What is the next age? (i.e., industrial age)

[AFTT47]

We are currently in the Information Age.

I imagine there are many people here who don't remember the world before knowledge and easy-access to the internet exploded in the mid-1990s. I remember it though (born 27May1959). Sometimes I have a hard time imagining how I lived prior to that explosion. It was a different world. I would not want to go back there. The instant access we have to near the total sum of knowledge of human kind is just so freaking awesome!

I consider the rise of the internet to be the "black swan" event of my lifetime. It changed everything. So this is the Information Age.

The next age will involve artificial intelligence. That might well lead to extinction or it might lead to the transformation of humans into god-like beings. I couldn't hazard a guess at this point but I strongly suspect the age of artificial intelligence will make the transformation into the Information Age seem very trivial by comparison. Whatever you call it, the next age may be the one that establishes the turning point. Will an explosion of intelligence result in our extinction at the hands of our creations, an extinction at the hands of ourselves or a course correction on the path to near-godhood?

I won't attempt to answer that question but I think those are the stakes.

The next age is HUGE, whatever it is.

[The Grand Nudger]

We use terms like that every decade or so to denote whatevers new, but a broader view might suggest that we're still in the iron age, lol.  So much for the thought of progress. 

[tackattack]

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Well as you pointed out with attention economy shorter attention spans.  Attention economy to me is the concept of companies trying to monopolize how the brain functions to get, keep and repeat messages. I think it flows against the concepts of an informed consume. I believe it encourages more impulsivity in decisions and shortens attention spans. Maybe narrows is a better word?

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 I think the end of the informed consumer was well under way by the of the 1950's. Today it is long gone. I think that being an informed consumer, about everything one buys, is virtually impossible.

My aim today is to not be too badly ripped off, and to avoid buying products which will actually cause me  harm. Came very close a few years ago, when I was taking a prescribed drug called "Phosamax" for osteoporosis. Turns out it was released far too soon. Long term use causes necrosis of the jaw. I stop because of disturbing anecdotal evidence. My dentist confirmed my suspicions. I was very lucky.
When I was growing up, there were such things as 'consumer durables',.Expensive, but they would last 20 years and more

Today many products seem intentionally made  with a very limited life span,.Your Bluray player breaks down? Cheaper to buy a new one.

A couple of weeks ago, my inkjet printer had a paper jam. I could not clear it. Took it back to the shop, where I was told I needed a techie who would take it apart to fix it. Cheaper to buy a new one at $179. I felt both guilty and cheated.

I was appalled at the waste I saw in the US, especially food. But, being objective, I think  it' sonly a matter of degree. Imo our consumer societies are  self absorbed and hedonistic, regardless of metaphysical positions. 

It's a bemusing paradox to realise that poverty and want, at least in one's own country, could be eliminated if people actually lived the  religions the claim to follow. Eg "love they neighbour" .  Jesus was asked  "who is my neighbour" His response was the parable of "The Good Samaritan" .The lesson ; every man is my neighbour.


Vance Packard wrote a book called "The Waste Makers" in 1960. It's still in print. Well worth a read. I think today, his argument about the US is true for every 'developed' nation.

The Waste Makers is a 1960 book on consumerism by Vance Packard. It was bestselling when it was released. The book argues that people in the United States consume a lot more than they should and are harmed by their consumption.

One reviewer summarized the book's thesis as follows:

American society overemphasizes consumption, especially the quantity rather than the quality of what it consumes, and that it therefore sacrifices culture, prudence, and a proper concern for the future. He blames these distorted values on the business community, especially on the marketers and advertisers who have beguiled the public into accepting false standards.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Makers

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 THE SAMARITANS were a sect of Jews /Jeswish-like people other Jews consider(ed) heretics. They were not/are not considered to be Jews and were despised. They survive today.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans

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I understand the Samaritan story. As long as it's not too political, I'll add the book to my reading list. Maybe the informed consumer is being supplanted with a different type of informed consumer. One that hate's pp-up distractions and makes quicker decisions? Since they have access to more global knowledge, you would assume they could be the most informed consumer.I don't think things are headed that direction though. With most things being valued by a review process and people being more acutely aware that their attention and time is more valuable now I couldn't really speak to any increase/decrease of accuracy on the quicker decisions.

The comment about quality of consumer products is interesting too. What made that paradigm shift from making something that built to last to making something as cheaply as you can to still be functional. I think mass production and globalization played huge parts in this, but they've been around for a bit. Perhaps increasing mistrust in "name brands" played a role too? Perhaps the speed at which consumer trends are manifested we're just now seeing the changes take effect. I don't know if it's good to go back, or how we could, or if we should.


On a theological bent, since you brought it up, I think the "Love thy neighbor" verse gets mis construed and mis-used all the time, and I personally hate it. Most peple don't even treat themselves like they love themselves, I have no illusions about people treating others this way.

@gae-Or perhaps it's not just a labeling, but it's indicative of respective domains. Price's Law and Pareto distribution shows exponential growth in the technology domain (and other systems of creative production). It makes it pretty obvious why there is exponential speed of technology and the lead towards monopolization. It's not just social inequality, it's more ingrained, IMO. I think this underlying principal also ties into why the successful get more opportunities for success and inversely why we have the term "downward spiral"

[The Grand Nudger]

Exponential growth in a certain sector of technology isn't new or even indicative of an age.  There was exponential growth in ag tech, in the stone age.  Exponential growth in -many- areas of tech..in the bronze age, and many more yet in what  may still be our current age, the iron age.  Think of it this way.  If you took something away from everyone, what thing could you take away that would cause global society to collapse.  Not get shittier or less convenient.  Collapse.   Truly cause the downward spiral you mentioned.  In the stone age it was rocks.  In the bronze..copper and tin.  Now...is it microchips, the internet.... or steel?  

This isn't to say that the many mini breakthroughs in each and every age aren't important or useful, just as an interesting tidbit of academia with respect to how we classify "ages" and opposed to how we popularize this decade (or century's) newest and coolest shit and how that leads us to declare so and so the age of (insert here).  We keep coming up with these mini ages at an increasing rate...and I think that occludes the reality of the very slow change and rate of progress we actually experience.

Hell, we blinked and missed the space age, apparently.

Arguably, we began down the road of some information age (which may be the next age or even an age we're just now entering, granted) the very moment that Uncle Og held out his hand and counted gazelle on his fingers...but before we could declare it an age in the sense that those others are ages...this tech will have to be as instrumental and irreplaceable as stones, bronze, and iron in their respective ages. It almost seems as if we got frustrated after classifying those big three and decided to pencil things in to refer to ourselves in the present as living through some great change like those of the past. The industrial age, the modern age, etc etc etc. Except here we are, still entirely dependent on iron as a civilization.

[tackattack]

Well aside from food and water, I would say iron, steel (bronze perhaps not) and rocks . Perhaps we're in some weird un-named tool age. Other than tools maybe, communication would bring down civilization. If countries, cities and households were cut off, not just from the web, but from information transfer of any kind like (knowing what's going on outside your home or who's buying for what or how much should X cost to make or buy, bank transactions, radio, etc.) I think there'd be a very short time before panic overtook reason systemically. I think we could survive wiping out all electronics, with say solar flare or emp event) because it would shrink communication back down uniformly and obviously for everyone and we'd build up communities faster. If all communications though just stopped working and electronics were useless, there would possibly be be more resistance to relearning communication and hardening of lines of protection rather than communally coming together in the wake of a worldwide disaster. I think our delve into the interconnections of people has made us too fearful of being a lone man on an island and addicted to that connection. idk, interesting thoughts though.