Chapter 2 Modes
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Precedents
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A review of the biggest past changes offers a weak basis for expectations about the magnitudes and types of future changes.
Note:IL METODO
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three key transitions: the introduction of humans, farming, and industry.
Note:TRE GRANDI TRANSIZIONI
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Humans foraged, that is, searched, for food from a few million to about 10 000 years ago. From then until a few hundred years ago, we farmed and herded.
Note:STORIA DELL UOMO
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Social group sizes have steadily increased over this history.
Note:DIMENSIONI GRUPPO
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These sizes fit a simple if mysterious pattern: each era’s community sizes have been roughly the square of the previous era’s sizes; a band is roughly a group of groups, a village is roughly a band of bands, and a city is roughly a village of villages.
Note:LEGGE DEL QUADRATO
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About 20 billion humans have been born since 1750, roughly 50 to a 100 billion were born between 10 000 years ago and 1750, and a similar number of near-humans were born in the million or so years before 10 000 years ago (Haub 2011
Note:NUMERI
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maybe primates needed sufficient cognitive abilities before they could switch to slowly accumulating innovations via culture, rather than via genes.
Note:IL GRANDE SALTO DELKA CRESCITA...
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What if new modes of growth and information diffusion are possible, modes that we have not yet seen because they are not yet feasible with our current technology
Note:ccccccccDAI GENI ALLA CULTURA ALLA
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given the previous pattern of era community sizes being roughly the square of prior era community sizes, communities in the next era might hold roughly a trillion people.
Note:ESTRAPOLAZIONE SULLA POPOLAZIONE
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If the pattern of past growth rate changes continues, a new growth era will appear sometime in the next century or so. At that point, within the space of roughly five years the world economy might change from current growth rates to doubling steadily roughly every few weeks or months. And within a year or two of this new doubling rate, the economy in such a new era might have doubled another 10 times, and thus could plausibly be ready to change yet again to a new era, perhaps even one that doubles in hours.
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Prior Eras
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They lived something like today’s chimps and bonobos, in large sexually promiscuous groups with complex and intense Machiavellian politics, and using unusually large brains to manage such politics.
Note:PRIMATI PRE UMANI...BANDE
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Pre-human primates were split into many species, one of which eventually evolved a strong cultural capacity, that is, ways to reliably copy associates’ detailed behaviors.
Note:NASCE L UOMO E LA CULTURA...MOLTO PIÙ VELOCE DELLA GENETICA
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human foragers had longer lives, larger brains and bodies, stronger mating pair bonds, larger social groups, better relations between neighboring groups, a greater division of labor, and more mobility.
Note:RISPETTO AGLI ALTRI PRIMATI
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Tools and language enabled foragers to enforce general norms against overt dominance,
Note:EGALITARISMO
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Groups didn’t war, although individuals were sometimes violent
Note:GRAZIE ALLA MOBILITÀ E ALL EGUAGLIANZA
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Roughly 10 000 years ago, when humans acquired a sufficient density and reliability of food sources, they began to “farm,” that is, to stay near local plants and animals instead of wandering the wild.
Note:LA SVOLTA
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The settlement and density of farmers enabled both trade and war, both of which complemented property in items, land, wives, and slaves. Farmer advantages in war, coming in part from their higher density, helped to ensure that farming replaced foraging.
Note:GUERRA E SCHIAVITÙ
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Compared with foragers, farmers became richer in material comforts, but poorer in leisure time.
Note:TRADE OFF
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Farmers’ increased food reliability also encouraged less sharing and stronger property rights.
Note:EGOISMO E DISEGUAGLIANZA
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farmers spent less time on play such as music and art. Instead, farmers played more competitively such as by introducing competitive sports.
Note:RITUALI MENO MERCATO NTENSI
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Many farmer-era changes, such as explicit dominance, group violence, stable locations, less art, less varied diets, less sharing, and easier mental work, can be understood as farmers partially reverting back to the ways typical of non-human primates.
Note:LA VITA DURA DELL AGRICOLTORE...ERANO ANCHE PIÙ MALATICCI VIVENDO IN GRANDI GRUPPI
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Stronger pressures to conform, and the introduction of stronger religions with moralizing gods, added more pressures to act like farmers.
Note:LE ARMI VINCENTI
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more reliable access to the mood-altering drug of alcohol, and writing later allowed the accumulation and sharing of persuasive propaganda and stories.
Note:LA NARRAZIONE...INTRODUSSERO ANCHE IL BACIO ROMANTICO
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Farmers cared more about politeness, self-control, self-sacrifice, and bravery in war. Farmers planned ahead more, disciplined their children more, had more children in good times, and were less accepting of pre- and extra-marital sex.
Note:LE VIRTÙ
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rates of death from war, that is, organized conflict, have consistently fallen (Pinker 2011). Interest rates have also consistently fallen, reflecting more long-term planning,
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DA 10000 ANNI IN QUA
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Cities seem to have predated farming, and may have helped initiate farming. The first cities mainly offered monumental architecture for large rituals.
Note:RUOLO DELLE CITTÀ
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Our Era
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Such factors may have included technology levels, communication or travel costs, the division of labor, trading region scope, organization size, savings rate, and expert network connectedness.
Note:IL FATTORE DECISIVO CHE HA SUPERATO LA SOGLIA CRITICA E FATTO SCATTARE LA RIVOLUZ INDUSTRIALE
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fast changing clothes fashions,
Note:PRIMO EFFETTO...LA MODA
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promoted a general taste for exploration, science, and innovation
Note:CULTURA
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Whereas geography mattered greatly for prosperity during the farming era, social institutions came to matter more for prosperity during the industry era
Note:DALLA GWOGRAFIA ALLE ISTITUZIONI
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Forager sleep patterns are similar to ours today (Yetish et al. 2015), but in the winter in cold climates farmers tended to sleep in 4-hour blocks broken by a serene 2-hour midnight wakeful period (Strand 2015
Note:DOPO LA RIVOL IL SONNO SI FA PIÙ COMPRESSO
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Cheaper glass allows more people to see well,
Note:OCCHI
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Cheaper clocks make our lives more scheduled,
Note:OROLOGI
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cheaper soap, underwear, dinnerware, and sewers have made us cleaner.
Note:PULIZIA
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Cheaper refrigeration gives us more kinds of food,
Note:CIBO
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cheaper maps, engines, and the wheel (used much less before) let us visit more places more often.
Note:VIAGGI
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mood-altering drugs are more widely available
Note:SOGNARE
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propaganda and stories have became more persuasive, and more easily distributed.
Note:NARRAZIONI
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political coalitions became stronger and more often defined by ideologies, instead of by locations, families, or ethnicities.
Note:IDEOLOGIA
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Cities moved from holding a few percent of the population to holding the majority.
Note:CITTÀ
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Law came to be dominated by specialists such as lawyers and police
Note:AZZERATO L INFORMALISMO
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Empires that rarely mattered much to ordinary farmers were replaced by nations,
Note:LA NAZIONE
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The industrial era has also seen a steady fall in fertility and a steady rise in life-span, per-person income, abstract intelligence, leisure time, peace, promiscuity, romance, civility, mentally challenging work, and medical and art spending (Flynn 2007; Pinker 2011).
Note:ALTRE VARIABILI
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we industrial people are rich.
Note:IN SINTESI
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Compared with the farming era, industry has also seen more egalitarianism, fewer overt class distinctions, and more emphasis on individual self-direction.
Note:TORNA L EGALITARISMO DA ABBONDANZA
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This increased individualism has led to more product and behavior variety, and fewer overt rituals.
Note:INIVIDUALISMO
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Many of these industrial-era trends can be usefully seen as a reversion to forager values as wealth weakened farming-era social pressures.
Note:UN RITORNO AI VALORI FORAGE
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at work industrial era people are more like hyper-farmers. Schools train us to think more abstractly, and to accept more workplace domination than most farmers would accept.
Note:TUTTAVIA....
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we have consistently seen more and faster growth, larger organizations, more specialization and tool use, more artificial environments, more effective propaganda and drugs, more population density and inequality, and more alienation from work habits that feel natural to foragers.
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TREND OMOGENEI NELLE TRANSIZIONI
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We’ve also seen large but inconsistent changes in health, fertility, mobility, peacefulness, art, planning horizons, the mental challenges of work, and attitudes toward sex.
Note:CAMBIAMENTI POCO CHIARI
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When proto-humans became humans the transition inequality was huge; all but one subspecies went extinct. Even the subspecies that contributed most to our DNA, the Neanderthals, only contributed a few percent.
Note:I PERDENTI
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The transition from foraging to farming was more equitable; a larger fraction of new farmers were foragers who switched to farming
Note:SECONDA
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The transition from farming to industry was even more equitable;
Note:TERZA
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Although the transition to an em world is likely to materially benefit most humans, descendants of only a tiny fraction of humans dominate the new society; most ordinary humans have a far smaller fractional influence on the world than they did before the transition.
Note:LA PROSSIMA
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Era Values
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how values have changed in the past,
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Small family values emphasize resources, dominance, and achievement, and larger communities’ values emphasize humility, caring, and dependability.
Note:ASSE FAMIGLIA NUCLEARE COMUNITÀ...USA URSS
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Poor nations place more value on conformity, security, and traditional values such as marriage, heterosexuality, religion, patriotism, hard work, and trust in authority. In contrast, rich nations place more value on individualism, self-direction, tolerance, pleasure, nature, leisure, and trust.
Note:SECONDO ASSE...RICCHI E POVERI
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left/liberal (rich) versus right/conservative (poor) axis.
Note:GROSSO MDO
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Foragers tend to have values more like those of rich/liberal people today, while subsistence farmers tend to have values more like those of poor/conservative people today.
Note:AGRICOLTORI E CACCIATORE.....DA QUANDO L INDUSTRIA CI H FATTO RICCHI
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The rich know that they can better afford to behave in ways that feel natural and admirable,
Note:IL RICCO SI CONCEDE L INDISCIPLINA....PUNTA SULL IMMAGINE COMPETE SUI CONSUMI E IL TALENTO LE ABILITÀ
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and these behaviors tend to be forager-like. For example, the rich can better afford to focus on impressing those around them, instead of just surviving.
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Spending on medicine has risen from 4% in 1930 to 18% today.
Note:ESEMPIO DI SPRECO CONTEMPORANEO
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Rich-nation industrial-era values do differ from forager values in important ways, however, such as in accepting city-level density and anonymity, and high levels of workplace alienation and domination.
Note:RICCHI E CACIATORI...NN PROPRIO UGUALI
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ems may have more farmer-like conservative values.
Note:TESI....COSÌ COME NN ESISTONO EM BAMBINI NEMMENO ESISTERANNO I PERDIGIORNO
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Dreamtime
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our rich industrial-era behavior is biologically maladaptive in the sense of not even approximately maximizing each person’s number of descendants.
Note:IL LUSSO DELLA MODERNITÀ....QS LUSSI ERANO INVECE IN ARMONIA CON L AMBIENTE DEI CACCIATORI
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social rates of change have outpaced the abilities of both genetic and cultural selection to adapt our behaviors well to our new environments.
Note:NN TENAMO IL PASSO
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Today, we tend to rely on more abstract styles of thought, which leads us to more often embrace good-looking delusions.
Note:UN SEGNALE DI ESIBIZIONISMO SPRECONE
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evolutionary pressures encouraged foragers to unknowingly do many things to show off to each other. Our wealth today induces us to do this more,
Note:ESIBIZIONIMO SPRECONE...ALTRI ESEMPI
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art, music, dress, and conversation
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good sex, food, places, and objects.
Note:ALTRE TENTAZIONI DEL CACIATORE RESUSCITA
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rhetoric, eloquence, difficulty, drama, repetition,
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Ccccccccccf
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Today, such habits leave us with weak defenses against the super-stimuli of mass-produced food, drugs, music, TV, video games, ads, and propaganda.
Note:NELL ABBONDANZA TI ANNULLA....CONSUMIAMO PIÙ DELL OTTIMO
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The “demographic transition” is the tendency of societies to switch to having far fewer children as they become rich, often via new status norms transmitted via education and mass media
Note:IL CENTRO DEL MANCATO ADATTAMENTO
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in farming societies richer people tended to have more children,
Note:LA REGOLA
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This fall in fertility is perhaps the most dramatic demonstration that our behavior is biologically maladaptive.
Note:CVD.....L AMBIENTE MUTA COSÌ VGELOCEMENTE CHE NN CI ADATIAMO
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our cultures today also seem maladaptive, in the sense that they don’t promote their own adoption as much as they could, via war, trade, teaching, and proselytizing.
Note:ALTRO BRUTTO SEGNO
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criminal convicts have higher fertility than do others, mostly as a result of having more partners (Yao et al. 2014).
Note:BRUTTO SEGNO
Recently, some have celebrated our maladaptive behaviors (Stanovich 2004). They see such behaviors as evidence that we are breaking free of the shackles that have enslaved us to our genetic programming.
LA CELEBRAZIONE DEL MANCATO ADATTAMENTO
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our era is indeed an unusual dreamtime that probably cannot last.
Note:L ERA DELLO SPRECO NN DURERÀ
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Limits
Note:TtttttttttttIL LIMITE CI BLOCCA E CI DA TEMPO DI RECUPERARE...IL RITORNO DI MALTHUS AL TEMPO DI EM
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Unless we greatly misunderstand the nature of physical law, substantial useful innovation and economic growth must come to end “soon,” at least on cosmological timescales of billions or more years.
Note:PREVISIONE DI LUNG XIODO
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if the economic growth rates of the last century were to continue for only a million more years, that would produce growth by a factor of 10 to the power of 3000, which seems physically impossible, at least for value gains of human-like psychologies in a universe such as ours.
Note:ESEMPIO
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Once all available physical matter is converted into very advanced artifacts there seems little room for further rapid growth in physical resources.
Note:VALORE E TRASFORMAZIONE FOSICA...DUBBI
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Yes, the extent and detail of virtual realities could increase without limit, but
Note:UNA VIA DI FUGA
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In fact, for the vast majority of future history, growth and innovation are probably mostly imperceptible, and thus irrelevant for most practical purposes.
Note:TESI RIPETUTA
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this end of innovation suggests our descendants will become extremely well adapted in a biological sense to the stable components of their environment.
Note:COROLLARIO
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population will rise to levels consistent with a competitive evolutionary equilibrium, with living standards near adaptive subsistence levels. Such consumption levels have characterized almost all animals in Earth history, almost all humans before 200 years ago, and a billion humans today.
Note:RITORNO DI MALTHUS
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a larger population of creatures that are smaller, use less energy, and have low living standards, behavior better adapted to their environment,
Note:IL FUTURO È DI MALTHUS
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ems seem to have less leisure and income, better-adapted behaviors, and cultures that are more fragmented than ours in important ways.
Note:EMS ADATTIVI
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Although growth is faster “objectively,” that is, relative to a fixed clock, to the typical em growth seems slower “subjectively,” that is, relative to the rate at which he or she personally experiences events.
CRESCITA SOGGETTIVA E OGGETTIVA
