but I found that the Wikipedia did it better for me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Now I realize that suggesting that the Luddites were _not_ anti-technology but rather anti-free market is hardly going to redeem them in libertarian eyes, but it does put the issue in proper focus. The notion is not the technology is inherently good or evil, but that particular systems of price setting are more or less beneficial to different communities.

And I suppose the argument could very well be made that things were much better for artisans in the 18th and early 19th centuries than they are today. But they still didn't have running water, of course.

Anon

[joe]

"And I think joe would agree with me that the judgement of whether an innovation is good or not should _not_ be a function of its success in the market."

That's a separate, but related, issue. What I'm getting at is that even postive developments contribute to "future shock."

Goiter, now that you see I've pre-empted your exhortation to "bring about the issue in a manner that ISN'T luddite-like in it's presentation" would you care to offer a response?

[Warren]

Seriously joe, you might try to filter out the overtly obtuse and stick with the merely inane.

...and in that damn 19th Amendment
LOL Fun-ny stuff that.

[temporary K]

Then bring about the issue in a manner that ISN'T luddite-like in it's presentation.

I think the argument in the review (very clumsily) defines Ludditism.

How about this for a moral/ethical response? Why should the happiness of the innovator, the problem-solver, the tinkerer and the traveler be contingent on whether or not it meets the approval of the placid traditionalist? Do we believe that people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or was that just another innovation on our path to oblivion?

[dhex]

the main theme of "future shock" seems to be an inability to continue learning in older age. an unwillingness to throw oneself into the pile, as it were, and get a little bit dirty. or maybe that's uncharitable, and the "confusion of the modern age" is unique rather than endemic, but i think it's more or less what happens in every age.

oh well. it's only going to get worse. and faster, at that.

[Solitudinarian]

There is a real phenomenon going on here - the increasing pace of technological advancement is causing dislocation at a such a rate that the normal psychological, economic and social capacity to adjust.

Care to present evidence of said phenomenon? Frankly, I just don't see it.

[sage]

"There is a real phenomenon going on here - the increasing pace of technological advancement is causing dislocation at a such a rate that the normal psychological, economic and social capacity to adjust. This problem doesn't go away because a new antibiotic works well, or you can take pictures with your cell phone - as great as those things are."

You seem to be saying that the increasing pace of technological advancement is a problem because *some* people can't keep up. Hasn't this always been a "problem?" When the use of arrows began to appear in battle, rather than use them as well, the defeated forces simpy cried foul. Yet humans continued to advance. And will continue to do so.

[Chad]

OK, new to this but have to comment. Joe, I think I can explain the knee jerk reaction from libertarians, basically being one myself. It is that whenever someone left of center starts bringing up a point about technology, markets, or fill in the blank your issue of choice, they are waiting for the inevitable "there ought to be a law" solution that comes next. I personally think the issue is an interesting one and deserves contemplation, but the ideological baggage on both sides over regulation and laws make a simple discussion almost impossible. Anyway hope as my first post that doesn't tick too many people off.

[Junyo]

How about the simple fact that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Free will I believe it's called. Freaking join the Amish. Get a shack in the woods and write letters. And the next time you get cut don't bother with that new fangled penicillin, just butter it.

Sheesh.

[gaius marius]

There is a real phenomenon going on here - the increasing pace of technological advancement is causing dislocation at a such a rate that the normal psychological, economic and social capacity to adjust.

i agree, mr joe -- mr solitudinarian, i submit it is the dominant feature of western social development (decay, imo) since rousseau.

but i would say that the implicit moderate response -- "civilization must be tempered" -- is always occuring. we all find ways of rejecting the advent of speed and industry in our way. i take control of my existence constantly to read or contemplate or enjoy a bottle of chianti. that some people do not is testament to their foolishness, imo, not to the evil of civilization. i think many europeans have taken the proper response in finding weeks away from their city life on holiday.

what is dangerous is the more radical response -- "civilization must be retracted or rejected". this is what has underlied the primitivist anti-materialist romantic impulse from the start, as can easily be seen in much of the literature of romanticism. it was part of the appeal of the fascists. it is part of the appeal of simpleton politics as currently practiced in the united states. it is anti-civilizational, and in so being is necessarily barbaric.

the rejection of complexity for the primitive has been particularly animate since the mechanization of society -- of that there can be no doubt. but it behooves civilized man to understand that he commands his interaction with society on a very fundamental level, and can profit from how he interacts with it without rejecting it.

[Anon]

Temporary K,

The Luddites _were_ "the innovator[s], the problem-solver[s], the tinkerer[s] and the traveler[s]" -- They were opposed to fat, lazy capitalists who mechanized their handiwork and destroyed their livelihoods. I feel that there are many arguments to be made against the Luddites, but to suggest that mass production is beneficial to the individual _tinkerer_ is manifestly absurd. I no longer have access to a novel artisans shop for my cooking ware -- I shop at Target, silly.

The proper counter-Luddite argument involves the quality of mass production and the overall accessibility to wares given by the market system...but the joy to be an individual innovator? C'mon. Who do you know who has built an innovative computer from scratch? (And I mean _scratch_, starting from wiring components...)

Anon

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

That's a separate, but related, issue. What I'm getting at is that even postive developments contribute to "future shock."

Sure. "Future Shock" is bunk. "Future shock" is merely the inability of a portion of the populace to adjust to change. It's commonly known as the biggest factor in extinction. Those that exhort buzzwords like this fear their extinction and frown as the world passes them by. The world keeps on turning, and the species keeps on learning, and improving their lives. The ones that don't are passed by. But they sure do make a whole bunch of noise about it.

Now, without using "catchy" but meaningless buzzwords, are you going to present an issue or are you going to keep blathering about nothing?

[madog]

Ah the good old days. Things were much simpler when all I had to do was step outside my hut, shoot a deer, and die of a worm infestation at 28.

[Solitudinarian]

mr solitudinarian, i submit it is the dominant feature of western social development (decay, imo) since rousseau.

Fair enough, gaius marius - but just how does it manifest itself? Where do I find concrete evidence of this phenomenon? Forgive me, but the tenor of joe's original statement leads me to believe that one just has to look out the window to see the weeping multitudes broken by technological advance.

[Mike]

You seem to be saying that the increasing pace of technological advancement is a problem because *some* people can't keep up. Hasn't this always been a "problem?"

Awfully collectivist of you to imply that the troubles of the individual should be ignored because of the benefit to the whole.

[gaius marius]

Yet humans continued to advance. And will continue to do so.

in techne, perhaps, mr sage. but the contrary evolution in human thought and ideas has been taking place for a couple hundred years already under the name of romanticism.

this is nothing new. tacitus glorified the german barbarian as a better man, a more noble man than the roman. there comes a point at which the human animal, elevated above the struggle for subsistence, succumbs to the passion for primitivism over the rational materialism of progress. this adoption, once widespread and pursued to its rational conclusion, marks the decline of civilizations into antisociety and chaos.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

i agree, mr joe -- mr solitudinarian, i submit it is the dominant feature of western social development (decay, imo) since rousseau.

Now you've all gone and done it. You've give Lieutenant Lowercase a chance to bring up 300 year old philosophers!

[Old School]

Back in the day, we used to talk about how good it was back in the day.

[Anon]

That's right, Madoq. And screw the homeless, particularly as the are freezing around my New England neck of the woods this week. Don't they know how much worse they would have had it 100 years ago?

And screw my parents for complaining about hassles with automated phone trees and near-forcible imposition of online (as opposed to in-person) banking too. Why everyone knows things sucked in the 70s, when people could never be sure what that icky teller's hand had been touching just a moment before. Eew.

Best of all, as good as things are today, I bet they'll be even better tomorrow. Ipod, IShuffle, who can imagine what comes next!

Anon

[Jon Anon]

Joe: I'm not Goiter, but I'll venture a response: there is no response. "You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reason himself into." - Swift, loosely. Anxiety about change, even beneficial change, is as old as mankind. It isn't even irrational to fear change. It's just non-rational. It's primitive (I don't mean that in an insulting fashion, either). Boaz doesn't understand biotech. His kids will take it for granted. They in turn won't understand Future Tech X. Their children will take it for granted.

Anyone who thinks that life was less complicated in Ye Olden Tymes has never read, say, the Bible, or the Iliad. Maybe, maybe, less "future shock", in that the pace of technological change was slower, but I have to guess that watching Philistines steal your goats would cause an ulcer.

I also don't quite understand why there needs to be a Libertarian answer to this question. The Lib. answer is "Go, innovate. Or don't. Feeling dislocated? Move to New Hampshire. Or Australia. Or Newark. Whatever."

Anon:

Are you claiming that we live in the best of conditions for all people ever in the history of humanity, and that things are only getting better and better, and will continue to get better and better forever? How it not utopian idiocy?

I can't think of any other age in which the average individual would be any better off. That's a far cry from "best for everyone." I think that it's impossible to agree on what "best for everyone" could be. The nearest would be conditions such that every individual could pursue happiness in her own way without interference from evil-doers.

I think that things are, on balance, getting better and better. Nor is this idiotically utopian. That would be if I believed that we would ever reach the best of all worlds.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Forgive me, but the tenor of joe's original statement leads me to believe that one just has to look out the window to see the weeping multitudes broken by technological advance.

And, if we go back to the reviewer's original premise, the weeping multitudes were driven to sobbing by plastics. Oh, and the "consumer culture". Apparently, Mr Robinson was wrong.

[Solitudinarian]

Awfully collectivist of you to imply that the troubles of the individual should be ignored because of the benefit to the whole.

What manner of bollocks is that?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Back in the day, we used to talk about how good it was back in the day.

But didn't you have to walk uphill both ways to and from school?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

And screw the homeless, particularly as the are freezing around my New England neck of the woods this week. Don't they know how much worse they would have had it 100 years ago?

100 years ago they'd have been dead.

[gaius marius]

"Future shock" is merely the inability of a portion of the populace to adjust to change. It's commonly known as the biggest factor in extinction.

which is abstracted way of saying you don't give a fuck about anyone but yourself. this is precisely the anticivilizational impulse of antisocial disengagement, only practiced from the nietzschean right rather than the byronic sentimental left.

when its working from both ends -- left and right -- to undermine society, one can understand why western civ is in trouble.

You've give Lieutenant Lowercase a chance to bring up 300 year old philosophers!

lol -- because we all know the political thought of dubya is so much more instructive.

[Anon]

Joe Anon:

"I think that things are, on balance, getting better and better. Nor is this idiotically utopian. That would be if I believed that we would ever reach the best of all worlds."
If you believe things _are_ getting better and better, but you _don't_ believe we will ever reach the "best of all worlds," (however you mean that), then surely the incremental improvements you see must make life better for some but worse for others, but in such a manner that you are at peace with the tradeoff. But why should those people whose lives are becoming incrementally worse not complain?
On the other hand, if you believe things really are getting better and better for everyone, then why would you not expect us to eventually reach the best of all worlds?

Anon

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

And screw my parents for complaining about hassles with automated phone trees and near-forcible imposition of online (as opposed to in-person) banking too. Why everyone knows things sucked in the 70s, when people could never be sure what that icky teller's hand had been touching just a moment before. Eew.

Online banking is making life more complicated?

It's more complicated to go to your desk than it is to get dressed, get in your car, drive to the bank, park, go into the bank, fill out forms and slips and endorse things and such and then do it all again going back home?

Are you going to decry direct deposit?

[sage]

"Awfully collectivist of you to imply that the troubles of the individual should be ignored because of the benefit to the whole."

Actually, that's not what I implied, it's what you inferred. Indeed, those of us that *can* keep up with change can and do help those that cannot. You do this, for example, when you help your grandfather set the clock on his VCR.

[temporary K]

The Luddites _were_ "the innovator[s], the problem-solver[s], the tinkerer[s] and the traveler[s]" -- They were opposed to fat, lazy capitalists who mechanized their handiwork and destroyed their livelihoods.

I stand corrected w/ regard to the Luddites, thank you. But the sentiments expressed in the review seem to be much more generally against innovation both macro and micro...the statements about infant mortality in particular made me cringe. The modern anxiety IS largely about the abstract "system," but the individual innovator will both tinker with gadgets in their lab AND develop ways to show a wider group of people the benefits of their creation. The system is at least partially due to the innovators themselves, though the fat cat capitalists may be the ones pulling the strings and putting individual innovators out of work. That's the catch-22.

It still seems to me that emphasizing the freedom and happiness of the individual innovator/traveler/etc., is worth doing when confronting back-to-the-idyllic-village types. The more times they have to publicly deny people the freedom to innovate and spread the benefits of their innovations, the less credibility they have.

[Jon Anon]

Anon:

If you believe things _are_ getting better and better, but you _don't_ believe we will ever reach the "best of all worlds," (however you mean that), then surely the incremental improvements you see must make life better for some but worse for others, but in such a manner that you are at peace with the tradeoff.

Nonsense. Neither Capitalism nor technological progress is a zero-sum game.

On the other hand, if you believe things really are getting better and better for everyone, then why would you not expect us to eventually reach the best of all worlds?

Because their will always be evil individuals bent upon dominating their neighbors.

[Jon Anon]

Gaius Marius, he of the handle that has no relevance to anything, wrote: which is abstracted way of saying you don't give a fuck about anyone but yourself. this is precisely the anticivilizational impulse of antisocial disengagement, only practiced from the nietzschean right rather than the byronic sentimental left.

To which I cry BS. All civilizations, societies, and governments should aim at nothing less than the total empowerment of the individual to do whatever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants, with whatever other fucking consenting individuals or groups he fuck well pleases.

Go back to whatever junior college you crawled out of.

[Shannon Love]

joe,

"There is a real phenomenon going on here - the increasing pace of technological advancement is causing dislocation at a such a rate that the normal psychological, economic and social capacity to adjust."

I suspect that most libertarians simply don't accept your axiom that we live in an unique age. The problem of adapting to change is an old problem that every human in every time has faced.

The pace of change in the past was definitely slower but on the other hand the cultures of the past had fewer conceptual tools for dealing with that change. Most pre-industrial cultures had only a very weak sense that technological or social change occurred at all. When confronted with a sudden change many such cultures just imploded.

So in the modern world, change comes at us faster and faster but we now expect that happen and are prepared for it. The rate of change in technology is matched by a cultural understanding of how to adapt to changing technology. Its a kind of homeostatic system of adaptation.

Frankly, I suspect that a lot of this fear of change and nostalgia for the past comes from people who have little knowledge of technological history or of the ways in which most people of the past actually lived their lives.

[ed]

I enjoy living in a modern state.
I think I'll stay.

[isildur]

Lord almighty, turn over a rock and there's a nest of Luddites underneath it.

Look, not everyone has to use every technology that comes along. Not everyone has broadband internet. Hell, not everyone has access to the internet at all, by choice or by financial necessity. But I do, and I'm glad smart people came up with DSL.

The world is becoming a better place. We don't need to go as far as '1900 House' or use tuberculosis or infection as an example to make this point.

In 1992, in my last year of high school, to get to a job interview in La Puente, I had to do a complicated process of checking and double checking my Thomas Guide, trying to find the street I was going to drive down, hoping the building numbers would be clearly marked.

In 2005, going to see a show in downtown Seattle, I give Mapquest the address, and I've got a map that shows me exactly where I'm going. And I'm *behind* the tech curve on this; my boss just tells his *car* where he wants to go, and gets driving directions as he drives.

One example feels sufficient to make the point, but I could easily go on all day, just between 1985 and 2005. The world is a better place. Not just for me, but for everyone. And it continues to get better.

Dismissing that process as 'utopian' doesn't actually make any kind of argument. 'Utopian' isn't a bad word, and in describing what Glenn Reynolds calls a 'post-scarcity world', it's probably pretty damn accurate.

If you want to believe, like a Buddhist, that 'life is suffering', and sneer at any suggestion that the future will be otherwise, you're welcome to do so. I prefer optimism and technology, thanks.

[joe]

So buried within the "Would you rather die of an infected toenail? Huh? Would you?" bullying, a couple of actual answers emerge:

First, that any individual is free to disassociate himself from advancing technology. This is laughable. If the road outside my door is straightened and improved so that the traffic can go by at 50 mph instead of 25, I am not free to disassociate myself from the heightened danger and discomfort and difficulty crossing the street that it brings. "Hey, would you rather drive a horse and buggy" is a dodge to this issue, not an answer. If mastery of some new software becomes the criteria for getting hired at a decent wage, I'm not free to disassociate myself from the changes in the job market.

Second, the social darwinist "the weak should just die off" response. Beware what you ask for, you just might get it - I asked for a libertoid response, and there it is.

The problem with this line of reasoning (beyond the obvious geek-as-ubermench glee underlying it) is that the increasing pace of technological advance guarantees that "the weak" will be an ever-larger number. The point of the book "Future Shock" is that the pace of technological change is increasing - not just the technology itself, but the pace at which new technologies are invented and take over. Where someone in the 1900s might have two or three big reorderings to adjust to over the course of a career, his modern counterpart is likely to have twenty or thirty, and his future counterpart hundreds. Again, this is not a problem because the technologies themselves are all, or even mainly, harmful, but because the adjustments people are going to have to make are going to overwhelm a larger and larger part of society. If this number gets too large, get ready for the real luddites to come to the fore.

[Solitudinarian]

Second, the social darwinist "the weak should just die off" response. Beware what you ask for, you just might get it - I asked for a libertoid response, and there it is.

Where is "the weak should just die off" response? It strikes me as elusive as the evidence for your phenomenon.

[gaius marius]

Fair enough, gaius marius - but just how does it manifest itself? Where do I find concrete evidence of this phenomenon?

in the art and literature of the last two centuries, mr solitudinarian. there are millions of weeping words.

i personally agree that western civ is, by any standard, the most fulfilling form of physical existence ever seen. our lives are marked by length and luxury in comparison to any prior golden age.

but mentally -- intellectually and philosophically -- the agonism of even this existence is a great weight upon us that can (i think will) undo us, in fact is undoing us now. individualists and primitivists alike reject the society that has afforded them the leisure and luxury of the unpracticed delusion that they'd be better off tilling a field in quiet utopian solitude.

[joe]

"Online banking is making life more complicated?"

The elimination of traditional banking is making life more complicated for a lot of people. If the effect of advancing technology was only to provide new choices, without killing off old choices, this problem wouldn't exist.

[Solitudinarian]

in the art and literature of the last two centuries, mr solitudinarian. there are millions of weeping words.

But is that evidence of the phenomenon of dislocation (from what, joe does not say) or simply a reflection of the artist's perception of his or her age?

[gaius marius]

All civilizations, societies, and governments should aim at nothing less than the total empowerment of the individual to do whatever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants, with whatever other fucking consenting individuals or groups he fuck well pleases.

then please deposit yourself in the yukon without so much as clothing and fashion an existence for yourself, you spoiled child.

responsibility to others is the price of the life of leisure which is a product of the division of labor. pay it, i recommend -- because you would not last ten minutes in the world you so arrogently believe you would make a way in.

[Gary Gunnels]

The real issue is whether we get to choose, or the government chooses for us.

[Jennifer]

A friend and I recently had a discussion on a similar topic--that instead of society changing to meet the needs of humans, humans today seem expected to change to meet the demands of society, almost like Procrustes' bed.

For example, medically speaking, the ideal time for a woman to have a baby is when she's between the ages of 17 and 20--Mom is most likely to have an easy pregnancy and quick recovery, while Baby is more likely to be born healthy and without complications. The worst time for a woman to start reproducing is in her late twenties and beyond; the eggs aren't so fresh anymore. Yet in our society, having a baby while a teen almost guarantees a lifetime of poverty; instead, women who want kids mostly have to wait until the worst possible time, biologically speaking. Likewise, when I taught high school I thought it was ridiculous that teenagers, who need more sleep than any other age group except infants, actually get LESS sleep than anyone else, since they're expected to start school in some cases before dawn, and then stay up late participating in the jobs and extracurricular activites that are practically required of them these days.

Of course, I'm the first to admit that societal change and technological change aren't exactly the same thing.

[On Anon]

I didn't finish reading all of the previous comments, but in reponse to joe:

Yes, those things are negatives, but they are worth the positives that we get, and are only able to get (for the time being), by accepting the negatives. The reason people make the arguments you describe is that they are a proxy for asking you whether the exchange is worth it to you, on the (probably safe) gamble that the honest answer is yes. If you want to work on refining our progress so that we can enjoy its benefits with out enduring its costs (teleporter, Star Trek geeks?), then more power to you. But others tire quickly of someone complaining that they have had to give something up to get something better (again, predicated on the supposition that "it is worth it to you").

[Gary Gunnels]

Boaz is likely one of those people who thought that the dominance of the M$ browser allow M$ to control our online presence.

[gaius marius]

But is that evidence of the phenomenon of dislocation (from what, joe does not say) or simply a reflection of the artist's perception of his or her age?

does it matter, mr solitudinarian? real of perceived (certainly perceived), the effect is to refuse to defend that which has brought us plenty, and indeed seek to misguidedly destroy it on the altar of self-obsessed stupidity.

[joe]

Kudos to Shannon Love for the best response by far.

Not that I'm going to swallow it whole, of course.

"So in the modern world, change comes at us faster and faster but we now expect that happen and are prepared for it. The rate of change in technology is matched by a cultural understanding of how to adapt to changing technology. Its a kind of homeostatic system of adaptation."

I can buy this to a certain extent - it's undeniable that many people have the coping skills Shannon describes, and suffer little or no future shock. But what of the have nots? Those skeelz are the consequence of a certain type of education, a certain age, and a certain socio-economic set. If the have-nots were an insignificantly small number, the Darwinist pretentions described above would be only cruel, rather than pollyannish. The problem is, the number of those imposed on beyond their coping abilities by technological change is not only large, but will inevitably grow, as the rate of that change continues to increase and the average age rises.

[Junyo]

...that any individual is free to disassociate himself from advancing technology. This is laughable. If the road outside my door is straightened and improved so that the traffic can go by at 50 mph instead of 25, I am not free to disassociate myself from the heightened danger and discomfort and difficulty crossing the street that it brings.

Ah, no, because people do it. Drive through Lancaster County PA sometime. I've gotten stuck behind the 5 o'clock buggy "rush hour" (rush hour tends to be more of an amble hour when you're in a car behind a buggy, although pumping Jay-Z at high volume seems to help) more that once. You can disconnect yourself, just not without consequence.

...that the increasing pace of technological advance guarantees that "the weak" will be an ever-larger number.
Which assumes that most humans can adapt to change at a finite rate. But when we look at stuff like combat, which is a direct and particularly viscous evolutionary process, where one's survival is based almost entirely upon ones ability to read and react, humans do that fine (too fine perhaps). It also assumes that the rate of technological change epresents the most change that humans have ever been exposed to. I'd imagination that hunter civilizations expanding into new continents at the end of the last ice age, with completely new and dynamic environments as glaciers receded faced a similiar if not greater rate of critical change. Hell, it takes us 20 years to change a TV broadcast standard.

[joe]

"The real issue is whether we get to choose, or the government chooses for us."

You know, there are other subjects in the world, Gary, than regulation. No one on the thread has even suggested regulation.

I swear, in the middle of a blizzard, if someone mentioned that the city hires snowplows, some libertarian would insist that there is no snow, and another would claim that snow doesn't interfere with driving.

[Solitudinarian]

If the have-nots were an insignificantly small number, the Darwinist pretentions described above would be only cruel, rather than pollyannish. The problem is, the number of those imposed on beyond their coping abilities by technological change is not only large, but will inevitably grow, as the rate of that change continues to increase and the average age rises.

All I ask for is evidence of the large number of your "have-nots".

[jc]

joe, you're making points that don't follow.

1) The problem with this line of reasoning is that the increasing pace of technological advance guarantees that "the weak" will be an ever-larger number.

I don't agree with the line of reasoning, but if their numbers are increasing then they're not dying off - so they aren't all that weak.

2) The elimination of traditional banking is making life more complicated for a lot of people.

On-line banking did not eliminate traditional banking. An arguement from a point that isn't a fact. I know a lot of old folks that love direct deposit, cuts down the number of trips to the bank they have to make. And they can still make their withdrawals the traditional way.

[Isaac Bartram]

Boaz is likely one of those people who thought that the dominance of the M$ browser allow M$ to control our online presence.

David Boaz just delivered the message. Are you going to shoot Julian too?

[joe]

Junyo, the people in those buggies keep getting smooshed.

Also, at least half the people in a combat situation die or get their asses kicked.

Finally, the migration to new continents was a gradual process of advance and retreat, with people spending a little more time in the new grounds more and more frequently - exactly the opposite of the dramatic change you describe.

[joe]

"but if their numbers are increasing then they're not dying off - so they aren't all that weak."

They don't die off, for the most part. Some actually do die - people who step in front of speeding cars because they're used to crossing the street, for example. But most just suffer lower job prospects, greater strees, separation from family - a whole spectrum ranging from mildly annoying to fatal.

But your reasoning doesn't make sense. If the botton 1% of a group dies off every decade, but the % of the whole being subsumed into that group is rising by greater than 1% every decade, the total number rises.

[gaius marius]

All I ask for is evidence of the large number of your "have-nots".

mr solitudinarian, i think that, in absolute terms, the condition of the have-nots has improved dramatically under the auspices of western civ. this can't be denied.

however, the relative condition of haves to have-nots is a more problematic assessment. the point of capitalism is to concentrate capital where it is effective -- and this it does. in a social framework which has steadily evolved from in-this-together to i-got-mine, that is sure to spark resentment (rational or not).

[joe]

And traditional banking is become less and less common and more difficult for its devotees, as fewer branches are opened and some banks begin charging fees to speak to a person.

[Josh]

Joe, this conversation will probably be more productive if you don't dismiss every legitimate claim as "bullying" in order to concentrate on the arguments you think you can win.

Medical technology has made things like scarlet fever, polio, tuberculosis, and cholera non-existent in the modern world. That seems like a good thing to me. Not to bully you about it or anything.

[Solitudinarian]

mr solitudinarian, i think that, in absolute terms, the condition of the have-nots has improved dramatically under the auspices of western civ. this can't be denied.

Excuse me, gaius marius, but I believe the "have-nots" here refer to those without the "coping skills" to adjust to technological change.

Otherwise, I find your statement inarguable - which won't stop someone else from trying...

[joe]

Hey Jennifer, would you rather die in childbirth? And see your children killed by bacterial infections? You must, if you're raising such questions.

Ultimately, you just want to regulate sex, because you love the government.

- joe's libertoid alter ego

[gaius marius]

And traditional banking is become less and less common and more difficult for its devotees, as fewer branches are opened and some banks begin charging fees to speak to a person.

mr joe, i must ask -- is your argument against society -- or isolation?

[joe]

Josh, responding to "I recognize the benefits, but what of the drawbacks?" with "Do you think it was better when people died of infection?" IS empty-headed bullying, and I'm not going to respond it, as there is no actual argument being made.

I believe advancing medical technology has led to significant improvements as well, as I've mentioned several times. Perhaps I should work in a thoreauian "Of course, John Kerry would be worse" into every comment, but I doubt that would stop the lazy from reaching for the low hanging fruit anyway.

[joe]

I'm not sure I understand the question, gaius.

[Josh]

Joe, it's not empty-headed bullying to point out that the purported horrors of the drawbacks are laughably minor compared to a death by scarlet fever. You want to compare internet banking to friendly small-town tellers and ignore the quick painless hour in the hospital to having a limb amputated without anesthesia due to gangrene.

[Ironchef]

"reaching for the low hanging fruit anyway."
joe look at your first post.

joe, what are your "issues" with Google, for example.

[Julian Sanchez]

I know we all have our little cherished affectations, but "mr. joe" is taking it a little far, isn't it?

[Larry A]

Anon: [I feel that there are many arguments to be made against the Luddites, but to suggest that mass production is beneficial to the individual _tinkerer_ is manifestly absurd. I no longer have access to a novel artisans shop for my cooking ware -- I shop at Target, silly.]

Of course the folks who make those pots do so in 40 hours a week and have health insurance. Those that market don't spend their whole (short) lives walking from town to town.

And the folks that still want to "tinker" by hand take a course from community education, buy supplies and mass-produced tools at their local craft shop, and make all the pots they want in their much more abundant spare time. The profits are much better, too, when they sell the pots as handmade art to the fat, lazy capitalists who can now afford to support their hobby.

[gaius marius]

Excuse me, gaius marius, but I believe the "have-nots" here refer to those without the "coping skills" to adjust to technological change.

ah, right -- in that case, mr solitudinarian, these numbers are clearly on the rise. would you disagree that the melancholy and alienation that makes kafka or hardy a central literary figure speaks to widespread resentment? or irony the undercurrent of every conversation?

that's not to say change never occurred before or that people never feared it before. but the idea that progress should be refuted as damaging has inarguably and slowly permeated virtually everything since the romantics first spoke it.

whether or not change has physically overwhelmed people in a way it never did before (which may not be true, i agree), the idea that it has is almost fundamental to the postmodern mind. primitivism has center stage now, wouldn't you agree?

[Josh]

Complaining that pointing out the massive disparities in medicine between Then and Now is "reaching for low hanging fruit" is kind of a reverse "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

[gaius marius]

"mr. joe" is taking it a little far, isn't it?

lol -- i can't be civil? 🙂

[matt]

"All civilizations, societies, and governments should aim at nothing less than the total empowerment of the individual to do whatever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants, with whatever other fucking consenting individuals or groups he fuck well pleases."

"then please deposit yourself in the yukon without so much as clothing and fashion an existence for yourself, you spoiled child."

Gauis:

All he said (or at least the way I read it) is that we have no positve moral obligations to anyone else. Did you miss the part about "consenting idividuals and groups?"

[gaius marius]

I'm not sure I understand the question, gaius.

i mean that your examples -- highways separating neighbors and paying for interaction -- seem to indicate a disgust with antisocial individualism as an absurd feature of society, not society itself.

i would agree that individualism in excess is undermining civility, and it represents a sort of insidious primitivism -- a desire to return to some sort of ridiculous hobbesian natural state.

but against that, can one attack civility with another flavor of primitivism? i think civility has to be promoted in the face of individualism, not disparaged as its wellspring.

[Junyo]

Junyo, the people in those buggies keep getting smooshed.
While a cute one liner, tht's not proof of anything. And it certainly doesn't address your contention that people were simple incapable of refusing to adopt new technology. As I said, some populations do it quite successfully. There are about 40,000 Amish in Ohio, and about 65 buggies are hit annually, with a 1% fatality rate (Gawd, I love Google). Cars aren't nearly that safe. You were saying?

Also, at least half the people in a combat situation die or get their asses kicked.
If, by get their asses kicked, you're lumping in those that are compelled to surrender, then yeah. But if you mean don't escape without permanent injury, then you're just wrong. 20% casualties is heavy in modern times. So despite the tremendous amount of thought devoted to trying to kill them usually at least 4 out of 5 guys walk away from it. People adapt very well to change.

Finally, the migration to new continents was a gradual process of advance and retreat, with people spending a little more time in the new grounds more and more frequently - exactly the opposite of the dramatic change you describe.

On the contrary, glacial movement even now is very rapid. At the periods of climatic change it's even more so. Some of the mastadon dug up in Russia were frozen with food in their mouths, caught off guard mid-chew. The environment was much more dynamic than you seem to understand. And in addition to that, hunter groups simply didn't stay anywhere, they couldn't. They ha to follow the herds that they depended on. Again, the pace of change that they were exposed to, and the criticality of that change was immense. And as a whole, humanity deals with it. And those that don't have social structures that help buffer the effect, to gauis' point (!); to puunch in their PIN or get them on the Internet, or bring thema hunk of mammoth. Either that or they die.

[joe]

"Joe, it's not empty-headed bullying to point out that the purported horrors of the drawbacks are laughably minor compared to a death by scarlet fever."

It is empty headed to pretend that noticing the drawbacks of changing banking procedures will result in more limbs going gangrene.

gaius, I don't see a necessary correlation between technological advancement and individualism/society. In some ways, future shock erodes individual autonomy. In some ways, it erodes social interaction. On the flip side, in some ways, technological advance furthers individual achievement, and in some ways, it furthers social interaction.

[joe]

And personally, I like "Josephus."

[Super Prole]

It's nice to know that there are those who would make sure my ilk were confined to dark, satanic mills or peasant hovels. Oh sure, you'll actually let me have a little house, maybe central air and perhaps a telephone but not a scary computer, or an airplane to fly in (steerage on a liner is good enough for our lot).

Oh, yes, and we'd sure like a bit of that National Health, if you please, sir. You see, we haven't got the education or intelligence to take care of ourselves and we've got the future shock, awful bad, we have. We're feckless, we are, sir.

Just because you're alienated or worried about others' alienation don't deny us the use of the fruits of technology.

Thanks. We really appreciate your concern, but butt the hell out.

And, yes, I do represent the workers, one and all. I am their champion! (That last only semi-serious.)

SP

[gaius marius]

we have no positve moral obligations to anyone else. Did you miss the part about "consenting idividuals and groups?"

no, mr matt, the difficulty is clearly the reliability on human consent, which is presumed to be rational.

if we were all rational all the time, there would be no need of law or government -- nor of regret. this seems to be the operating set of assumptions for the libertarian world.

but people clearly do irrational, stupid and regretful things all the time -- because we're not rational monads but emotional people -- and to limit the damage of this humanity this we need law and government to restrain ourselves against our judgement.

this is the whole point of establishing coercive social institutions; it is to shackle the massive destructive capacity of unrestrained individualism. to claim otherwise -- as mr anon did -- betrays a profound misunderstanding of what government by law is.

i know these aren't libertarian idealisms, but so much the worse for libertarianism. that's the reality of individualism -- it is the antithesis of society, and can only be productive in civilization if carefully checked.

[joe]

"...your contention that people were simple incapable of refusing to adopt new technology. As I said, some populations do it quite successfully."

I never made such a contention. I stated that different people have differing abilities to adapt to change, and that as the rate of change increases, the number of people who can't keep up will increase.

[joe]

Had Super Prole's school district received adequate funds, he might have been able to detect that no one on this thread has recommended any of the things he objects to.

A wise, and devestatingly handsome, man once made a good point about libertarians and snow.

[Fabius]

Josepus,

I'm touched.

Marius,

Hobbesian!

QFMC cos. V

[matt]

"if we were all rational all the time, there would be no need of law or government -- nor of regret. this seems to be the operating set of assumptions for the libertarian world."

Of course these same irrational people also populate the government do they not? So who can make a more "rational" choice about what to do with my life, some government busybody or me? I chose me.

[Just a simple 21st-Century guy]

Does anyone understand a word gaius ever says?

[Dynamist]

joe and the NYT reviewer presuppose the negative value on the "cost" of adapting to change.

The buggy lover doesn't get mowed down by the motorcar in isolation. Along with the auto comes the entire package of advancing technology. This package changes the specific risks within it, and to draw conclusions from examining any single increased or decreased risk exclusively is fallacy.

A measure of the effects of the whole package is life expectancy, and so one might plausibly say that overall, technology makes life better. That some suffer (die), whether the cause is non-adaptability or simple chance (people who love cars get run over, too) seems an eternal aspect of human life.

Perhaps a dispute to the measure of life expectancy is something about "quality of life". That seems inescapably related to an individual perception and expectation of how hard or easy living is supposed to be. That perception relates to my first line about presupposing a value/cost. NYT seems to think that somehow living should be easier than it is, and selects facts to support the emotion.

To me, joe asks for a libertarian response to the idea that in life some suffer as the result of others' actions. My response is that free people are the best means to recognize and redress whatever suffering exists. Most of the technological suffering (motorcars) is the result of someone trying to reduce suffering (miles of walking). The process is ongoing and incomplete. Give us time and individual innovations in the future will continue to reduce aggregate suffering.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

lol -- because we all know the political thought of dubya is so much more instructive.

But it the political thought of a set of men intending to bring about the fall of the throne or the catholic chruch any better?

[Super Prole]

Joe,

Ach! Yes, if only the rich had been properly taxed then I wouldn't be so muddle-headed.

I wasn't ridiculing your suggestions per se, but what the effects would be. What is seen and what is not seen and all that.

Thanks for your concern for my ability to adjust but technological progress means that I live as I now do, not it a filthy hovel as a tenant farmer or in a tenement as a piece worker. I am all for it.

And, it is true that I no longer have the privilege of waiting in line for a teller, or walking to work in bad weather, or living your idea of a good community and, yes, I sometimes have to cross the highway. You wouldn't believe the stress I'm under.

Sorry that the way I choose to live so upsets you so, but please, sir, it's the future shock, talking, it is.

Damn communitarian paternalists.

SP

[Shannon Love]

joe,

"But what of the have nots?"

I assume you mean economic have-nots. The history of the last 200+ years has shown that (1) technological change benefits the have-nots disproportionately in all areas (economic, medical, political and social) (2) have-nots, having no significant investment in the status quo are more willing and able to adopt new technologies and behaviors. Objectively, it has always been the very top of the wealth and power hierarchy who have suffered the greatest displacement due to technological change.

" The problem is, the number of those imposed on beyond their coping abilities by technological change is not only large, but will inevitably grow, as the rate of that change continues to increase and the average age rises."

I think that is an unproven assertion. We think of the old as fearful and resistant to change but I think those are just stereotypes. My grandparents would complain about the modern times but when I ask them if we should go back to the pre-WWII world of their youth they all emphatically said they wouldn't like to. I know quite a few older people who are quite internet savvy.

If you wanted evidence for your argument I might suggest you look at the impact of technological change on non-western pre-industrial cultures. Even there however, you will find that the ordinary people are very adaptable. There are groups of people like the Humong who have literally gone from a neolithic culture to living in American suburbia within on generation.

[Matt]

"There are groups of people like the Humong who have literally gone from a neolithic culture to living in American suburbia within on generation."

Hmong? You might have chosen an example without such an extensive record of suicide, insanity, and overall psychological collapse in the face of drastic and rapid change.

[gaius marius]

Of course these same irrational people also populate the government do they not? So who can make a more "rational" choice about what to do with my life, some government busybody or me? I chose me.

which illustrates the genius of locke: division of power and the rule of *law*, not man.

*dis*trust of the individual, be it citizen or politician, is why locke works in practice.

[Gary Gunnels]

joe,

We are all aware of the fact that critiques like this are quickly followed by calls for regulation from people like you.

Isaac Bertram,

Thanks for pointing out my error. 🙂

[Jimbo]

This is ridiculous; even if you focus on the petty forms of technology like ATMs vs. 9-4, Mon-Fri. tellers ask yourself what you would do, even 25 years ago, if you needed to get cash, groceries, and a snow shovel...on a Sunday night. Answer? You wouldn't.

Well now my bank is open, my grovery store is open, my big-box "house of evil" store is open, and I can access my bank account at any of them I can also get plane tickets, public transportation passes (a Joe fave), license plates, movie rentals etc. etc., online without having to leave work or leave home. Does that make my life more complicated?

How about the lives of the working poor who couldn't go to any of these places during working hours? Are these have-nots mourning their new opportunities? The truly rich have always had anything at their fingertips at any hour. Now that even the poorest have the same type of access due to technology it's somehow not in their best interest?

Sorry to bully, but your arguments are disgusting. Disgusting to the parents whose children are alive because of technology. Disgusting to the family that has hours to enjoy every week because of technology. Disgusting to any downtrodden soul in a third-world hell-hole who can tell his story to the outside world directly without having to pay eason jordan tribute.

Is all technology good? No. Have you seen a Cue Cat? But that's not the argument. You're claiming that GOOD Technology is somehow bad, because the slow, the stupid, and the stubborn do not benefit as much those poised to pounce and exploit new tools. So? Hi-tech sneakers benefit olympic runners more than corpulent slackers (like me), but that doesn't mean I'm left behind (except in a race) by the difference in benefits. Their faster running is not to my detriment.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

This is laughable. If the road outside my door is straightened and improved so that the traffic can go by at 50 mph instead of 25, I am not free to disassociate myself from the heightened danger and discomfort and difficulty crossing the street that it brings.

Take a Sunday drive through Mercer County, PA. There are entire communities of Amish that HAVE disassociated themselves.

Go hang out in Idaho where there are enclaves of people that have done the same.

[joe]

Well put, Dynamist. But it doesn't really address the main point.

"Give us time and individual innovations in the future will continue to reduce aggregate suffering."

But you see, the suffering is this case is caused by the innovations. Not each innovation, most of which reduce suffering, but by the pace of innovation itself, and the innate discomfort to change in each person, coupled with some people not having learned the skills to adequately adapt.

How can innovation be the solution, when innovation is the problem?

And even if the good that comes from these new technologies outweights, in the aggregate, the suffering from future shock, would it not be good to reduce that suffering regardless?

[God's exgopher]

That there are six or so billion of us and the big worry is that we will wipe everything ELSE out is a testament to our ability to adapt, not our disability.

[Hugo]

It may be just because I'm young, but I don't understand any of this argument. We should stop or slow down innovation because some people don't like new challenges? All the drunken hobos I pass on my way to class are really just people who couldn't program their VCR? What do we do then when we stop innovation? Sit around at the local hippy coffee house and ponder the universe?

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

While I'm not luddite, the passage of the Hmong to modernity was hardly an easy one (and ,ost importantly, they generally lacked choice in the matter).

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

i mean that your examples -- highways separating neighbors and paying for interaction -- seem to indicate a disgust with antisocial individualism as an absurd feature of society, not society itself.

It's the central planner in him.

i would agree that individualism in excess is undermining civility, and it represents a sort of insidious primitivism -- a desire to return to some sort of ridiculous hobbesian natural state.

Will you stop that?!

[Gary Gunnels]

Jimbo,

Twenty-five years ago you would write a check or use a credit card. 🙂

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

You should read some of the case studies on the acculturation of isolated (and I mean isolated) groups of humans in New Guinea. It ain't a rosey pictured. Anthropologists occassionally get killed in such encounters.

[Twba]

I swear, in the middle of a blizzard, if someone mentioned that the city hires snowplows, some libertarian would insist that there is no snow, and another would claim that snow doesn't interfere with driving.

then please deposit yourself in the yukon without so much as clothing and fashion an existence for yourself, you spoiled child.

I need no more evidence that my time would be better spent skipping Pinche Planner and verbosus magnus comments.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Does anyone understand a word gaius ever says?

You have to be in touch with 200-300 year old philo, then expand, extract specific pieces, extrapolate, apply it to man's role in the world rather than their role within the social and religious caste that was being written about and finally turn sour on man his place in today's world as pertains to western civilization and culture.

Start a conversation about Africa. Nothing that Lieutenant Lowercase has ever read in his old philo pertains, he'll be like a Tuna in the Sahara.

[Jimbo]

GG,

Good point. We were just at IKEA where someone did just that (used a check), and the place ground to a halt. After 5 minutes of waiting we were 12 seconds away from slaying the stubborn and stupid woman with the checkbook, when it was finally resolved. The constant refrain from everyone in line? "Who in the world still uses checks?!"

But more to the point, you would be lucky 25 years ago if the store was even open. And how, when and where would you pay for your travel, transfer money to accounts, and get cash, not to mention see video of your newborn nephew three timezones away.

[Shannon Love]

Joe,

I think the fulcrum of your argument is that as technological change accelerates, the proportion of the population that cannot adapt to that change must inevitably increase.

I don't think that is the case.

I don't see any evidence that a larger percentage of the total population has problems with technological change in 2005 than people in 1905. For that matter I don't think the percentage of 1905 was any different than that of 1805 etc.

Conventional histories do not cover the day-to-day arguments over technology that occurred in the past. Unless you make a special study of technological history, it is easy to come to the conclusion that people being afraid of or disoriented by technological change is a 20th century phenomenon. It is not. In fact, people have expressed great concern ever since people became widely aware of change around 1700 or so. I see no historical evidence that the problem is worse now than in the early enlightenment.

I think the percentage of people in each generation who experience "future shock" is largely invariant from generation to generation.

I think people who do react negatively to change due so not because they cannot understand or master new technology but because the technology changes their economic, social or political status for the worse.

[Urban Idiot]

Karl Marx welcomed and celebrated so-called "future shock," arguing that it would rescue peasants from the "idiocy of rural life." Schumpeter likened this process to a "gale of creative destruction." Capitalism won't wither away until it has exhausted its progressive potential, Marx aruged; why do so many modern leftists ignore that particular claim?

I realize that Julian threw the 19th amendment in there partly as jest, but why not consider the point: the "future shock" of the ongoing emancipation of women from economic and cultural bondage has upset lots of men. They are shocked and awed by it, and end up the subject of Susan Faludi's book Stiffed, or romanticized by the book and movie Fight Club. Pat Buchanan similarly champions the lost masculine values associated with steel workers, and believes economic protectionism can turn back the clock from such "future shock."

Many of these men have lost their jobs due to changing economic forces; some of their stories are tragic (see Faludi's book). Of course, the exclusion of women from the workforce helped insure their particular privilege and masculine identity. Can we agree that "future shock" has benefitted women in this regard?

[Eric the .5b]

The Luddites _were_ "the innovator[s], the problem-solver[s], the tinkerer[s] and the traveler[s]" -- They were opposed to fat, lazy capitalists who mechanized their handiwork and destroyed their livelihoods.

No, the Luddites were assholes who through violence and sabotage tried to enforce a status quo that benefited them more than the change that benefited everyone else.

[Dynamist]

You've defined innovation as a problem, so I can't logically redefine it as a solution. We have to argue through what the terms "innovation" and "problem" mean to achieve some common ground.

I suggest that suffering is the result of imperfect people trying to make the best of an indifferent and often threatening nature. In the absence of all innovation there would likely be no men surviving. Innovation, however abstracted and remote a SpongeBob cellphone cover seems, is part of the mechanism of survival.

I've allowed that there is some suffering along with innovation, and yes, the whole objective assumed is to reduce suffering. So we must then ask: What is the best way to reduce overall suffering, the most gain with the least transfer of pain?

I then repeat my faith in the power of free people to solve their problems. Individuals negotiating and communicating freely is what some call "the market". Anything that intereferes with market process prolongs more suffering in aggregate, and in specific as well, as the pained will have more difficulty effecting change.

The extreme alternative is to fix all things as they are, and let people find the least painful path in a set regime of choices. But it is impossible to fix all things (nature changes), so (omitting many steps in my thinking) we are brought back to the master adaptation mechanism: market.

[Fabius]

TPG,

The real Marius died a broken and bitter man, too.

Of course, I told them all long before that going to Africa was a big mistake.

QFMC cos. V

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

But you see, the suffering is this case is caused by the innovations. Not each innovation, most of which reduce suffering, but by the pace of innovation itself, and the innate discomfort to change in each person, coupled with some people not having learned the skills to adequately adapt.

You still have yet to offer a modicum of "proof" for this. Repeating it doesn't make it so.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

All the drunken hobos I pass on my way to class are really just people who couldn't program their VCR?

That is some funny shit.

[Eric the .5b]

So buried within the "Would you rather die of an infected toenail? Huh? Would you?" bullying...

Joe, I submit that it's not bullying. It's pointing out a rather basic principle - you can't manage change except by preventing progress. You can't make all new things be perfectly beneficial, devoid of downsides, and effortless to learn. You can't even restrict progress to some areas and stop others because of that "unintended consequences" thing we like to talk about. You, of all people here, likely won't believe that, but the libertarians (and some few of the conservatives) here do.

The cost of new, beneficial things is things that aren't so great or are even bad and have to be dealt with. The cost of avoiding those is having no new, beneficial things.

And if you really think that is a reasonable option, well...since I've survived a medical condition that would have pretty certainly killed me as recently as 20 years ago, you would be welcome to go fuck yourself. I feel absolutely no need to justify that that the worthwhile side of progress is worth pursuing.

[Gary Gunnels]

Jimbo,

Sorry, I was just being snarky. 🙂

I can't wait for the day when everything is stored on biometric smart card.

Checks are still in use, and quite popular for some types of payments. A lot of stores also have the ability to run the check through their credit/debit card machine; it reads the MICR line and then returns back information on the status of the account.

[Eric the .5b]

that any individual is free to disassociate himself from advancing technology. This is laughable. If the road outside my door is straightened and improved so that the traffic can go by at 50 mph instead of 25, I am not free to disassociate myself from the heightened danger and discomfort and difficulty crossing the street that it brings.

(Hmm, "straightened and improved" by seizing part of your front lawn via emminent domain, I wonder? ;)) But yes, despite the efforts of many people, you do have a few legal recourses against the government action. For the "libertoid" answer, I suspect it would be better if the road were private, of course - the owner would actually care about the opinions of people by the road and couldn't just take bits of their land to improve his own.

But even beyond that, you do have a recourse - move. Does this impose a cost? Yes. Such is life.

"Hey, would you rather drive a horse and buggy" is a dodge to this issue, not an answer.

Well then, let's reframe it. Would you have supported buggy-whip manufacturers in trying to ban the model T in order to protect their jobs?

If mastery of some new software becomes the criteria for getting hired at a decent wage, I'm not free to disassociate myself from the changes in the job market.

Leave that market and try another. There is no one "job market" that universally requires a given skill. There are in fact people who smugly point out to anyone around them that they never touch a computer, and they earn a living. At the extreme end, there are rather some people who go their lives without such disruptive technologies as the "button".

[dead_elvis]

" What is the use of reducing infantile mortality when it is precisely that reduction which imposes the greatest restraint on us in the begetting of children, so that, taken all round, we nevertheless rear no more children than in the days before the reign of hygiene,"

While of course the whole thing is poppy-cock, as has been pointed out, this is disgusting. He's saying it's no better to have 2 number of children who live and then spend the rest of your fertile days using contraception, than to have 4 children and watch helplessly as 2 of them suffer and die. What an idiot.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

In fact, people have expressed great concern ever since people became widely aware of change around 1700 or so.

People have been expressing great concern over change and have been aware of it long before 1700. My lord!!! Read some Aeschylus!!!

[Eric the .5b]

Second, the social darwinist "the weak should just die off" response. Beware what you ask for, you just might get it - I asked for a libertoid response, and there it is.

Actually, the response I'm seeing is the sarcastic "if people are really utterly unwilling to adapt, then screw'em." I, for one, simply don't buy the contention that people can't adapt if they choose to. You're welcome to try to substantiate it.

Of course, I consider it very ironic, since all that terrible progress makes it easier for the "weak" to survive. I know I'd rather be poor in the early 21th century than the early 18th or even the 20th. The same foes for being homeless.

[Eric the .5b]

"goes", even.

[Matt]

Speaking of biometric smart cards, there's one innovation with a likely net benefit, from the utilitarian point of view. But there's gonna be some serious "future shock" at this URL when the government rolls them out.

[Phil]

Um, just to pick a nit here, this July 2004 publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York claims that, when the branching strategies of banks at different levels of size are taken as a whole, the number of U.S. bank branches is growing, not shrinking:

During the same period, the number of bank and thrift branches actually rose (Chart?1). Banking organizations began to expand their branch networks following the banking crisis of the late 1980s and the 1990-91 recession; from 1993 to 2002, the number of bank branches climbed 8.6?percent. The Riegle-Neal Act contributed to this branch expansion, as did the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999?the latter because branches could be used to distribute the insurance and securities products that the legislation permitted banks to originate.

There are fewer banks because of consolidation, but there are apparently a lot more branches. Indeed, I can think offhand of about a dozen new branches of various banks in the last two years between where I live and where I work, a distance of about 15 miles. My own bank opened brand new full-service branches in both Fairfax and Arlington, in fact. And new innovations (!) like full-service, 7-day-a-week branches in grocery stores have added to that number.

So I think at least one topic of discussion here is proceeding from a false premise.

[Junyo]

"'...your contention that people were simple incapable of refusing to adopt new technology. As I said, some populations do it quite successfully.'

I never made such a contention. I stated that different people have differing abilities to adapt to change, and that as the rate of change increases, the number of people who can't keep up will increase."

Actually, you said that the idea "...that any individual is free to disassociate himself from advancing technology...is laughable." And you've been given several examples of that being wrong. Still standing by the statement or discarding it like a Confederate flag prom dress?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

since I've survived a medical condition that would have pretty certainly killed me as recently as 20 years ago, you would be welcome to go fuck yourself.

Rumpleminze hangover?

[Eric the .5b]

You know, there are other subjects in the world, Gary, than regulation. No one on the thread has even suggested regulation.

OK, Joe. I'm calling you out on this. How exactly would you try to stop, change, "ameliorate", or otherwise have something different happen with regards to the whole inexorable march of progress, if not by using the government?

[Eric the .5b]

Rumpleminze hangover?

Er, no, a form of cancer.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Er, no, a form of cancer.

Hm, yes, I've heard that is worse than a Rumpleminze Hangover.

Congrats on your victory, but remember, the advances that helped you survive have caused misery in countless others via "future shock".

Now stay away from the peppermint schnapps.

[jc]

The constant refrain from everyone in line? "Who in the world still uses checks?!"

Again, the stupidity of the masses and the wisdom of the individual. The proper question should have been "Who in the world still ACCEPTS checks?" But as usual, the herd blames the little guy using the check instead of the behemoth corporation who tries to accomodate as many people as they can.

[Eric the .5b]

Congrats on your victory, but remember, the advances that helped you survive have caused misery in countless others via "future shock".

Thank you! (Actually, it's even worse. I was a sickly baby, so if not for the awful, disruptive advances that lead to modern neonatal care, I might not have lived to get cancer...)

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

OK, Joe. I'm calling you out on this. How exactly would you try to stop, change, "ameliorate", or otherwise have something different happen with regards to the whole inexorable march of progress, if not by using the government?

Urban planning.

*snicker*

*chortle*

[Evan Williams]

"Speaking of biometric smart cards, there's one innovation with a likely net benefit, from the utilitarian point of view. But there's gonna be some serious "future shock" at this URL when the government rolls them out."

You're mistaking an affection for liberty for "future shock". This is illogical and plainly wrong. When a Reasonoid rails against forced government social security accounts, are they railing against the general idea of retirement accounts? No, they're railing against the specific idea of forced retirement accounts. When a Reasonoid argues against state-run education, are they arguing against the general idea of education? No, they're arguing against the specific idea of forced education, paid for by theft. It is not disagreement with these ideas in general, such as biometric ID cards; instead, it is a disagreement with these ideas being forced upon them by the iron fist of the state.

If you cannot see the difference between this and "future shock", then something's really wrong.

[Steve Kelley]

Maybe Neil Genzlinger is suffering from SAD and needs some Florida sunshine. Oops. That's a long walk.

[joe]

Prole, you'd be muddle headed regardless. You'd just have better reading skills. For example, you might have understood the much-repeated point that singling out the benefits of technological advance does not preclude the suffering caused by its drawbacks.

Shannon, you assume wrongly. The "have nots" in my formulation are those who lack the skills and personality to easily adapt to changing conditions. This correlates somewhat with wealth, but not exactly. Older people often have the most trouble adapting to dramatic change. And, YET AGAIN, pointing out the material benefits of technological advancement does not eliminate the problems associated with adaptation. As you demonstrate with your line, "My grandparents would complain about the modern times but when I ask them if we should go back to the pre-WWII world of their youth they all emphatically said they wouldn't like to." Even as they recognize the benefits of advancing technology, they also recognize the harm associated with adapting to it, and the changes in lifestyles associated with it.

Hugo, while many people are eager to jump to the solution stage (favoring, surprise surprise, "Do Nothing"), this conversation is still at the point of figuring out what's going on.

Yes, Gary, so aware of the politics are you that you allow your fear of what someone might recommend to cloud your discernment of reality. A problem common to ideologues of all varieties. Liberoids, snow.

Jimbo, "Their faster running is not to my detriment." If running faster becomes a prerequisite to a comfortable life as a result, it is certainly to the detriment of those who can't keep up.

TPG, you don't consider having to relocate to maitain the same quality of life to be a cost?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

(Actually, it's even worse. I was a sickly baby, so if not for the awful, disruptive advances that lead to modern neonatal care, I might not have lived to get cancer...)

Hm. During delivery last month, my son became wedged in the birth canal. Without the advances of a c-section, both my wife and son would have died. This makes me wonder about some people's definition of misery...

[Eric the .5b]

Joe, is your point really nothing more than "Progress has downsides! Progress has downsides! Admit it!"?

[Looter]

Who is Shannon Love?

[Mo]

It just goes to show, you can't predict which threads will go over 100 comments.

joe,
How do things like online banking hurt people that want to go to branches? Sure they may have to pay for the service, but that's because it costs more to pay a guy to handle your transactions. But now that I and many others use online banking, Old Man Luddite can stand in line at the bank without having to deal with it?

You make us humans sound pretty wimpy too. Somehow our ancestors could deal with long, dangerous treks across oceans, hostile land (Great Plains, deserts, snow, etc), but dealing with cell phones and wireless internet is an issue? Sure, we've been exposed to a lot of changes in the digital age, but the switch we've undergone is miniscule in proportion to the changes that came about after the industrial revolution. While it may seem silly to say that new technology is requisite for your rubella innoculation, why do you think scientists have the time to do the research? Because technology has made the growing, transport and sale of food and other basic needs so efficient that only a small minority is required to feed a whole nation. This frees up the minds and hands of our scientific minds to keep us healthy instead of trying to figure out which bull to stud with Bessie the prime dairy cow.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

TPG, you don't consider having to relocate to maitain the same quality of life to be a cost?

When was I talking about relocation? Eric mentioned it, not me.

But, yes, I do consider it to be a cost.

Which makes me wonder why you don't consider this cost when you start blathering on about forced relocation during urban planning for blighted property.

Sort of a cake and eat it to for you, eh? Relocation is an awful cost only when it suits your argument?

[Evan Williams]

"But as usual, the herd blames the little guy using the check instead of the behemoth corporation who tries to accomodate as many people as they can."

It's not that simple. You can't place "blame" squarely on either party. But surely you realize that consumer demand is incredibly influential on the market. One could even argue that consumer demand is more important in the market than provider accomodation. If it becomes unprofitable to "accomodate" check-users, then they will likely stop accepting them. But, only 2 things will cause it to be unprofitable: 1-the processing cost of accepting checks suddely skyrockets (this is very unlikely), or 2-enough people refuse to write checks, so that the small number of checks that are processed are not enough to justify the mean operational costs of processing them.

This is all in the hands of the "little guy". But, um, why is it the fault of the "behemoth corporation" bogeyman?

[joe]

Eric .5b, I agree that stopping or slowing innovation is unwise, and probably impossible. As I've said before, I'm not recommending a solution, I'm still working on understanding the problem.

"The cost of new, beneficial things is things that aren't so great or are even bad and have to be dealt with." There is an additional cost, as well: the dislocation from adapting to even positive innovations. To seize on a metaphor, medical science tells us that the body's response to positive stress differs little from its response to negative stress.

[Russ D]

If there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no phone to hear his voice

Maybe Freud's child would have stayed close to home if his old man didn't have an oedipus complex. Ah, the mother of invention!

[matt]

"which illustrates the genius of locke: division of power and the rule of *law*, not man."

Yeah that division of power thing worked out real well.

I'll have to remember that next the time I see a peaceful drug user arrested or am forced to pay for someone else's retirement out of my paycheck that we live under the rule of law and not the rule of a bunch of corrupt political elites who populate all 3 branches of government.

[Matt]

"Ah, the mother of invention!"

Ha! Now that's what I've been waiting 100 comments for.

[Eric the .5b]

I'd like to see what a libertarian response to the issues raised, other than "Yeah, but look at all this stuff!" would be.

Eric .5b, I agree that stopping or slowing innovation is unwise, and probably impossible. As I've said before, I'm not recommending a solution, I'm still working on understanding the problem.

So, you don't have a response, you don't even understand the nature of the problem - except that you're damned sure it exists, whatever it is - but you want to indignantly demand that we have a response that pleases you?

You're usually a much more thoughtful and civil troll, Joe.

[joe]

Eric .5b, close. My point is that progress has this specific downside, and that the degree of harm associated with this specific downside is likely to increase.

TPG, I consider relocation a serious cost, and believe it should be reserved for extreme situations. See, there's this "balancing" thing that we liberals do. It's a mental quirk that comes from recognizing that the world isn't black and white, and denying the phoney "unity of goods."

[Evan Williams]

Joe says,

"...you might have understood the much-repeated point that singling out the benefits of technological advance does not preclude the suffering caused by its drawbacks."

No, it does not preclude it; however, this statement is a bore. It goes nowhere. The real question is embedded in it: how does one decide whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, or vice versa? Now, put aside for a moment the idea of externalities (for example, you make a product that benefits you, but the production process creates environmental waste that creates a drawback for external parties), and assume for the sake of argument that there is an isolated situation with no externalities. Now, what do you believe is the best system with which to decide whether an innovations benefits outweigh its drawbacks?

I would posit that it is the free market, which recognizes the individual as the ultimate arbiter of value. Do you disagree? If so, what would be your answer?

[Eric the .5b]

Eric .5b, close. My point is that progress has this specific downside, and that the degree of harm associated with this specific downside is likely to increase.

OK, if that's your point, then substantiate it instead of waxing sarcastic because we don't take it on faith.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

TPG, I consider relocation a serious cost, and believe it should be reserved for extreme situations.

So redding up "blight" - not extreme.

Wanting to avoid the modern world and hide in Amish, OH - extreme.

Gotcha.

You still haven't set forth an instance of innovation creating ever-increasing misery. Wait a minute. Have you been watching "The Matrix" lately?

[Evan Williams]

"the degree of harm associated with this specific downside is likely to increase."

Relative to...?

[free form]

I could adjust nicely enough if Ida Rosenthal came back and improved the bra again.

[Gary Gunnels]

I am arguing for biometric smart cards as supplied by private entities.

joe,

What's this "reality" that I am missing? 🙂

[Patrick D]

Shannon,

"I think people who do react negatively to change due so not because they cannot understand or master new technology but because the technology changes their economic, social or political status for the worse."

Exactly!!!! And thus the rise of religious fundamentalism globally as one of the symptoms. Increased rates of technological change cause economic, social and political changes within a single lifetime that used to take generations and allowed more gradual adjustments in attitudes, culture, morals, etc.

One of the biggest benefits to individuals from technological change is economic development to a degree that the individual becomes a viable economic unit and no longer has to rely on men, parents, extended family, clan, religious hierarchy, etc for survival. All those groups lose status and power. Many don't like it, don't have the psychological capacity to deal and want to return to a "golden age" that probably never existed.

Rather than denying human psychological weakness and that technological change has no cost I just see at as further proof that there is no "free lunch." But that doesn't mean it's not a good deal. I like the options technology offers me and see losing my ability to keep my wife in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant as a small price to pay. 🙂

My favorite mental picture is of the Third World farmer who can now live longer, get higher crop yields and access to more profitable markets but can no longer keep his unmarried daughter under his thumb. She can now move far away, work in a factory, and, in general, has a lot more freedom to ignore his wishes. I clearly see it as all part of the same phenomena but he probably does not.

[Gary Gunnels]

Evan Williams,

joe is about to trot out climate change or some other "sky is falling" fantasy. 🙂

[free form]

Can't believe no one has addressed this part:

>>what good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer.

[jc]

But, only 2 things will cause it to be unprofitable...

No, there are more. The first one that came to mind were that enough people we so pissed about standing in line waiting for someone to write a check that they no longer shopped at that store. The store would stop taking checks so that more customers are satisfied, at the expense of a few check-writers who are SOL.

Seriously, standing in line bitching about the queue time because of someone paying with a check is the exact same idiocy as bitching about new technology. ALL technology requires a long phase-out period of the old technology; if you don't like the long phase-outs then stop adopting new technology. And if you don't want to adopt new technology, well you may not have the luxury of being stubborn forever.

[Eric the .5b]

free form: Alas, but the advance of technology has led to an explosion of suicide methods, and he can't pick one.

[Matt]

free form-

If Freud (the author) were around today, I would very much enjoy your telling him "the longer, the better!"

[Gary Gunnels]

free form,

The author is Freud. The work is Civilization and its Discontents.

________________________________

Come on joe. We're waiting for you to start spouting some D.H. Meadows. 🙂

[MJ]

"Is there anything libertarians have to say to people dislocated by "future shock" other than "suck it up" and "look at all this neat stuff?"-joe

Pardon me, but what else is there to say, that is actually useful? A person can wallow in self-pity and misery or they can deal constructively with the world as it exists. Technological innovation is not going to go away and it will be a net negative to society if it did, however good it might to an individual or group of individuals if a particular technology did not exist.

So joe, what do you say to the "future shcoked" person? Or more directly, if you see innovation as a problem, what is your solution?

[thoreau]

Is it possible that faster innovation might actually facilitate adjustment? Every side-effect is a problem waiting for a solution, and the faster that solution comes the better.

That's the theory, anyway. Does anybody have examples to support this theory?

Personally, I love innovation. Thanks to propecia, I no longer have to accept the receding hairline that is my genetic fate. And thanks to the internet I can pay 30% less by getting my propecia from Canada.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all pharmacies are created equal...

[Evan Williams]

"Seriously, standing in line bitching about the queue time because of someone paying with a check is the exact same idiocy as bitching about new technology. ALL technology requires a long phase-out period of the old technology; if you don't like the long phase-outs then stop adopting new technology. And if you don't want to adopt new technology, well you may not have the luxury of being stubborn forever."

Bitching about having to wait in line behind people who write checks is not the same thing as hating the idea of checks as technology. Complaining about queue waiting time is as justified as anything else that you demand from a business. Clean facilities, good selection, quality goods, low prices, friendly helpful sales staff, etc. All these things, including checkout time, factor into your experience at that store. I know I certainly avoid grocery stores that don't have the U-Scan lines, just like I avoid gas stations without a pay-at-the-pump mechanism. This is your choice, and it's not got anything to do with techonophobia; time is a commodity like anything else. And stores have realized this, and accomodated customers with U-Scan lines, cash registers that automatically fill in checks, etc. However, there's not much you can do to deter the slow old ladies with 35 coupons.

[Shannon Love]

joe,

"And, YET AGAIN, pointing out the material benefits of technological advancement does not eliminate the problems associated with adaptation"

I think that many people have answered your objection here. In short, the problems associated with adaption are trivial compared to the material benefits of technological advancement.

Everybody acknowledges the tradeoffs. You seem to argue that people who do not hold your position do not even concede the existence of the tradeoffs. I think you have accidentally created a strawman for yourself.

My grandparents view nicely encapsulates this I think. Some things were better in the past, stronger families and communities for example and some things are better now, better material benefits from technology and greater personal freedoms. But having lived in both milieus, and CONSIDERING ALL THE RESPECTIVE TRADEOFFS OF BOTH, they chose the contemporary world.

Virtually everybody you have argued with has reiterated this point over and over. The advantages granted by technological change are so overwhelmingly positive that they swamp all negative consequences of the same technology.

The best way politically to ensure that this remains true is decentralize the decision making process about technology as widely as possible. This will prevent a selfish power-elite from forcing a destructive technology upon people who do not want it.

In short, the free-market.

[Eric the .5b]

MJ - As he said, he doesn't have a solution. He doesn't even understand the problem. He just likes to say we're wrong.

[thoreau]

Evan-

The equilibrium price would be somewhere between the US price and the Canadian price. If the free flow of products forces the issue and helps bring about an equilibrium, then I'm all in favor of it.

[Evan Williams]

"The best way politically to ensure that this remains true..."

No, no, Shannon, don't dare discuss the "solution". It might make Joe's head explode. He's still busy trying to cook up an explanation of the bogeyman-esque "problem" he's created.

I know there's a problem, I'm just trying to figure out what it is...

The only "problem" here is that Joe is trying to turn the simplistic concept of "benefit vs drawback" into a problem in the first place. It's not a problem, it's just a freakin' reality---a very simple concept to understand. But, as others have noted, the liberal creature likes to morph plain realities of existence into "problems", which then are transformed into "injustices", which are then turned into calls for said injustices to be remedied by force.

[Junyo]

And thus the rise of religious fundamentalism globally as one of the symptoms. Increased rates of technological change cause economic, social and political changes within a single lifetime that used to take generations and allowed more gradual adjustments in attitudes, culture, morals, etc.

Except for your theory falls apart on the basis of the fact that a good many of the innovators historically have been religious based/inspired. Change threatens established power structures, but smaller sectarian religions, like a great many fundamentalist faiths have no power to lose, therefore no reason not to adapt to innovation readily. Thus the government's claim to need increased snoping powers in the digital age as AQ, Christian Identity, etc. groups move online and use more sophisticated cryptography than the state's prepared to deal with. Innovation favors any group that is structurally capable of rapid change; try the technology, discard what obviously doesn't work, tailor what does to your specific needs - and believers tend to be cohesive, focused groups. The rise of fundamentalism can be traced to the fact that now the technology has made it possible to reach your market with a custom message without needing to build the infrastructure of old religion, and those organizations have embraced it; while mainstream religion was content to rely on it's cathedrals.

[Russ D]

Joe,

My point is that progress has this specific downside, and that the degree of harm associated with this specific downside is likely to increase...See, there's this "balancing" thing that we liberals do. It's a mental quirk that comes from recognizing that the world isn't black and white

Can't resist the urge to point out that you're saying "specific" and then saying you don't see things in black and white. Yes, I'm being a dick.

But I don't see you really making any mention of a specific downside; you trot out anedotes but the downside you mention is still rather vague.

I'm with you in that the world is vague, I don't think most libertarians would disagree with you in that regard. But the libertarian philosophy is concerned with "liberty", and that philosophy simply tests whether an individual is getting more liberty or less liberty. I think you're asking the libertarian philosophy to answer questions it can't.

Your "liberal" philosophy is also not answering your questions because it is too vague. (Just as conservative philophies are vague.) I think we all on occasion, some more than others, are conceiving of what Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy" which is probably a "higher" philosophy but must accomodate the individual and his connectedness. And that's probably the vaguest philosophy there is.

I think the libertarian philosophy can't answer all your questions; it only attempts to answer systematic questions, the rest is up to the individual. But I think the wisdom of the libertarian philosophy is the rejection of the idea that all questions have a systematic answer; rightly or wrongly it presupposes that individuals pretty much have the will to connect and love others and that any doubt of this will is likely to lead to a loss of liberty. In that sense I think it gets closer to the "pernnial philosophy" than any other, but it is still a more or less political philosophy - in the same class as conservatism or liberalism or communism or fascism - than some sort of all-answering philosophy.

[gaius marius]

I'll have to remember that next the time I see a peaceful drug user arrested or am forced to pay for someone else's retirement out of my paycheck that we live under the rule of law and not the rule of a bunch of corrupt political elites who populate all 3 branches of government.

i would argue, mr matt, that start of the welfare state and the end of effective division of power began on the same day: march 4, 1933.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Russ, is it true that you switched parties?

[MJ]

Eric,

I see that now. Unfortunately that post of his was not up when I finished reading the thread and started writing mine. Oh well.

[Super Prole]

Joe,

I'm ever so sorry, sir. I was forgetting my place, sir. I know you and the upper classes only want what's best for me, sir. Sir, please, if I haven't insulted you too much, please protect me from the future shock.

I know I should fell sorry for all the blacksmiths and wheelwrights and carriage makers and cabinet makers and weavers put out of work by the machines. And all the seamstresses and fruitpickers and tellers and elevator operators and telephone operators. And all the drovers and shepherds and wranglers and shipwrights and whalers and such.

But what's especially terrible is all of the horrible choices we workers have to make nowadays. Just yesterday I was saying too myself, Samsung or Hitachi, Hyundai or Nissan, pill or condom, newspaper or blog and I was all overcome with the angst and the alienation and the future shock.

Truly, sir, I now know my place.

Come off it. First the elites claim control because of their suuposed superior birth, now they want control because of their supposed superior intelligence. But it's all for my own good, so I know I shouldn't mind. Must be that terrible education that the rich owed me but never paid for.

SP

[jc]

I know I certainly avoid grocery stores that don't have the U-Scan lines, just like I avoid gas stations without a pay-at-the-pump mechanism. This is your choice, and it's not got anything to do with techonophobia

Your example has EVERYTHING to do with technophobia or lack thereof. You choose to shop at stores with self-checkouts because you want to shop at a store with fewer technophobic customers because the technophobes make you wait longer. All I was saying is that the people bitching about the check-writer could have made the same decision as you, instead they chose to bitch. Just like the writer of the book review this whole thread was about!

[Dynamist]

"Is there anything libertarians have to say to people dislocated by "future shock" other than "suck it up" and "look at all this neat stuff?"-joe

Pardon me, but what else is there to say, that is actually useful? A person can wallow in self-pity and misery or they can deal constructively with the world as it exists.

As an individual compassionate person I may offer words of comfort, a bowl of soup, or even a bed to one who is on the short side of the current situation. As an anarcho-lib, I cannot compel anyone else to make similar compassionate-seeming acts, and am particularly wary of using the displaced coercion of the state to force the same.

It is as silly to deny progress as it is to deny that progress causes some significant pain. As joe points out, the body doesn't know that a particular stress is for its long-term benefit. Yet joe considers the stress of innovation a problem somehow different from tsunami-induced stress. Because one is human-caused, we can blame people for it, hold them responsible and request compensation. To me, though, both the tsunami and the motorcar are products of nature. Rather than it being a problem, it is an advantage of innovations that people can redress unintended negativity. You can't sue nature for causing an earthquake. (But you can wonder/whine/blame why we haven't better innovations to warn and protect humans from nature)

Perhaps as lefties argue that government tax and regulation is the price of obtaining the benefits of society, future shock is also a price paid to obtain the benefits of society.

[Eric the .5b]

MJ: Don't sweat it, happens all the time.

[God's exgopher]

Maybe there's a biological symbiotic relationship between those who are predisposed to problem identification and those who are predisposed to solving problems and the nonadapters will ironically be saved eventually by technology, Matrix style, and some techy will simply say, 'you want out? This is out.' and the poor nonadapter will be slid into his place in the battery bank of the big main frame and be plugged into a perfect world of his own making. But will he still bitch about it?

[Russ D]

Russ, is it true that you switched parties?

TPG,

Nah, I support them all. Sure it's wishy-washy, but why limit myself. There is no purity.

Of course, I support parties, I just don't swear allegiance to any of them. Unlike gaius, my experience shows me that the only thing more irrational than an individual is an organization.

[Evan Williams]

"Your example has EVERYTHING to do with technophobia or lack thereof. You choose to shop at stores with self-checkouts because you want to shop at a store with fewer technophobic customers because the technophobes make you wait longer."

Sayhuh? I don't avoid the ghetto-mart down the street because I fear the wrath of the so-called "technophobes" who frequent it. I avoid it because it doesn't offer a choice to me. It's yet another innovation that I wish to take advantage of, and if a business cannot or will not supply it, I will go elsewhere if I have the option. The primary focus is MY time, and how that business collectively caters to it. The respective customers and their phobias are an externality that does not directly affect my decision. Those folks might go there because they are technophobic, or they might go there because they like the produce section. None of that matters to me.

"All I was saying is that the people bitching about the check-writer could have made the same decision as you, instead they chose to bitch. Just like the writer of the book review this whole thread was about!"

I get it. Sometimes, "bitching" is constructive, though. Check out the millions of Amazon product reviews. The "bitching" sessions or "praising" sessions, as they can be called, are more than just incessant whining or mindless thankyous; they contribute to a consumer community where everyone benefits from the efforts of everyone else. Likewise, if I bitch about someone writing a check in front of me, then perhaps the store manager might overhear my comment and decide to install U-Scans or designate "no-check" lines.

That isn't really the same thing as what the author of the above screed is doing, though.

[Anvilwyrm]

I know I should fell sorry for all the blacksmiths and wheelwrights and carriage makers

Actually many of us blacksmiths are doing fine. I can find all the supplies and tools I need online, and I can talk to smiths all over the world when I run into a problem.

Plus no messy guilds to deal with, tools much less likely to maim me, and a worldwide customer base.

The number of blacksmiths has been steadily increasing in the last 20 years. Many, probably most are hobbyist who sell on the side (I am) but I know 4 within 40 miles who make quite a good living on smithing alone.

I love technology. Without it I would never be able to work at my ancient craft!

Surely more than you care to hear, but still.

[Jason Ligon]

I guess I don't understand why there is a problem. Facing change is part of life. It is entirely unreasonable to assume that a change resistant person is somehow owed an uninterrupted life by everyone else.

"The problem is, the number of those imposed on beyond their coping abilities by technological change is not only large, but will inevitably grow, as the rate of that change continues to increase and the average age rises."

Imposed on? This is like being imposed on by the rain falling. The problem of coping is real, but it is individual and subjective. There is no problem in terms of policy, there is no problem in terms of societal obligations, and there is no moral problem with technological dynamics leading to a society that some people don't like as much as the society that used to be around them. The problem is in the coping, not in the change.

[Evan Williams]

Jason:

"I guess I don't understand why there is a problem. Facing change is part of life."

You have stumbled upon the reason why Joe mysteriously disappeared from the discussion. His assertion was that the concept of "benefit vs. drawback" with regard to technological innovation is in itself a problem, because, supposedly, it is "getting worse". He could never really offer any evidenciary proof of this assertion, he just kept wrapping himself up in little portions of certain posts.

As I noted earlier, his attempt to turn a simple reality of human existence into a "problem" is an age-old left-liberal trick. First, they ascribe the term "problem" to a simple reality. Then, they use anecdotes to morph that "problem" into an "injustice". Then, in the final step, they use that "injustice" as a springboard to call for government action.

Whether this was truly where Joe was going has yet to be seen, and may never be...since he bolted outta here as soon as the jig was up.

[jc]

Evan,

Likewise, if I bitch about someone writing a check in front of me, then perhaps the store manager might overhear my comment and decide to install U-Scans or designate "no-check" lines.

Agreed. Maybe the first impulse is to simply bitch, but the "nicer" approach would be to just go up to the store manager and inquire about U-scans. Not that I'm Politenessman, of course.

[free form]

>>If Freud (the author) were around today, I would very much enjoy your telling him "the longer, the better!"

[free form]

Um, I meant the part about it being longer, not about being able to tell Freud...

[Dynamist]

Evan: joe's not usually a "bolter". Maybe he is in a meeting selling a Traditional Neighborhood Development to property owners who resist his Innovation in Planning? 🙂

[Mac Daddy Hoon]

Evan Williams said You have stumbled upon the reason why Joe mysteriously disappeared from the discussion. His assertion was that the concept of "benefit vs. drawback" with regard to technological innovation is in itself a problem, because, supposedly, it is "getting worse". He could never really offer any evidenciary proof of this assertion, he just kept wrapping himself up in little portions of certain posts.

As I noted earlier, his attempt to turn a simple reality of human existence into a "problem" is an age-old left-liberal trick. First, they ascribe the term "problem" to a simple reality. Then, they use anecdotes to morph that "problem" into an "injustice". Then, in the final step, they use that "injustice" as a springboard to call for government action.

Thomas Sowell makes this point frequently. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

[Patrick D]

Junyo,

"Except for your theory falls apart on the basis of the fact that a good many of the innovators historically have been religious based/inspired."

I don't see that as disproving the theory. There is a big difference between being religious and being a fundamentalist. I'm not talking about people who see "old religion" as the problem and want to break away and move forward to something new. I'm talking about people who see the religious establishment as "new" and corrupted and want to go back to what they consider the old, pure religion.

"The rise of fundamentalism can be traced to the fact that now the technology has made it possible to reach your market with a custom message without needing to build the infrastructure of old religion, and those organizations have embraced it; while mainstream religion was content to rely on it's cathedrals."

What you're describing is fundamentalists trying to cherry-pick the fruits of technology. While it certainly has increased the efficiency of their operations they still rely on and excel in old-fashioned infrastructure and methods like bricks-and-mortar facilities and volunteer organizations to meet the larger society on a face-to-face basis.

The other side of the equation is why they are finding increasingly receptive audiences of people who are so displeased with their societies. IMO, the answer is that there are a lot of people who don?t like the decisions many individuals make when presented with a choices they did not have before and want to take that freedom away. Proselytizing and persuasion have not been effective at turning things around so they are going after political control power to pursue their agenda.

You could argue the audience was always there and fundamentalists are just doing a better job reaching them. I can?t prove it either way but I?ve seen a lot of people around the world who either want their traditional power back or who have given up, feel insecure and want to be told what to do.

Anyway, good discussion. Now technology, society and my spouse demand I use the remainder of the afternoon making a living. Have a good weekend, all!

[MQ]

Yes, the review was stupid, but Julian was equally stupid to sneer at Freud and hold up "Civilization and its Discontents", a great book, as a target for typical libertarian what-me-worry anti-intellectual sneering. Freud's point -- which is certainly a correct one -- is that the advancing civilization leads to newer and more subtle forms of unhappiness to replace the material privations we leave behind. Human psychology is a devilishly effective machine for creating discontent and unhappiness even in the midst of material satisfaction, and it can also be surprisingly effective at generating happiness even in conditions of what we would today call poverty. Understanding human nature prevents you from making a simplistic equation between GDP growth and increasing well-being. You can get this regardless of your political perspective, it's part of wisdom. Remember that Freud was writing at a time when Europe had just experienced the fastest economic growth in human history up to that point, and had chosen to wreck a good amount of that growth in stupid, suicidal wars. We might still do that again. Understanding why we have these tendencies is important.

[MQ]

Just to be clear: you can get the point regardless of whether you think top-down government attempts to "solve" human unhappiness are likely to make things worse or better. And I shouldn't have implied in the first sentence that Julian was stupid or anti-intellectual, since he's neither.

[Jimbo]

JC and Evan,

The people in line did more than bitch (since the problem was both with the moron with the check and the store that still allows such things), some of them dropped their entire purchases where they stood and walked out. Some, like me, yelled for the manager (imitating the loudspeaker Ikea seems not to have purchsed), and then explaining that if they're going to accept morons with checks, they'd better know how to do it. Of course, a 40 year old woman who would wait in stony silence for five minutes for her check to be processed without offering to just use her check CARD (or even worse, not having one), should be pilloried.

In any case, the same level of hate would be directed at the above mentioned old lady with 35 coupons, especially when she spends $19.92 and insists on paying it in double counted singles and small change. Yes, the store accepts cash, but stubborn stupidity is still a factor.

Joe,

Your arguments are with reality. The fact that humans are "forced" to have more than a cave-dweller's knowledge of the world in order to "keep up" is not going to change. I work in a job that did not exist when I was in High School, working in a field that did not exist 15 years ago, using tools that didn't exist when I was in elementary school. Not because I "have" to (I could let the world pass by and work in zoning or urban planning), but because I CAN and want to. Those who can't or won't move on to the next thing are not going to die in the streets (look at you, for instance!), they're just not going to benefit as much from the same technology.

[thePeaNutGallery]

Old School at January 28, 2005 11:31 AM
Back in the day, we used to talk about how good it was back in the day.
yeah, i do like that one, some 19yo hiphopper talking bout back in the day.
is there some predetermined period that makes it "back in the day", 5yrs? 10yrs?

joe at January 28, 2005 12:18 PM
I swear, in the middle of a blizzard, if someone mentioned that the city hires snowplows, some libertarian would insist that there is no snow, and another would claim that snow doesn't interfere with driving.
but they are fun to watch as they, after how many decades (or would that be centuries) attempt to make their positions relevant to the real world. its just so much rhetoric.

Shannon Love at January 28, 2005 01:59 PM
I think people who do react negatively to change due so not because they cannot understand or master new technology but because the technology changes their economic, social or political status for the worse.
could not have said it better myself...

Gary Gunnels at January 28, 2005 02:06 PM
A lot of stores also have the ability to run the check through their credit/debit card machine; it reads the MICR line and then returns back information on the status of the account.
Check21 is in effect.

Junyo at January 28, 2005 02:17
...or discarding it like a Confederate flag prom dress?
that's some funny schit i don't care who you are. get'er done

Thomas Paine's Goiter at January 28, 2005 02:48 PM
You still haven't set forth an instance of innovation creating ever-increasing misery. Wait a minute. Have you been watching "The Matrix" lately?
touche'!!!!

Russ D at January 28, 2005 03:28 PM
I think the libertarian philosophy can't answer all your questions; it only attempts to answer systematic questions, the rest is up to the individual. But I think the wisdom of the libertarian philosophy is the rejection of the idea that all questions have a systematic answer; rightly or wrongly it presupposes that individuals pretty much have the will to connect and love others and that any doubt of this will is likely to lead to a loss of liberty. In that sense I think it gets closer to the "pernnial philosophy" than any other, but it is still a more or less political philosophy - in the same class as conservatism or liberalism or communism or fascism - than some sort of all-answering philosophy.
thanks, that was helpful in my definition/understanding of libertarian position/philosophy. ref above comment.

Russ D at January 28, 2005 03:51 PM
Nah, I support them all. Sure it's wishy-washy, but why limit myself. There is no purity..

Of course, I support parties, I just don't swear allegiance to any of them. Unlike gaius, my experience shows me that the only thing more irrational than an individual is an organization.

here, here

Russ, i may have to start paying closer attention to your post!!!

free form at January 28, 2005 04:24 PM
Haha!-- and, if I'm to believe every third email I get, there's a technological advancement to make that possible!
nnnaaaaahhhhh, they don't work. lol

[Sam Grove]

Well, but for the existance of technology, I probably would have died by my thirteenth year.
If those who feel they suffer under the reign of technology would decline to particpate (go Amish young fellow) rather than always moaning about the downsides of life, the world would be happier all around. Alas, the purpose in life of some is to bitch about something. Perhaps they just need something to blame their misery on.

[Jennifer]

I can think of a few cases (outside of obvious things like weaponry)where technology has made life worse for some people, though the fault lies not with the technology itself but in the way people use or abuse it:

--Cell phones and beepers and email are great inventions that revolutionized communication, and I wouldn't want to give them up, but then there are people like my boyfriend, who received a cell phone at his job and has to handle calls quite often, even when he's off duty. Ray Bradbury did a story about a nightmare future where technology made it impossible for anyone to be left alone and unbothered for a single second, and we're heading there.

--In most ways today's workers have it easier than those of days past, but there are problems, too--modern conditions like carpal-tunnel syndrome came about because so many people work with technologies that require repetitive motion, like typing or repeatedly pulling a lever, that human bodies simply were not designed to do for any length of time.

There's a line drawn somewhere between innovations that hurt and innovations that help; I don;t know exactly where it is, but I think it's related to the differences between innovations that add to our comfort and convenience (i.e.,antibiotics, affordable food and clothing, etc.) and innovations that detract from our comfort and convenience (i.e., production techniques that benefit customers and factory owners, but are misery for the actual workers).

No idea. But anyway, my dinner's ready. Good stuff and very affordable, thanks to agricultural technologies of the past hundred years. And thanks to social innovation, my boyfriend didn't mind cooking it himself, rather than expect ME to do it.

[Sam Grove]

Little food, one problem.
Much food, many problems.

[Semolina]

Holy shit. This has to be about the most unproductive and pointless thread I've yet seen at Hit & Run.

[Jennifer]

Semolina--Are you comparing this to the usual Hit and Run threads, where we productively and pointedly manage to answer the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, and then go on to solve the world's problems?

[Shannon Love]

Jennifer,

"I can think of a few cases (outside of obvious things like weaponry)where technology has made life worse for some people"

Actually, modern weaponry improves peoples lives by decentralizing military power and creating the modern democratic state. If takes year of training to learn to use a sword, it takes a few hours to learn to use a firearm. Fielding a modern military takes a widespread social consensus.

The actual odds of any particular human dying due to violence has actually been dropping steadily since the stone age. In the last 500 years wars have become less lethal for the entire populations involved. Pestilence and starvation associated with wars used to kill literally a 100 times more people than actual combat. In fact, WWII was the first war in which more American soldiers died of enemy action than died of disease.

So, even though technology makes weapons more destructive is considered in isolation, as part of the economic, social and political matrix they make violence less common and less deadly.

[Gary Gunnels]

peanut,

"Check 21" is voluntary. And the substitute check which is the heart of "Check 21" isn't going to solve the problem that is being discussed. All it does is allow the electronic transfer of checks, instead of the old system where checks were flown across the country every night.

[kmw]

IMO, the answer is that there are a lot of people who don't like the decisions many individuals make when presented with a choices they did not have before and want to take that freedom away. Proselytizing and persuasion have not been effective at turning things around so they are going after political control power to pursue their agenda.

Cha-ching! Patrick D. wins the $64,000 question!

I think this sums up pretty well most of the problems created in society today. Everyone wants to maintain their status quo.

• Environmentalists want to take a static snapshot of a dynamic earth and maintain it for ever and ever
• Religious fundies want to keep society the way it was when they were growing up

The list could go on.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

Military power is more centralized today than it has been since the Roman empire (where private weapons were outlawed). The rise of central states in the Renaissance/Englighment/19th century created far more centralized militaries, and that process has only advanced in the 20th century. In the case of the U.S. ask yourself why even National Guard units are losing their distinctiveness as state-controlled military entities? Right now the U.S. Army is busting up National Guard units and integrating various personnel between units from diverse states. If indeed we had a decentralized military we'd have localized militaries with only nominal allegiance to the federal government (as was the case in medeival Europe between a king and his barons and other nobles).

If takes year of training to learn to use a sword...

Yes, that's true of dueling swords (the epee for example), but that is not true of the range of swords used in actual battles/combat, where hacking and slashing is the order of the day. You'll find that with the rise of firearms (be they matchlocks or what have you) that more training was required than was ever the case in medeival warfare - especially if one ever expect armies to wheel about, fire in synchronic manner, etc.

...it takes a few hours to learn to use a firearm.

That's simply not true. Hundreds and hundreds of hours are poured into the training any remotely decent modern fighting force. That's why third world fighters can't hit the broadside of a barn. One wonders whether you have fired a firearm in your life in light of your statement.

In the last 500 years wars have become less lethal for the entire populations involved.

You'll also find out that this not true. France lost comparably the same amount of its population in WWI as it did in the Hundred Years' War (not the temporal differences between the two wars). In other words its quite situational.

Pestilence and starvation associated with wars used to kill literally a 100 times more people than actual combat. In fact, WWII was the first war in which more American soldiers died of enemy action than died of disease.

The American experience regarding combat deaths and disease in WWII was largely unique and tends to be used by those who know little about military history.

I suggest you read the following to relieve yourself of your ignorance:

Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason

Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800

Jenny West, Gunpowder, Government and War in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

Martin van Crevald, Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present

Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence

[Semolina]

Jennifer wrote: "Semolina--Are you comparing this to the usual Hit and Run threads ..."

Yeah, I know our comment threads haven't come up with a cure for cancer yet. I'm just astonished by this particular thread; I don't think I've seen so much discussion produce so little actual substance or content.

It's the longest debate about nothing I've ever witnessed here.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

What's especially bizarre is that you completely ignore - with your silly statement about firearms - the tremendous amount of training required to simply support a modern military, much less the training required to actually undertake operations. The latter of course includes flying aircraft, keeping ships at sea, etc. No, to be in the military today requires far, far more training that it ever has.

[thoreau]

It's the longest debate about nothing I've ever witnessed here.

H&R should have a new motto: The blog about nothing!

So, what's up with partisanship? It's not a ship, and it's not fun like a party.

Then Ruthless comes in and mooches something from my fridge.

And a lot of us here seem to celebrate Festivus.

This could work!

[Gary Gunnels]

Semolina,

Well at least we know Shannon Love knows very little about military history. 🙂

[Shawn Smith]

Gary Gunnels,

The information about the Roman Empire outlawing private weapons was a surprise to me. I thought most soldiers in the legions had to provide their own armor and weapons. Was the outlawing only during the later (post 40bce) part of the Empire or before? Thanks.

[Gary Gunnels]

thoreau,

Writing of food, I am making apple glazed duck breast w/apple vegetable stew tonight. Goes pretty well with a Australian shiraz. 🙂

[thoreau]

That sounds good, Gary, but I think I'll just have soup.

[Gary Gunnels]

shawn smith,

Your average joe blow citizen of the empire could not own a weapon as I understand it (how effective the ban was I can't say). As to retired soldiers, since most of them were in "reserve" units they likely still had access to weapons.

Note that except for Roman Britain that the empire eschewed the presence of town walls for much of its history. Walls (like roads) are obviously neutral objects in a military sense; they can defend your cities and they can also protect those cities which rebel.

[Gary Gunnels]

shawn smith,

Also, over the empire's history the military professionalized and state industries for the making of military supplies sprang up. This "reform" came about the same time that the empire started a whole series of economic measures that deeply involved the state in the price of commodities, labor, etc., and started to tie the agricultural population to the soil.

[Shawn Smith]

Gary Gunnels,

Thanks for the info. 🙂

Did the "professionalization" and gov't meddling in the economy get started before Julius Caesar or after? Again, thanks in advance for your help.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shawn Smith,

On the level I am writing about, yes. That sort of stuff was going on in the 200s forward.

[Fabius]

Like I said. Going to Africa was a bad idea.

And don't get me stared on what Marius did to the army.

QFMC cos. V

[Dynamist]

An infant with a peanut can pose a serious challenge to a SEAL if the SEAL is under orders to lie on his back with his mouth open (to prevent hurting the child, of course).

thoreau: Would joe=Newman?

[Ken Shultz]

I have a peanut, and I'm not afraid to use it.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

And when I write "mass army," I mean armies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides of a battle. Armies of 50,000-80,000 have been commonplace throughout history and have nothing to do with the development of the firearm. By including the 17th and 18th century in your analysis its armies of the latter size that you are considering, and historically that size of an army is rather pedestrian.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

Broad social accepatance isn't something unique of course to the modern era either; social and political relations were never as static as your arguments implicitly claims.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

Producing a effective large scale highly technological army requires a broad social consensus. No small elite could field a modern army without support from the masses.

I see where you are getting your ideas from; Sid Meier's Civilization. Let's note that support of the masses has always been an important element in any ruler's use of military force. Throughout history rulers have used various schemes and mechanisms to garner such support. It didn't take firearms to create such.

[Shannon Love]

Gary Gunnels,

"It took months to properly train soldiers in the formations..."

Yes, and if I had stated otherwise, that entire paragraph might have meant something. What I wrote, however, was that an individual a quickly trained peasant with an firearm could reliably kill and individual Knight.

What you do not seem to grasp is that firearms changed the balance of power between not between armies but between the social classes. Within any given political entity commoners gained military power and with that they begin to gain political power.

"Mass armies have come about at many points in human history."

Well, duh. But what is absolutely unarguable is that the average size of militaries attached to each political entity in the Western world grew steadily after the introduction firearms. Thus the ERA of mass armies began with the introduction of firearms. Firearms created a feedback loop wherein the larger the army, the larger the state it could defend and a larger state could in turn field an even larger army.

Firearms drove the rise of the centralized state because they made the foot soldier important for the first time in European history since the end of the Roman Empire. Medieval military writers often referred to foot soldiers as "the residue." They were almost never decisive on the battle field. They were often impressed without training, kept around for a few weeks of months then sent back to the fields. With firearms, however, the foot soldier became the core striking force of the army. They to be trained and once trained they needed to be maintained. That took long term financing and large scale organization. The centralized monarchial state was better at fielding firearm based armies than a loose collection of nobles.

However, even as the physical size of the state grew commoners gained political power. The monarchies centralized power by bringing the nobility to heal but in terms of competition between classes they had to pay far more heed to the commoners, who now comprised the core of there armies, than did their medieval forbearers.

"***The fact that you call them "riflemen" is further evidence of your ignorance of the basic issues."

The fact that pounce on phrases used for the sake of brevity is evidence that you are a weak and dishonest debater. Had you paused to think for a moment you might have realized this is a huge subject debated in a tiny format. I have studied the history of firearms in some detail and I have fired many black powder weapons. I am perfectly aware that prior to 1850 most infantry men would have used a smooth bore musket. Only with the introduction of the minie ball did ordinary soldiers begin to carry a rifled weapon.

"Please, keep your moronic technological determinism to yourself"

I am not a technological determinist. For example, I can think of at least one example where the widespread introduction of firearms within a medieval society did not lead to democracy nor to a decentralization of power. Can you guess which society I am thinking of?

More to the point, particular thread is explicitly about technology and its impact on humans so, gosh, don't think that the role that firearms played in the development of democracy is a valid point? Especially if the point raised is whether weapon technology can have a positive or negative impact?

Firearms were not the only technological driver for democracy, nor was technology the only factor but given the parameters of Europe at the time, firearms were a necessary component to the development of democracy.

[thoreau]

Ah, nothing like a nice back-and-forth between Gary and Shannon. It's been a while!

[Rick Barton]

225 are the most posts that I've ever seen on one thread here at the best blog in the whole damn sphere. Is this an H&R record? I also have something to say that's germane to this thread but it will have to wait. Fatigue has set in and soon unconsciousness will come. (I'm tired and I've gotta crash.) Well, I could type with one hand while I brush my teeth... f*** it. Tomorrow tomorrow...actually, later today...

[kevrob]

...I could type with one hand while I brush my teeth... Rick

So, that's what the kids are calling it these days. ;

About matters military: IANAE, but I do know that changes in technology and innovations in tactics have flipped the advantage back-and-forth between offense and defense, sieges and battles, heavy armor and light (or none), and between a small, highly trained and even professional force, and mass units of sometimes rank amateurs (though the officers and non-coms tend to be pros.) Prior to the industrial revolution being an engineer was almost synonomous with being a military man.

As for muskets or other infantry firearms, the early ones were so cumbersome and took so long to reload that a large unit - a Spanish tercio, let's say - would be made up of a mix of harquebusiers and pikemen, and there would be twice as many pikes as firelocks. The fellows with guns would still have to use a sword when there wasn't enough time to reload. You don't get infantry that's universally issued firearms until the bayonet becomes standard. You needed a blade for when that nasty cavalry tried to run you down, to withstand a charge by the opposing infantry, and to execute your own. That sort of thing required expertise, which was a result of training. Napoleon's legions depended on the qualities of quantity in a way that the smaller volunteer British Army didn't.* Wellington's boyos relied on their ability to evolve from column to line to square and back, firing in volley, and the bayonet. The discipline required to hold your fire, advance under enemy fire, or maintain one's place in formation when attacked isn't instantly learned. Hence the poor opinion UK forces had of our Continentals, especially militia, in the War of Independence. In the 1812 war there was a reason Genl. Rials exclaimed "Those are regulars, by God" at the Battle of Chippewa. The Brits had mistaken the buff-clad forces of Scott's Brigade for militia, until they advanced under fire in proper order.

http://tinyurl.com/5qabh

In the development of the mass army, don't underestimate the influence of advances in food preservation. Prior to effective canning, just feeding a large force on the march often led to the denuding of the localities it passed through, even if it didn't stop for a battle. French advances in this technology were in part in response to a prize offered by The Ogre.

http://tinyurl.com/4vvle

Disease still killed a horrible number of war dead as late as WWI, when soldiers in the trenches both died of "The Spanish Lady" and spread it around the world when finally demobilized. Damned flu killed my grandfather when my Dad was 3, and Granda mustered out of the Royal Engineers before emigrating to America from Ireland, well before the Archduke was shot.

As for retreating to a cabin in the woods, bereft of special religious exemptions that Plain People have cleverly preserved, pettifogging tax vampires are sure to follow you, and demand you install smoke detectors, indoor toilets with inadequate flushing power, and build to SmartGrowth standards, or whatever they have a bug up their statist colons about. The Progressive Movement beloved of yoiks like joe has dealt it's own share of Liberty Shock.

gaius:

1933 is a bad year, but 1913 sucked, too. Woodrow Wilson has a hell of a lot to answer for, as does TR, for the destruction of the Old Republic.

BTW, can we ever convince you that a proper civility includes following the custom known as grammar, insofar as capitalization is concerned? 🙂 That lower-case thing smacks of romantic individualism, a la cummings.

Kevin

*Nappy, of course, was an artillery genius, and used his beloved cannon to flatten fortress walls and wreak havoc on infantry, alike. Before the machine gun, firing canister at massed troops was as bloody awful as ranged weaponry could get.

[an innocent bystander]

... and I still say Gary and Shannon should get a motel room.

[Gary Gunnels]

Shannon Love,

What I wrote, however, was that an individual a quickly trained peasant with an firearm could reliably kill and individual Knight.

Which of course means absolutely nothing. That's not how trained 16th century militaries worked. To say that a pesant can pick up a matchlock and kill a knight merely ignores the reality of the situation.

What you do not seem to grasp is that firearms changed the balance of power between not between armies but between the social classes.

What you fail to grasp is how a military actually works. Officer corps throughout the period remained largely the province of the aristocracy and the wealthy (indeed, given that one had to pay out of pocket for increases in rank you can see why that was so). This was one of the means by which the European states centralized their role as the exclusive legitimate purveyors of violence. Again, this was a period of centralization, not de-centralization; a shift from Barons and others having their own private armies to professional, national militaries controlled by a central government. To claim otherwise (as you have) is just stupid.

Within any given political entity commoners gained military power and with that they begin to gain political power.

Nope. Military power was the preserve of central governments and elites throughout this period. All I ask you to do is merely look at the biography of men like Vauban or Marlborough and the role of your average musket wielder and you'll see what I mean. The latter held no military power, they were quite literally cogs in a machine (if that wasn't the case one wonders why they were willing to put up with punishments that would make many Caribbean slaves blanch) and many of them were of course either pressed into service or sold into service as children.

Well, duh. But what is absolutely unarguable is that the average size of militaries attached to each political entity in the Western world grew steadily after the introduction firearms.

No. That's also not true. Its only after the French Revolution that you see any dramatic increase in the average size of militaries. 16th and 17th century militaries weren't much larger than their medieval counterparts and they certainly weren't larger than armies of the classical era. If indeed the "firearm" was the cause of a what you claim (larger armies) you would have seen some increase before then. The far larger armies of the modern era are more of a function of the rise of the administrative state and specific ideologies like nationalism than anything else.

Firearms drove the rise of the centralized state because they made the foot soldier important for the first time in European history since the end of the Roman Empire.

No. "Foot soldiers" (and by this term you likely men non-nobles) were always important in European warfare; see Swiss pikemen, English archers, French crossbowman, etc.

Medieval military writers often referred to foot soldiers as "the residue." They were almost never decisive on the battle field.

Except at Agincourt, Crecy, Poitiers, Stirling, and numerous other major medeival battles. You need to stop learning your military history from Braveheart.

With firearms, however, the foot soldier became the core striking force of the army.

First of all "striking force" is naval warfare terminology. Second of all, your statement completely ignores the true nature of warfare in the era of the musket. The role of the foot soldier was to remain disciplined under murderous fire and cause the other army to break and flee, then the calvary would strike; both were required (along with artillery) to grant an army success, and both required many, many hours of disciplined training in order to achieve success. You completely fail to understand the nature of combined arms tactics and your ideas would have hobbled any 17th or 18th century army.

The centralized monarchial state was better at fielding firearm based armies than a loose collection of nobles.

Wow, thanks for merely repeating what I've already told you. 🙂 Glad you finally came to your senses.

However, even as the physical size of the state grew commoners gained political power.

Actually what you'll find is that they became ennobled the first chance that they got (just as individuals in medeival Europe did). Of course they also became part of a centralized government which claimed exclusive use of the means of violence. Anyway, I don't see how this aids you in your original claim; that national militaries became "de-centralized." That clearly hasn't happened.

The fact that pounce on phrases used for the sake of brevity is evidence that you are a weak and dishonest debater.

"Sake of brevity?" Chuckle. Yeah right. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Your post-facto claims of knowledge don't make much sense in light of your original statement. No person with an ounce of knowledge in this field would have stated that 17th century armies were made up of "riflemen." I merely take the statement as evidence of your ignorance (along with all the other bizarre shit you've written here) in this field. I suggest you peruse some of the works I recommended above so as to relieve yourself of said ignorance.

I am not a technological determinist.

Sure you are. You have claimed that the introduction of a particular technology caused X and did so in a way which implicitly eschewed any choice for the human actors involved. That is the true essence of technological determinism.

I can think of at least one example where the widespread introduction of firearms within a medieval society did not lead to democracy nor to a decentralization of power.

Let's note right now that you have changed your argument (once again - talk about dishonesty!); its now "decentralization of power" instead of "decentralizing military power." No European state saw a decentralization of military power (or political power) throughout this period. All European states saw an increase in the administrative role of the state, a centralization of its functions in a single capital and a single political body (be that a monarch or a Parliament or what have), etc.

...don't think that the role that firearms played in the development of democracy is a valid point?

You know I've only taken issue with your original claim, that firearms led to a "decentralizing [of]military power." They clearly did not. Since before the true advent of the firearm as a weapon of common use - that is since the 14th century at the very least - we've seen a steady progression in the West of more and more centralized militaries (it was the French who created the first quasi-professional military as a response to English assaults in the Hundred Years' War); to deny this fact is just bizarre.

[Gary Gunnels]

kevrob,

Thanks for largely supporting my statements. 🙂

Shannon Love,

BTW, to dispel some of your misperceptions about medieval warfare, I suggest the following:

J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages

Medeival warfare included a number of important elements: infantry, logistics, strategy, tactics, sieges being as important as the use of mounted soldiery.

As Verbruggen states:

historians have kept the name of the prominent nobleman who fought at the head of his unit,
but in their account of the engagement they forget the words cum suis, avec sa gent, cum sua acie ['with his troops'), with the result that the fighting of entire formations is represented as a duel fought out by two champions.

Knights trained for war with such units and ignoring their great importance is simply foolish.

Furthermore your comments illustrate a complete lack of appreciation of just how important the support of a state's (if we can use that term) population was in medieval warfare.

[Gary Gunnels]

kevrob,

Thanks for largely supporting my statements. 🙂

Shannon Love,

BTW, to dispel some of your misperceptions about medieval warfare, I suggest the following:

J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages

Medeival warfare included a number of important elements: infantry, logistics, strategy, tactics, sieges being as important as the use of mounted soldiery.

As Verbruggen states:

historians have kept the name of the prominent nobleman who fought at the head of his unit,
but in their account of the engagement they forget the words cum suis, avec sa gent, cum sua acie ['with his troops'), with the result that the fighting of entire formations is represented as a duel fought out by two champions.

Knights trained for war with such units and ignoring their great importance is simply foolish.

Furthermore your comments illustrate a complete lack of appreciation of just how important the support of a state's (if we can use that term) population was in medieval warfare.

[yet another bystander]

... and I still say Gary and Shannon should get a motel room.

Comment by: an innocent bystander at January 29, 2005 08:46 AM

Who says they aren't already in the same room?