Thank you for reminding us that progress was/is not inevitable. This is something that should that we should consider each and every day.
I recently read a great piece discussing the existential risk “Kuznets curve.” It advocates that it is in our long-term interest to accelerate economic growth and progress in the short term because it reduces the risk of civilizational collapse in the long term.
Great point to bring out the geographical spread for optimal conditions for various cultural types.
It is easier to give thought (and appreciation) to the time spans between them than the location aspects.
Then I had the thought that we could look at each cultural type and judge what % of the total population had passed from one to the next. And that is when I remembered that there are still a few isolated hunter-gather groups in the world, now protected by industrial societies so as to minimize harm to said groups.
So as a hypothetical, we might say:
Hunter gatherers - 99.9% passed to next stage?? [or 99.999%?]
Horticultural societies - 98% passed to next stage??
Agrarian societies - 93% passed to next stage??
Commercial societies - 85% passed to next stage??
Industrial societies - to be determined
You may have better insight into these "suggested values" than I do?
99.9% percent of what passed through the next stage?
This might not be what you are trying to do, but an interesting take is identifying the number of generations that a group's genetic ancestors lived in each society type.
On the time scale issue, I do find it hard to understand that if our hominid or earliest homo sapiens people could learn to make stone tools of a simple kind, why it then took a very long time to progress to better stone axes, stone arrow heads, etc. Did they also have wooden or bone equivalents? What did it take to "innovate" to the next level?
I suspect the idea of 300,000 year old "anatomically modern humans" might not include the evolution of mental advances that did not survive as differences from the older fossil skulls vs. those we have from 60,000 years ago? At best we would see that mental advance in the cultural implements and tools they did make (if they survived?).
If we do believe humans from 50,000 years ago were our mental as well as physical equivalent, I suppose the question about relatively modest innovation becomes even harder to understand, but from that time I understand there were innovations of a type, so issues of small and scattered populations, or other factors could contribute to slow but increasing advances through to the other later cultural categories.
I was thinking in terms of our 8+B modern population, that some fraction of that population would (essentially?) still be in one of the earlier culture categories.
So the very few remaining isolated hunter-gatherer groups (a few thousand people total?) would be those who have not even passed from that category to Horticultural. And on to each other current population subset that is still in a Horticultural, Agrarian, or Commercial society?
2% horticultural?
7% agrarian?
15% commercial equivalent?
Remainder close enough to modern industrial society to be included therein.
Again, you may have better data or insight to select different values for this assessment.
And perhaps even the less "advanced" groups really are still indirectly influenced by modern industrial societies in some subtle way?
Thank you for reminding us that progress was/is not inevitable. This is something that should that we should consider each and every day.
I recently read a great piece discussing the existential risk “Kuznets curve.” It advocates that it is in our long-term interest to accelerate economic growth and progress in the short term because it reduces the risk of civilizational collapse in the long term.
> I believe that the extinction of our species is almost a foregone conclusion
What are you talking about?
I do not mean that we will kill ourselves. Most likely our extinction will come from something like a gamma ray burst or an asteroid impact.
Not if we colonize enough planets first.
I think he means that, on a long enough timeline, the survival rate of everything falls to zero.
Yep
Great point to bring out the geographical spread for optimal conditions for various cultural types.
It is easier to give thought (and appreciation) to the time spans between them than the location aspects.
Then I had the thought that we could look at each cultural type and judge what % of the total population had passed from one to the next. And that is when I remembered that there are still a few isolated hunter-gather groups in the world, now protected by industrial societies so as to minimize harm to said groups.
So as a hypothetical, we might say:
Hunter gatherers - 99.9% passed to next stage?? [or 99.999%?]
Horticultural societies - 98% passed to next stage??
Agrarian societies - 93% passed to next stage??
Commercial societies - 85% passed to next stage??
Industrial societies - to be determined
You may have better insight into these "suggested values" than I do?
I am not sure what you mean.
99.9% percent of what passed through the next stage?
This might not be what you are trying to do, but an interesting take is identifying the number of generations that a group's genetic ancestors lived in each society type.
On the time scale issue, I do find it hard to understand that if our hominid or earliest homo sapiens people could learn to make stone tools of a simple kind, why it then took a very long time to progress to better stone axes, stone arrow heads, etc. Did they also have wooden or bone equivalents? What did it take to "innovate" to the next level?
I suspect the idea of 300,000 year old "anatomically modern humans" might not include the evolution of mental advances that did not survive as differences from the older fossil skulls vs. those we have from 60,000 years ago? At best we would see that mental advance in the cultural implements and tools they did make (if they survived?).
If we do believe humans from 50,000 years ago were our mental as well as physical equivalent, I suppose the question about relatively modest innovation becomes even harder to understand, but from that time I understand there were innovations of a type, so issues of small and scattered populations, or other factors could contribute to slow but increasing advances through to the other later cultural categories.
I guess I did not phrase it well.
I was thinking in terms of our 8+B modern population, that some fraction of that population would (essentially?) still be in one of the earlier culture categories.
So the very few remaining isolated hunter-gatherer groups (a few thousand people total?) would be those who have not even passed from that category to Horticultural. And on to each other current population subset that is still in a Horticultural, Agrarian, or Commercial society?
2% horticultural?
7% agrarian?
15% commercial equivalent?
Remainder close enough to modern industrial society to be included therein.
Again, you may have better data or insight to select different values for this assessment.
And perhaps even the less "advanced" groups really are still indirectly influenced by modern industrial societies in some subtle way?