Historian vs Futurist on Human Progress - Long Now Foundation

[TheAwakenedHeretic]

Futurists tend to be prima faccie, while historians are more data specific.

[1HumanKind]

just as modern diet has produced obesity (deterioration of society) , it has produced novel longevity and health (continuing future advancement of society).

there has and will never be an acceleration that does not abate. Clearly. Just as there can and will never be a one sided (only + or -) idea or tech.

our future holds ever greater discrimination (choice). the implications are clear. new ways to suffer and prosper. both oppression and empowerment.

[happinesson]

funny but with substances debate! history and future molds our present!

[FullSwagSyceGame507]

i'm not a very intellectual man, i live a simple lifestyle too. so can someone patiently explain to me how these men are productive to society. i don't really see how having men go through IV league schools, get labeled greatness and all they do is sit and think about society. how does that help people? how is thinking about society going to change society?

[BoredonOccasion]

@FullSwagSyceGame507

They aren't simply "thinking," they are engaging the public. More importantly, though a man may change over the course of his life, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, it seems obvious to me there is no alternative to thinking long and hard about an issue if you wish to change your behavior in a wise and meaningful way. Phrased differently, how does an unthinking society ever change for the better?

[1HumanKind]

@FullSwag

I guess you have heard of Karl Marx? Do you think his ideas changed a society? (more than one to be sure). All he did was think about society.

Will a society who knows history be different if it did not know history? (both of these men are "historians") For example does our societies knowledge of WWII and the genocides therein make it different from what we would be without that knowledge?

knowing the path we travel is not sufficient but it is necessary.

[NucularRobit]

I don't really get the rub. I have great hope for the future and think history if full of great lessons. Futurist and historian are not necessarily at odds. If a historian and futurist disagree it is completely on them.

[infokemp]

Its not just technology but method - technology is neutral - it is how you use it and what you use it for.

[madjack443]

humans require resources to survive. when societies begin gathering more and more people, it becomes increasingly difficult to feed the resource needs of those people. people can put up with a lot of shit, you can give them nothing but food and they won't complain. take someone's food away and they will get pissed. all empires have fallen because they ran out of resources, or they were taken by another power with a hunger for resources. there are no exceptions.

[vrshowdown]

The reason why exponential progress happens, its not about the "agricultural revolution" or "industrial revolution" or even "digital revolution". The Progress is actually coming from how fast and effective we share information and work together as each revolution goes by. Art on cave walls and language started this trend , Books and the press started the next trend, and now computers and the internet. Sharing Ideas faster and more effective will result in more educated people.

[kw271]

@vrshowdown -- Educated? Really? With every facebook status and twitter update where millions inform others of their inane actions or distraction. i'd prefer to call it puerile graffiti. Knowledge-makers and educators are greatly outshouted and overwhelmed by these MTV education.

[vrshowdown]

@kw271 don't matter what form it comes in, education is education. even if its small talk. in the dark ages, they didn't have radio mtv, many people couldn't have access to experience different kinds of music. .. when books were burned, lots of information was lost and irretrievable . Most people back then only knew what they saw around them and knew only what they herd by the leaders. more  people in the world now has access to a variety of information to make their own judgments.

[HisteresisLoop]

Where is Ray Kurzweil when you need him?

[Shavarnarak]

The future is a cloud of possibilities. It's whatever people make of it.

And by breeding like rats, as they are doing, I'm pretty sure humans will actually fuck it up sooner or later.

[rrodmada]

Ferguson omits the fact that in hunter-gatherer populations were often significantly healthier in terms of nutrition than their settled counterparts. A diverse diet of wild nuts, fruits, grains and vegetables together with plenty of game meat is far more nutritionally healthy than most forms of pre-modern subsistence agriculture (i.e. subsistence agriculture without any knowledge of nutrition).

[Tippersnore]

ForaTV, the world is drinking!

[cdltpx]

Peak oil will diminish the population period the question is how will the current elete allow it to occur. Will they allow the racesto segregate assemble into groups and form small nations within their areas or will they perform a false flag to mandate a shelter in place where they can systematically go area to area to remove qualify and process the cast offs. Many will not shelter in place will these have the ability to sound the alarm that the clenzing has begun?

[SketchyBack]

@cdltpx Dude. All sorts of races and ethnicities are all mixed together. Who the fuck is gonna bother to separate them?? This isn't Nazi Germany. You certainly don't belong to the "elite" if being in the "elite" involves thinking.

Oil prices have quadrupled recently without an appreciable fall in food availability - there are still food surpluses. And bioengineering is expanding food production. I don't mean to say tech will fix everything, but I wouldn't be so sure of peak oil causing anythin

[ginsushark]

@cdltpx - theres peak supply that youre concerned about and peak use which the saudis ae concerned about. we've already passed both. Besides tons of conservation technologies like ultralight cars etc., economic forces are moving us toward cheaper and cheaper generation technologies. check bill gates pushing nuke reactors that burn depleted uranium. etc.

[cdltpx]

@ginsushark For so long we have depended on oil to be our slave things are about to get a lot more localized. Look @ India when they travel there are people piled on everything trains cars bikes we are going to resemble that it is just a matter of time. If we had any sense we would go ahead and attach a $5 a gallon surcharge on fuel to get these mammoths off the road and so we could get some decent public transportation.Public trans that allows motor bikes onboard.

[ginsushark]

@cdltpx - energy conservation is just common sense but peak oil is fake issue. there are many possible futures. a collapse could happen, but it would be a failure caused by greed, corruption and mismanagement rather than lack of resources. we live INSIDE the sun (in the heliosphere). and given the size of the universe - what are the real resource limitations? 

[cdltpx]

@ginsushark Peak oil has already happened production has declined 8% globally. PO does not mean we will run out of oil instantly but it does mean that production is expected to follow the same curve taken to get to the peak. PO is about price increases that will cause economic instability food shortages and yes these shall cause goverments to fail. Our economy is based on cheap oil remove it and you have failing economy, oil is key in food production ferterlizer planting harvesting OIL.

[ginsushark]

@cdltpx - Peak production has passed. but peak use has also passed. The US has an abundant supply of natural gas. nuke energy can be extracted from sea water. new solar breakthroughs are announced every day. (my fav is decentralized generation). tons of research in energy right now. check out energy experts rather than conspiracy theorists. factory farms are another bad tech. decentralized hydroponics is a much more efficient method. manufacturing on demand ends wasteful supply chains

[cdltpx]

@cdltpx I would love to agree with you but they are standing in the way of progress for the sake of control.

[cdltpx]

@SketchyBack A I don't belong to the elite people that call the president and dictate what policy will be are.B Isn't Nazi Germany wait and see. C There are many books on the subject videos you name it. Recall housing defaults didnt begin until oil hit its max. We have 200G USA unemployed that are not going to work anytime soon. The bill S510 the way it is written to assume total control over the people they will be doing Waco style raids on people for growing and selling food READ THE BILL.

[sbergman27]

The historian seems to have put a lot more thought into the future than the "futurist" has. The "futurist" is not so much a futurist, as a blind and complacent pollyanna. We know that we have some major sustainability issues to deal with, and many (most?) people, like the futurist, want to deny or ignore them. That's a pretty good recipe for disaster.

[emmazedbend]

I think Ferguson is right our present course is unsustainable - particularly now with Peak Oil kicking in.

[equsnarnd]

My god, Ferguson understands nothing about nutrition. Sugar is an immune system suppressive and spikes insulin and cortisol creating inflammation and disease. To treat sugar as a boon to diet from the calories is incredibly ignorant. And it's not true for most of history that people were poorly fed. They were much better fed prior to agriculture. Paleolithic people were much larger. By the mid 20th century people were being fed better but he really doesn't understand this subject!

[rickwoodall]

I find what he's saying insulting. I live in the north of England and I'm sure I would have been better fed living with some nomadic tribe in Mongolia than in the industrial areas of Lancashire 200 years ago. surely technology increases food production and not the other way around.How can he say that the industrial revolution put an end to people being exploited by tiny elites? surely it just modernized exploitation.

[equsnarnd]

Niall Ferguson needs to read Human Action by von Mises and The Conceit of Socialism by Hayek. And perhaps The Law by Bastiat.

[noobler9]

SUGAR, FED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION!?

I RAGED SO HARD.

nutrition =/= calories.

JESUS CHRIST.

I'd think things like steam engines and the agriculture revolution or whatever it was would've had an impact, the industrial revolution occured when? 1800-1850+?

also, hell yes, humanity's lot on the whole has been improving gradually more and more

[MrGodam29]

evolve consiously

[Luchik44]

Human progress only in the last 150 years? What about the renaissance and the printing press in 15th century, abolition of feudalism in 16th, 18th and 19th century throughout the world, steam turbine-16th, telescope-17th, electrometer and lightning rod-17th, human rights-18th. The world has been generally improving since the invention of the stone tool 2.6 million years ago and will continue to do so.

[airborneinfantry86]

For most of history humans where very well nursed. The invention of agricultural when humans started living off of diets of mostly starches and grains changed that. Increased sugar production didn't improve diets, lead to the industrial revolution or cause the obesity problem. Sugar was hardly a staple of your average industrial age worker. The obesity problem can be directly linked to government subsidies on corn, evenly leading to high fructose corn syrup being put into everything.

[mavallarino]

I believe his correlations are missing something.

[BillKiernan]

awesome discussion between these two

[iBegToDiffer]

ah dear ferguson, i would love for you to tell those ancient greeks reclining in luxurious bath houses that their existence was " a rather miserable affair"

after all they lived in the golden age and it was, unfortunately, the height of western art and culture, and everyone knows, that was the worst time to be alive

thank goodness for these last 150 years of bliss... *_*

[moniker127]

I disagree with dr. english accent. People were healthier in of pre-agricultural times. The only reason that the average life span was so low is because the infant mortality rate was astronomically high. If you have 5 people who live to be 80, and 20 babies who die within a year, the average life span is about 17 years!

Proper sanitation and sewage systems are responsible for increasing the average life span because they so greatly improve the chance that a baby will survive its first year.

[Wahn666]

urgeist[dot]org

[adsense1]

Let's go back 350 years to the plains indians...Well fed, happy no centralized authority. I challenge the concept of what the Harvard Man considers Progress.

[Hashishin13]

look up the history of the apache, commanche and the aztecs. People always like to idealize the native americans, it wasn't all sunshine and teepees

[adsense1]

I don't need to look up any history because I am Native American. The chief of the Cherokee tribe held her victory party in my families home.....Was your "so called" history written by a European? I think it probably was.....We all know what people do....There is always war and strife. The Native Americans lived a life of peace and plenty for 90% of their existence....If you do not believe me look up the old Cherokee scrolls my friend. You are obviously a thinking man. Please study the true hist

[kw271]

@Hashishin13 -- they don't name a killer-helicopter after a fuzzy wuzzy tree-hugging tee-pee inhabitant

[3tangle3]

@adsense1 but die at 30

[ladulaser]

Why the industrial revolution happened in England? I'ld say it was due to an abundance of flammable material being tappable from the Cornwall coalmines. It started slowly first in the 1700s, but by the end of that century when James Watt had put up a double-acting steam engine that could help pump up water from the mines... BOOM! Industrial Revolution!

[jobogee]

my major quarrel with the futurist arguement is that it opperates under the assumption that we've gotten everything right. History will show that in terms of human progress, this is rarely the case. What we need is to take our knowledge base, and refine it. Fiddle and tweak our habbits til they are of benefit to the species, rather than blindly pushing forward.

[terps4eva9]

wow great point

[DocWyoming]

@jobogee Futurism in no way believes we've got everything right - that's the domain of dogmatic religion. Futurism follows precisely what you say it should follow: taking our current knowledge and refining it through the scientific method. "Blindly pushing forward' has NOTHING to do with science, technology or futurism. I can't even figure where you got this strawman of futurism from, seeing as you get futurism right in your comment.

[dattajack]

why would blue shirt bash the idea of algae fuel? so if he doen't understand something then it must not work. and we're all wondering why the species has so many problems?? hint: blue shirt's mentality. i'm tired of these type of people. the problem is they usually don't have a better idea themselves. the best solutions might not be your own, beleive it or not, which will make understanding them even tougher.

[3tangle3]

@dattajack the visionaries must band together to make a sustainable world void of avoidable suffering

help by googling worldcommunitygrid

[adsense1]

Do you believe that your definition of suffering is universal? Just a question I would like you to answer....

[3tangle3]

huh? seeing my brothyer die of diabetes will not be tolerated anymore in my life.......cure will be here in 5-6 years watch this space matey

[fruitsofescapism]

lol

[Dot2TheLock]

indeed lulz

[ElectricSexPants]

I'd go gay for Niall Ferguson.

[DimebagVision]

Futurists are jokes. First they take a "shocking" topic from science fiction novels, tv shows, or movies, then they try to link it to the real world. ITS CALLED PROGRESS!!! Man invented wheel, man used wheel for chariots, plows and wagons that were pulled by horses, and hauled goods around, man drives ferrari. BIG FUCKING WHOOP! You get technology, it progresses and brings new use! If science fiction were so "real" WHERES MY FLYING CAR THAT THEY USED IN "The Absent Minded Professor"???????

[lordjavathe3rd]

@DimebagVision You're a real live moron. I read your entire paragraph expecting to find a point or an argument. Your flying car? That's your argument? Give it a bit, you dip shit.

[DimebagVision]

@lordjavathe3rd

I forgot what I wrote and I'm too lazy to go search for it.

We already have flying cars. They're called airplanes. It drives on a straight road for liftoff.

[Kataphraktoi17]

Ferguson is quoting Clark's A Farewell to Alms. The "human condition" is dependent on intelligence - increase in IQ are heredity, evolutionary process. In Hart's Understanding Human History, he states that the Neolithic revolution, was drivin by IQ. The point is, that the human condition is constantly trapped in Malthusian traps,

[MadPutz]

and humans always overcome malthusian traps. as technology advances more and more these "traps" will become more and more minor until malthusian theory will be totally obsolete.

[Kataphraktoi17]

If you compare projected population changes and IQ statistics you get a decrease in average IQ in the next 50 years. My idea of Malthusian traps is that technology and intelligence increases carrying capacity to a degree that population increases without interruption for a longer period of time. There not minor per say, but rather the interval of them occurring is longer. .

[catbuffalo]

What in the blue hell are yammering about? Human progress? In what specific regard?

[jinjin16]

by the way things are going - looks like history will repeat itself soon.

[Hawbawbowba]

Why would anyone put a thumb down?

[UnhealthySalad]

What is "human progress"? Is it the amount of material wealth? Is it quality of life? Is it longevity? The conversation makes no sense, but I believe tooshed333 said it best, "There should be no real plateau of creativity in my mind, only periods of varying growth."

I don't believe we'll regress to where we'll have to rebuild modern life or something. I believe there's a "floor" we've built, so to speak, and we'll keep progressing, though not necessarily at an exponential rate.

[ls1z28chris]

I do not think he is necessarily arguing that material wealth is the primary measure of human progress. Look at the context he establishes: humanity trapped in subsistence living and being manipulated by a tiny minority of elites.

Advancing from subsistence living is an inarguable example of human progress, but contemporary American/Western lifestyles, fraught with endless debt and working for needless material objects, we've devolved into a different kind of subsistence living.

[UnhealthySalad]

Well, if you're speaking about the West, I have to strongly disagree.  We're way passed subsistence living, to the point of excess and indulgence. Subsistence living requires only food & water, a safe place to sleep/dwell, and a way to keep clean. The fact that people get into endless debt and such is a lifestyle choice. So to me your argument is simply semantic. Human demand has shifted (as it always will once other demands have been met), but I don't believe we're worse off because of it.

[ls1z28chris]

I understand that the point is highly debatable and to some extent depends on individual subjective interpretation of the terms involved, but I disagree it is only a matter of semantics.

You talk about the element of choice being a differentiating factor, but what sort of choice is it to either live withing this system of debilitating debt or live on the street? That is no choice at all. One hiccup in the system, one break in pay, and food/water, a home and cleanliness disappears.

[UnhealthySalad]

False dichotomy. You don't have to live in accordence with "society", which is debt-laden consumptionism, or have to live on the streets. There are other ways.

Second, "a hiccup" can occur in any economic system. Either way, goods are scarce. Things don't just pop up because we want them to. So, this is not an argument that can be used to say humans have not progressed. Scarcity will always be with us.

[ls1z28chris]

You misunderstand my argument if you think that I am saying that we have not progressed.

It is not necessarily a false dichotomy simply because one can opt not to live according to societal norms. Many people are ill informed and are completely unaware that other options exist. Also, the other options may be so "bad" as to not be options at all.

[ls1z28chris]

Also, please articulate for me the way in which a contemporary American can get a college education, a good job, a roof over his head, and a means of transportation without drowning in debt.

As I see it, overwhelming debt is de facto the way of life in America. There are other options, but they are not feasible and therefore cannot be considered options for many people.

[UnhealthySalad]

"Many people are ill informed and are completely unaware that other options exist."

So?

"the other options may be so "bad" as to not be options at all."

Subsistence living doesn't seem so bad to me. Neither does being frugal or fiscally responsible.

"please articulate for me the way in which a contemporary American can get a college education, a good job, a roof over his head, and a means of transportation without drowning in debt."

Working, savings.

[UnhealthySalad]

Who says most people need a college education? (If I remember correctly, most jobs even in America don't require a college degree). Also, most people can walk or ride a bike to work or school. Those options aren't so bad, it's just that it's more convenient to do otherwise.

I would agree, though, that our society has been living beyond their means and are way too addicted to credit. However, it is possible that we could be entering what is called a credit revulsion, which would reverse this.

[ls1z28chris]

You and I both know the economic reality is that if you want to put a roof over your head, food on the table, have health insurance, and work in a career with any sort of job security, you need the type of job for which at least an undergrad degree is required. It just gets even worse if you start talking about providing for a family as well.

Folks do live beyond their means, but simply providing the basics requires indebtedness that takes decades to crawl from under.

[ls1z28chris]

Our system of debt and credit push market prices so high that the option of working and saving is unfeasible. Debt is de facto the only option available.

The median individual income of a male HS grad is $29k. For a male w/ a Bachelor's it is $51k. At which level of income, and in what sort of career, would it then be possible to put a roof over your head, food on the table, and have health insurance?

[dattajack]

apply to FASFA first. this communicates your current financial situation. be honest, especially if you have a family and money is tight. that will only open up more possible money to get through school. second, apply to every other (non FASFA) scholarship/grant you can find. do it! yeah, its a pain. third, make sacrafices as far as time to study, and general fun things you're used to. it won't be forever, so do it right. don't do it half assed and not be able to capitalize on it later.

[ls1z28chris]

A strong argument can be made that, as comfortable as our lifestyles have become, we are still a civilization comprised primarily of subsistence workers controlled by elites.

Sometimes, though, people seem to forget the former elites were a hereditary nobility or a theocratic clergy and today the elites are largely established by meritocracy.

[fruitsofescapism]

uhh... the same type of meritocracy that props up kerry and bush from the same fraternity into the presidential race? I'd call that an old-money-o-cracy.

[classic14rider]

The "historian" is wrong (and I say that as an historian myself). First of all, there is not simply one view of history, so the phrase "The proper way to think about history..." is problematic for its intellectual arrogance. But, above all, his Malthusian view of history is misanthropic. He ignores a 2,500 year history that includes the discoveries of sea-faring civilizations such as Egypt and Ancient Greece, he ignores the Renaissance, etc. and focuses only on the last 100 years.

[ariagia]

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."—EINSTEIN

"Information is not knowledge."—EINSTEIN

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. "—EINSTEIN

[toolshed333]

I don't think nutrition is a good example of the entire human race's technological advancements as a whole. The historian seemed overly pessimistic about the human capacity. There should be no real plateau of creativity in my mind, only periods of varying growth.

[jacknewt]

How is eating a lot of sugar harmful to other people?

[d3p3ch3mod3]

historian guys argument about sugar is flawed... obesity is sometimes caused by addiction but ultimately controllable, it wasn't caused by increase in food supply... this can't be said for starvation and malnutrition. obesity is a problem but also a sign of progress

[mistaspot1]

Bravo. The historian is absolutely correct.