Comments on: We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:44:46 -0800

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100). Large image, lots of info. Via digg

By: bim

bim — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:55:37 -0800

I saw this yesterday and thought it was very nice but I couldn't help thinking: "Why isn't this a pdf file." It would be so much simpler to navigate around in. Thanks for the reminder of the site, sourwookie. :)

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:03:28 -0800

Viewability is an issue. I would like to figure out how to get this onto paper (several sheets if need be).

By: alby

alby — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:04:49 -0800

Worst. Interface. Evar.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:05:20 -0800

Wait a second, nuclear fusion is ALWAYS predicted to be 50 years into the future, so let's bump that up to 2067. If this chart is printed in 2017 we'll have to bump it up to 2077.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:06:10 -0800

2057 and 2067, not 2067 and 2077

By: sergeant sandwich

sergeant sandwich — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:10:25 -0800

interesting that the technology adoption curves (steamships, automobile, computer) all look the same. i wonder if that speaks to some sort of truth about how long it takes society to adopt new technologies (it's about a generation?) or if whoever created this just fudged it that way. hmm.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:14:42 -0800

Seems to be lots of cyclicality and sine waves.

By: fondle

fondle — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:20:52 -0800

Very interesting. Isn't it possible to decompile the flash movie and get a printable set of images or whatnot?

By: hoborg

hoborg — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:22:34 -0800

An SVG file would be extremely nice... Cool post, SW.

By: blahblahblah

blahblahblah — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:24:00 -0800

sergeant sandwich: Everett Rogers was one of the first to note that technology diffusion occurs according to a pretty standard pattern (early adopters, followed by early majority, the mass market, etc.) when you map this you get an s-shaped curve.

By: freedryk

freedryk — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:25:16 -0800

So much of this seems to be made up patterns. Society doesn't follow simple patterns like this seems to claim. I don't like it.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:30:04 -0800

Total infogasm! Reminds me of Jamie Shovlin's recent stuff.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:32:25 -0800

I would love to be able to have a huge printout of this for my clasroom. Anyone know how to do it?

By: matthewr

matthewr — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:38:18 -0800

Totally fudged, sergeant sandwich. The other day I was at a talk by Professor Nick Crafts about the productivity impact and rate of adoption of 'general purpose technologies' (e.g. steam, IT). He showed how slow steam was to have any real impact on society and the economy, as measured by labour productivity figures. The contribution of steam power in all its forms before 1830 was small. The real breakthrough in terms of economic impact was the advent of high-pressure steam power in 1850, eighty years after Watt's initial invention. IT, by contrast, has had a much faster, much greater, impact on productivity. The costs of IT, measured for example by MIPS per $ have fallen far more dramatically than steam power ever did, the time taken for the economy to be affected by the technology is greatly reduced, and the impact is greater. The effect of IT on the economy is still not instantaneous, though: the growth economist Robert Solow coined the Solow Paradox in 1987 when he said: "You can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics".

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:38:23 -0800

Interesting and, in some respects, wholly depressing as well. Thanks for the link.

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:40:07 -0800

That's pretty cool, thanks for posting it. Kind of hard to navigate though.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:44:57 -0800

More from the site. Doesn't seem to be much content other than the chart and this.

By: neustile

neustile — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:48:38 -0800

I would love to see some citations, personally. "Internet growth reaches saturation"????

By: matthewr

matthewr — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:49:23 -0800

I've just read, on preview, blahblahblah's comment. I'm sure Rogers is right that technology adoption as measured by %ownership follows an S-curve. But the way that the (FPP) timeline shows all GPTs taking the same amount of time to impact on society is wholly wrong. Also, it's unclear what the curves on the timeline mean. Are they supposed to be measuring the %ownership or economic/societal impact (via some proxy like labour productivity)?

By: needs more cowbell

needs more cowbell — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:51:29 -0800

It'd be so much easier to look at if it were a wall poster instead. Neat, though.

By: shortfuse

shortfuse — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:57:53 -0800

It looks like a "before" example in an Edward Tufte book, right before Tufte redoes the whole thing his way.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:58:19 -0800

Looks like a slick way to promote a cranky simple-minded view of human history ignorant of much sociology. It's not that I know much sociology or am a historian—it's what sourwookie says. The person has a cyclic theory of history...a very regular cycle that seemingly drives all of human culture. Sunspots? If we found some writings from this person, I'm sure we'd see the claim of some basic oscillating driver such as sunspots. Pretty chart, though.

By: matthewr

matthewr — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:00:02 -0800

Hmm, I'm also not sure about the use of Kondratieff waves in the economics section. As far as I know, there's not a lot of empirical evidence for them, and certainly no convincing theoretical basis.

By: sour cream

sour cream — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:01:39 -0800

matthewr (quoting Solow): "You can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics." Maybe that's because all the productivity gains are eaten up by having to deal with computer-related issues, such as developing and making the things, learning how to use them, maintenance, dealing with downtimes, spam, etc. etc. Second angle: Take a journalist. Before computers, he/she might have headed to the archives or the library to finish a piece. Now, it's the internet and much more information goes into an article. But the net time to finish an article is still more or less the same.

By: bim

bim — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:02:29 -0800

I'd like a big prinout too for my office wall. If anyone comes up with a good solution, please should it out.

By: EarBucket

EarBucket — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:02:59 -0800

Fundamentalist political power peaks in 1996?

By: jimmy76

jimmy76 — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:03:44 -0800

What does the ED, LD, EA, LA thing mean?

By: bim

bim — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:05:20 -0800

I'd like a big prinout too for my office wall. If anyone comes up with a good solution, please should it out. For the record, I can spell but I can't type. That should say "printout" and "shout it out." Aaaargh.

By: matthewr

matthewr — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:09:45 -0800

jimmy76, supposedly those are Early and Late Declines and Advances.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:10:24 -0800

"2004 - 2027: Increased probability of American involvement in a war." Just how many Bushes are there, anyhow??

By: jimmy76

jimmy76 — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:11:04 -0800

sour cream, I think you're right about that. I've often thought it amazing that our economy keeps chugging away when quite clearly, a vast number of people are farting around on the web all day instead of doing work. It seems like technology has simultaneously increased our productivity and provided a convenient activity to fill every spare second of time.

By: bingo

bingo — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:34:57 -0800

What we really need to do is establish a foundation made of the greatest minds of our time, in order to preserve the collective knowledge of the human race in an 'Encyclopedia Galactica' so that we will still have that knowledge when the next cycle of chaos finishes.

By: b1tr0t

b1tr0t — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:47:58 -0800

Oddly, it is much more usable if you just load the SWF file directly.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Sat, 27 May 2006 16:00:35 -0800

"2004 - 2027: Increased probability of American involvement in a war." This is an easy bet, considering the last time the US went 23 years without being in a war was 1918-1941. It would be more interesting if he predicted periods of peace.

By: econous

econous — Sat, 27 May 2006 16:11:19 -0800

Usefully the K-wave is not drawn to scale, added for purely aesthetic reasons. This looks like the soft sell for an extopian close. All it is needs is some exponential growth curves.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 27 May 2006 16:32:47 -0800

He doesn't show the comet arriving. Yeah, I have to say this is excessively simplistic and really doesn't tell us as much as it pretends to. The perfect sine waves, the BS about "ED/LD" which purports, I suppose, to tell us something about technology rather than merely economics, and the lack of a global perspective e.g. the US in decline while Europe grows, then a period of vice versa -- then Brazil coming from behind and eating everyone's lunch. Who could predict the semiconductor, much less nuclear fusion? What about disruptive technologies, or resource disruptions? It's just too pat to take seriously.

By: zaebiz

zaebiz — Sat, 27 May 2006 17:52:41 -0800

Can someone explain to me how the number of 50-59 year olds in 2050 exceeds the number of under 10s in 2000? Are they including Martian immigrants?

By: zaebiz

zaebiz — Sat, 27 May 2006 17:53:53 -0800

Ok forget that. US population only. Right.

By: Hubajube

Hubajube — Sat, 27 May 2006 18:20:39 -0800

I would love to be able to have a huge printout of this for my clasroom. Anyone know how to do it? Print screens and patching together in a graphics program will always work.

By: Hubajube

Hubajube — Sat, 27 May 2006 18:31:00 -0800

I found a good program to do the conversion called Swf2Gif. I don't know much about it. Download at your own risk, etc. Don't use the "Convert to GIF" button. It didn't work right for me. Instead, click the "O" button below the image. If you hover, iit says "Capture current frame to a BMP file". When you click it, it will open the extracted 1728x1296 BMP in your associated program.

By: hoborg

hoborg — Sat, 27 May 2006 18:41:56 -0800

You could also just extract the assets from the SWF with a decompiler. Just how many Bushes are there, anyhow?? Well, if Jeb wins in '08 and there are 8 years of that, followed by Neil in '16, and 8 years of HIM, well, that's 2 years that the presumably non-Bush president has to extract us from the mess in Iraq (course then it'll be known as FreedomLand).

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 27 May 2006 19:27:04 -0800

Oh, good god, what a horrible thought. Incidentally, I reluctantly tend to agree with Josh Marshall's mild argument against a Hillary Clinton presidency on the grounds of not encouraging these family dynasty things. Bad for the country.

By: bim

bim — Sat, 27 May 2006 20:06:36 -0800

I did the decompiler thing and I didn't see anything useful.

By: webfanatic

webfanatic — Sat, 27 May 2006 23:03:54 -0800

Can I get a wall chart? Lots of interesting information, but the lack of usability on the presentation makes it a bit hard to digest.

By: po

po — Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:45 -0800

I find it interesting that he puts us currently in Early Advance, rather than Late Decline. I'd say we're still on the tail end, and not advancing yet. Then again, that could just be my hopes of being the leader of the glorious revolution. Continue, comrades.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Sun, 28 May 2006 02:52:09 -0800

preserve the collective knowledge of the human race in an 'Encyclopedia Galactica' so that we will still have that knowledge when the next cycle of chaos finishes. "Here's what the Encyclopedia Galactica has to say about alcohol. It says that alcohol is a colourless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars and also notes its intoxicating effect on certain carbon-based life forms. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. * It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. * The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterwards. The Guide even tells you how you can mix one yourself. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sells rather better than the Encyclopedia Galactica."

By: grahamwell

grahamwell — Sun, 28 May 2006 06:52:52 -0800

As matthewr says, this chart is entirely based on Kondratieff Cycles or "Long waves" which is, frankly, hokum. If you're partial to econoporn hokum however (and who isn't?), here's all you can eat.

By: airguitar

airguitar — Sun, 28 May 2006 08:17:00 -0800

Notice that "Euphoric" Periods always being at the same time as longer Periods of Crime. We're not due for another "Euphoric" Period until 2030.

By: airguitar

airguitar — Sun, 28 May 2006 08:25:07 -0800

From 1960 to 1993 he uses a plot line of US crime stats that matches nicely with his cyclical wave, but after '93 the crime line is cut off and his cycle wave continues on.

By: mendel

mendel — Sun, 28 May 2006 08:42:24 -0800

The music line there is just bizarre. Remember, rock and roll ends in four years. Invest in Putomayo now! (As best as I can tell, he's "predicted" the end of rock music because jazz was big for about 55 years. I find it interesting that "rock and roll" got replaced with "world beat" and not, say "hip-hop", though.)

By: rmm

rmm — Sun, 28 May 2006 20:46:17 -0800

thanks matthewr and grahamwell for giving us a little background on this. Surely to God there's got be something out there online that's a bit less simplistic and vague than this - and that has an info. design that doesn't give you a headache...