Future Shock

I've begun a tech and society class and read something interesting i'd like to share:

Quote:

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If the past 50,000 years of mans existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately 62 years each there have been about 800 such life times. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves. Only during the last 70 lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another – as writing made possible to do. Only during the last 6 lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last 4 has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only in the last 2 has anyone anywhere used an electric motor and the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in daily life today have been developed within the present, the 800th lifetime.
Page 14, Future Shock By: Alvin Toffler (1970)

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Yay first reply! It makes sense, have you seen the evolution of the world (namely life) equated to one year? Industrial revolution was like the last 2 seconds I think. It's somewhere in my ecology book.

-Cheers-

Humm never underestamate primative man, or the power of oral traditions..comunications from one life time to the next has been happening from the point we started comunicating...waht d oyou think the cave paintings are? Also note that there have been mechanical motors before (greeks in alaxandra had devloped a stam engin but where sacked before they could exploit it), batteries existed in babalon (no idea on what they where used for yet but they had chmical bateries.) and before the age of exploration there was no need for acurate time keeping (anyone remember when the chinese devloped the water clock?). Never get to full of our advanced tech or underestamate primitive man..we have made some advances this is ture but every step is bulit on the previous step.

I agree soewhat. Just because it didn't seem it be doing anything doesn't mean they aren't. They were busy evolving tool building skills and fire. The basics had to be done first. What's the use of a scienfic solar powered calculater if you don't understand what addition is? Ug.

I agree with the perspective. That being that man has only just begun to tap his knowledge and out of 50,000 years, only the last 70 lifetimes or (70*62) 4340 years that man has been able to effectively communicate beyond a generational lifetime. That would place civilization around the egyption time frame. Even their spectacular achievements have not been effectively communicated. For instance it was not until the last century (early 1900s) that someone was able to begin to read their legacy in printed sybmbols. We still don't know how the great structures of their time were built, though we speculate. In addition many discoveries had to be remade in the 15 and 16th centuries. So I think the time line is fairly accurate.

Cave painting do predict stories of events, like a hunt but if the people who taught and passed on knowledge in a tribe were killed, then knowledge was lost. The written word, in structure only happened in the last 4k years or so. If it exsists before that, we have no evidence of it as yet. Most of what was known in Alexandria was lost and re-invented with no prior knowledge of it's existence. If it was know, we would be much farther along the scientific evolutionary chain. (I think)

again you are minamiseing the worth of an oral history...the bards of the world passed on history, knoladge and tradition for millenia before the written word....lets also not minamise the advances of the anchient world; farming, refineing metal includeing steal eventualy.


The time period for writen communication also ignores the chinese who had writing an printing long before the west.

Hell what year was gilgamesh writen...io think your writeing number may be set too far ahead....

My point, I've never truested the futurists promoting the future shock theory...civilization is not going to end because we have more tech...actualy look at history, there isn't anything truly new, just refinements of new ideas. Hell we where a tail away from powered maned flight in the middle ages.

The Eqyptions invented paper thousands of years before the Chinese.

Ahh but writeing existed before paper, just ask the mesopotanians or celts or norse.

Sure we have neat new gadgates, but we are neither heading into a golden age or distruction...any more then past generations where in a golden age or at the edge of distruction.

But we didn't have writing. We had pictographs at best. Pictures that described real events. Writing in terms of syllabal and phonetics were the process of the Egyptions. I wrote a decent essay on the subject and brought together all threads of thought on this topic but I just hit paste instead of cut and it's gone. **** I am pissed. "The Ox sped down the road to the village" is significant over a picture of and Ox on a Road which is open to varying degree of interpretation.

This is true, but oral traditions where a great way to pass down knowladge, they just didn't travel well....writeing is at the start of the tech trea that leads to the internet(so far) allowing long distance comunications...not the retention of knowladge that would be language.

Writing phonetics is what enabled mankind to effectively pass down knowledge. Heck we even know alot about the past because of it, so they (ancient culture) succeeded in passing on knowledge that is thousands of years old. We don't know much about history outside of digging up a few clay pots and looking at structures past the 5000 year mark because they didn't write anything. They might have drawn a picture but without sylable and phonetic language, how could one possibly pass on the name of a bone (person) we may have dug up, and I mean that effectively. All of that history we know only happened in the last 70 lifetimes. It's easy to confuse time. Every example of culture given still falls within the last 5000 years. Beyond that little is known (that is why it's called pre-historic) exept one can date cities and look at buried villages and see that dogs were domesticated etc. Other than that, it's nothing. Even the Celtic and the Norse history came THOUASANDS of years after Egypt. Sure scientists dig up flint and combustables in Scotland and Ireland dating to neolithic times, but what is known about them beyond cave dwellers and settlements is through a Roman perspective and what they taught the people in England. The Celtic tribes didn't even unite until the Romans attacked England (several times they were repelled) in 1st Century BC. A far cry from Egypt. In fact most of what we know about Egypt was already lost at that time, waiting to be redisovered.

Of course mankind passed on knowledge from father to son, to neighbors. We homosapiens really have no inherent survival instinct that tells us how to sow a row of seed or raise cattle, but at a period in time vast knowledge was accelerated beyond imagination and only very recently. By the way, I don't subscribe to the Future Shock theory either. I do see the reasoning though. Nothing wrong with speculating the possibility that culture could burn itself out, so to speak.

I would argue roadclosed that writeing allowed us to pass knowladge across cultures, the reason we don't know a lot about the oral cultures after they where wiped out is beacues there is no writen record, that dosn't meen that they couldn't pass down knowladge in their own coulture, look at the epic poems of the anglo/scasons beowulf and what not where around for generations before any one wrote them down....an acurate history? probably not but how acurate where writen histories? THe greeks and egyption's where well known for never letting the truth get in the way of a good story.

Just because there is a gap in our knowladge don't sell the neolithics short, may i recomend a book "War Before Civilzation" not exactly on topic, but the author dose give a good example of the dangers of underestamating prehistoric cultures.

pre-history civilizations barely communicated with one another. Entire cities or in this case, settlements were lost with no indication of who or what they stood for. Countless times in my own life time lost civilizations were dug up. People were even digging them up in ancient times. Even Scotland has their own versions of people and societies that were lost for thousands of years to be rediscovered when storms or floods unearth them. Lol, it is both funny and fascinating that all we know about the vast roman empire, one that is only a few thousand years old, in England; is through the work of modern man in just the last 100 to 200 years or so (1880). This flourishing hot spring (Bath) was a destination throughout the 17th century then one day the river was low and bam, a pristine remnant of perhaps the greatest empire man has known was setting below the modern city. I find that and countless other examples fascinating. The romans kept decent documentation but this and others went forgotton for almost a millenium.

I doubt that pre-history man made any sort of acheivment beyond simple tools, but I don't rule out the extreme possibility that someone may have discovered that lightning holds a power that can be harnessed. The problem is, if that was the case (and I only use that as a single example) the knowledge was destroyed and lost. A few generations worth of information passed on might add up to a single lifetime of information. At this point any reference to what pre-historic man knew is solely based on speculation, except for what is discovered in dating devices and settlements of the period.

//Edit Forgot to mention another example:

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look at the epic poems of the anglo/scasons beowulf

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From my recolection, Anglo Saxxon came to be after or during the fall of the roman empire! History places it to be around 400-500 A.D. I think. Christian scholars where the ones' who wrote the poems down. I think there are even Germanic and Roman elements in the Anglo Saxxon culture. Well within the 70 lifetime event. Egypt - a vast empire - is already forgotten and possibly buried.

Ray Bradbury Farenhiet 451 anybody? Oral communication probably occured at around the same time as "written". Both progressed into better evolved forms respectively. The first oral communication was probably grunts and that, now we have languages and the whole bit. Writting started as pictures, now there is grammar, etc.. Although it pretty much became complicated when the Egyptions and Romans hit it. Road, simple tools are very useful. Hunting with a "simple" spear is better then taking the sabertooth tiger on with your bare hands? Or do you beg to differ ;). Here is another philisophical (sp?) thing to pose. Does time really exist or did humans invent time?

-Cheers-

Not at all, I don't deny knowledge was passed on or we wouldn't be here. I am making the argument that beyond 70 lifetimes there isn't much known. Even the iron age, when spears took on a whole new meaning falls within that scope. In fact it is all speculation. Even in Farenheit 451 they based their knowledge on a past culture that wrote down their story to pass on. I would wager that in 100 or 200 years the stories that were once written would begin to change or fade, and in 1000 years cease to exist if reliance on spoekn word alone. I would even wonder if the language could continue it's own existence if again, only reliance on spoken word is used. Oh - I own the movie and the book. :) I think it could make a good modern ramake with new technology we have.

Check your roman history the germanic tribes (of which the anglo saxsons are a member of ) where part of the downfall of the reman empire...they have been a round for a heck of a long time, but our history of them is limted....hell look at the epic of gilgimesh, it lasted for a wihle before it was writen down. Writeing let us pass knowladge form one civilization to the next, and over great distances...but internaly in a society oral traditions worked well to pass knolwadge and traditions.

I don't need to check roman history to know that. :) It still falls thousands of years into the scope of the time line. In fact the germanic influences on the Anglo Saxxons can be traced via the Roman Empire expansion and the desire to control it. 70 Lifetimes goes back thousands of years before the Roman Empire even started, even before the celts the norse and the vikings or anything else... the entire western civilization is part or was touched by the Roman Empire. It's very fascinating.

That dosn't change the fact that they had viable societies with the ability to pass on knowladge before they had writeing (nor dose it look to eastern cultures that had writeing before then)....We have very strong eveidence that prehistoric civilzations built and mantained mote and baily type keeps...thats not something you can pull off without passing on prior engineering knowladge.

You have evidence of a moat built more the 5000 years ago? Besides I am not arguing there weren't sociaties that got along a little and perhaps worked together somewhat. The earliest known defensive measures I know of, were walls made of sticks placed sometimes on tope of hills. And in some cases a hole was dug to re-enforece the perimeter defensive posture. Quite amazing but only a few thousand years at best.

again read "war before civilization" Mote and baliy was somewhat commen in neolithic europ

Yes I would be interested in that, I wrote a paper on an early time line depicting defensive mechanisms of early Scotland back in the late 80s. The earliest fort and bailey I remember while reading was well within 70 life times. I could have sworn I read that book, but even so I will have to reread it again since I don't remember it.

I was hoping you would bring up some other interesting things that are under constant debate. One could be Stonehenge. It's birth is right on the cusp of the timeline in question, so one may wonder what research and technology led to it's construction. But look at our own life time, it only took 20 years to go from a world without personal computers to a world where we touch one, hundreds of times a day, in one form or another. And if you go back to the turn of the 21st century, telephones, automobiles and flying machines were a rare oddity. Man can achieve marvelous things in a single life time, and without written language those things would have disapeared forever. Even in modern times there is evidence of a single culture destroying all that is known about previous occupants. Great achievments do not neccessarily demonstrate a long standing history of communicated knowledge, they can happen in an isolated single lifetime by unusual intelligence.

Oh you do realize, that depending on the context, "Neolithic" can range into the Bronze age - you have to be careful at what specific timeline is in question. Once in a while I run into someone talking about the Neolithic and refering to the millennia just before Christ was born. And even in the correct context it falls around 20 percent within 70 lifetimes.

fair enough...a lot of this debate depends on the definition of a "life time", generaly i considered neolithic to mean new stoneage going form a purely archeoligic stand point.

Nor have i argued that writeing is necessary to pass knwoladge from one soceity to another... it basicly is, but knowladge can be passed down with out writeing very easily inside a society. Hell writeing dosn't even gaurenty a retention of knowladge, look at what happened at alexandra...if that city held the greeks would hae had a working steam eengin imagin the industrial revolution launching a thousand years early.

Yes, given the knowledge had not been destroyed - perhaps the Romans would have landed on the moon. :) Or our generation wouldn't be suffering from diseases that use our own ability to replicate cells against us.

I doubt the romans would have ever concured the macadonians..im sure military applications of the steam engin would have happen ratehr quickly after they figured out how to scale it up