I think you may find "Third wave" by Alvin Toffler interesting. He proposes
that recent history can be seen by 2 great waves of development. The first
The agricultural revolution, the second the industrial revolution. Toffler
proposes that we are currently in the cusp of the 2nd and the new 3rd wave,
the information revolution. I am fascinated by the concept of evolution,
and I think that evolution is a vehicle in which we can view quality events.
Looking at the above 3 waves in an evolutionary manner creates beautiful
sense. The first revolution, or instigator of evolution, the agricultural.
The agricultural revolution spawned irrigation and crop management. These 2
things allowed humanity to live in regions that were previously
uninhabitable in any large society. This opened us (humanity) to be exposed
to many new and varied 'inputs'. These inputs, such as new types of flora
and fauna as well as geological forms have a direct effect on the evolution
of our species - remember Darwins principle of animals (of which we are)
being a product of their environment - well this agricultural revolution
allowed us to be exposed to a wider range of environmental influence, thus
facillitating evolution. This revolution also exposed us to ather humans
and allowed us to spread our thoughts and discoveries (I like the concept of
memes to explain this process) across a larger plane. This creates more
change as each individual who is 'infected' with the particular meme
interprets it in a slightly different way and thus can create an evolution
of the meme. Quallity is the device that allows the new evolution to
spread, those evolved memes which have inherrant quality are the ones that
become the new standard meme and so the process continues. It is
interesting to note that this first major wave was also the first time in
the history of the planet that a species was able to impart an artificial
environment - and as animals are a product of thier environment - humans
became the first species to be able to theirfore control in some way thier
evolution - I think that this concept has major ramifications on the way we
live in our modern society, almost bereft of the external environment - this
is my meme, and hopefully one which has quality.
The effect of the agricultural revolution was to eventually give way to the
idustrial revolution, though the 2 are intrinsically joined. I ahall
explain it like this. As humans who were part of this agricultural
revolution had a device in which to produce food and wood(shelter) in a way
that was not reliant (to a large extent) on the naturally evolve features of
the land, and also to create greater quantities of both than are/were
available in the natural environment, we were able to spend less time
searching for food and shelter, and infact could produce both in many places
that couldnt support humans in the past. The larger returns to scale as a
result of far more dynamic processes created this. This leads to free time.
As we were no longer needing to hunt/gather all day, merely needing to
tend crops, with far less travellling time, we need things to keep us amused
- this is our intrinsic desire to achieve quality, which as we are all aware
is dynamic in nature If we were doing nothin in this spare time then it
would create a static situation, whcih we are not particularly comfortale
with (you know that thing called boredom - very uncomfortable) This spare
time leads into us as humans looking for things to do, and doing things
creates things, and creating new things creates new ways of doing/think9ing
about things and new ways of doing/thinking about things creates conflict
between old and new ways, conflict induces change (its a sociological
pattern, people dont like being wrong so they will try ond prove that their
way is the 'right way', thus producing more information, thus creating more
tools with which to use). Witness the birth of philosophy, which in turn
spawned the devices to measure and create such as maths and science.
Maths and newtonian science were the driving force behind the new
revolution, the industrial. This was even more dynamic than the
agricultural revolution and as such those societies which embraced them
become all powerful, thier ability to change (dynamicism) leads to being
more effective in an evolutionary sense. The effects can be seen as clear
as day. Britain creates an empire, easily vanquishing those which hold onto
the first wave, As does france and spain. These empires were built on the
foundations of industry. Being able to produce massive volumes of things,
those with the most resources are almost alway the successful. * The first
empires of greece and rome etc were the first to utilise this, their
technologies being more advanced than their adversories and therby allowing
domination, it is also intersting that philosophy as we know it was born in
these places, and these places had very effective agricultural methods, this
is a vital correlation in proving this theory * The industrial revolution
allowed us to manipulate the natural environment further still, and as we
are a product of our environments, we are able to influence our evolution
further. This however starts to create a dangerous situation. Our
evolution is in our own hands to a large extent, yet we have had only a few
thousand years to come up with what we think is 'good'. Earth has been
playing this game for billions - experience is important. The demise of the
modern empires have all been because of 1 thing, information. Once
competing social groups have access to similar information - such as being
able to produce technologies, the tables begin to turn. THis is the reason
behind the colonial concept of "keep the natives dumb". Obviously in some
cases the socitey that has been vanquished may have no chance of recovery,
this is usually because of lack of 'modern intelligance', the pacific
islands and large parts of africa are testament to this - these societies
were not evolved enough to be able to cope, the strongest survives, sorry
guys but unlucky, dead end. These societies either get swallowed up through
breeding, or the colonising countries lose interest in them, usually for
economic reasons. These societies are then left to fend for themselves, but
the tumultuous change that occured renders them unable to cope in a lot of
cases with what has been left behind. Thi isnt mean or bad or evil as
people aften consider it, this is evolution, the same thing happens in all
species, however our unique ability to impart so much influence makes this
so much more visible. Other countries such as india are able to cope a lot
better, as they have thier own sytems that allow for the neccesarry
philosphical reasoning.
This industrial revolution, with its intrinsically high rate of change
(dynamic) lead to even more discoveries, you could go on forever discusing
the things that it has spawned. We now have almost complete natural range -
we can live basically anywhere on earth (even in space), we can destroy
almost all forms of life, we can produce easily enough food for everyone, we
can provide everyone with shelter and we can reproduce and llok after our
young with little effort (all this is if we CHOOSE to) This covers all the
basic driving forces of evolution, range, food, shelter/sleep, defence and
reproduction. Now what? we need to keep doing things otherwise we become
bored (static), we need a change. The thing that is the currency of this
change is INFORMATION, and this Toffler proposes is the third wave.
The third wave can be seen now, just as the industrial revolution
superceeded the agricultural revolution the information revolution is
superceeding the industrial revolution. Evolution. Countries which are
still in the first wave, that is agriculturally based are the vast majority
of the third world, those countries who are industrialized hold the 2nd and
1st world positions, but if you look at the first world, all of the
countries maintain their position by producing and having access to
information. Information was a key driving force behind both the
agricultural and
industrial revolutions, and now is more important than ever. Look at the
success of computers and telecommunications, 2 of the biggest influences on
the world economy, both of them deal almost soley with the production and
distribution of information. Information is what we need, however this
information is being prevented from being completely accesed by thesame
mechanisms that prevented societies from stopping the spread of empires -
keep the natives dumb - if only a select have access to information then
they hold all the aces, self interest determines that they wont give it up
without a fight, why would they, they are riding the gravy train.
I look at things in a method which I describe as an alien anthropologist.
Look at us in the same way that we look at other animals, from this
viewpoint it is far easier to see the underlying mechanics of society. It
gives patterns that are pointing towards quality, the events that the
society does to achieve direction towards quality is evolution. Evolution
gives a quantifiable association with quality (but only in the past) and
allows a glimpse of the future by producing patterns thereby furthering
understanding of quality and facillitaiting further evolution. We are able
to control our evolution as evolution is dictated to by the environment, and
we are able to control the environment. We have control of the train that
rides the tracks leading to quality. we dont know how to drive this train
but use maths and science to explain the mechanics of it. The fuel for this
train is information, we are not allowed to fully fuel this train by the
powers that be. We therfore change tracks and deviate from quality as the
fuel we have is insufficient to reach it, instead being diverted to another
source of fuel, where we refuel and set off again.
david wilkinson evolve
>From: "Thracian Bard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: MD Some thoughts on the various socio-economic threads.
>Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 10:59:38 -0500
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>Having read some of the discussions of socialism and capitalism, I am
>confused by the use of these two "ism's" as if they reside within the same
>genus. It seems to me that capitalism is purely an economic convention
>while socialism seems to be an evolutionary process as old as humanity. As
>power has periodically been concentrated in the hands of one or a few,
>socialism, essentially, is the natural dynamic force which attempts to more
>widely redistribute that power, but not necessarily in monetary terms. For
>example, the Magna Carta might be considered a type of socialist document,
>in that it transferred some of the Monarch's rights to a wider yet still
>privileged class. The printing press was an instrument of socialism in that
>it transferred the power of the Church to interpret texts to the literate
>public. The American Revolution sought to transfer power from the Monarch
>to the landed gentry, as the American Colonies were primarily agrarian.
>While none of these examples might carry the current connotation of
>socialism, in order to present my next point, I needed to employ this
>rather over-simplified socio-evolutionary timeline. After the Renaissance
>and prior to the Industrial Revolution, the world was full of capitalists
>who were also socialists. The farmers who, although they were not Dukes, or
>Earls, or Princes, now began to own their own lands and to exert their
>influence on the politics of the day. Tradesman who formed guilds and
>lobbied for reforms in government to protect free enterprise were a form a
>socialist-capitalist. Socialism and capitalism were not two mutually
>exclusive concepts but two entirely different things. Socialism was, of its
>own volition, a naturally occurring process of evolution; capitalism was an
>effective man-made tool for commerce.
>
>So what was it that resulted in the term socialism being linked to Marx and
>Engle, and subsequently being confused with Communism which is, like
>capitalism, another man-made economic convention? THE INDUSTRIAL
>REVOLUTION. This aptly named "revolution" which began so stealthily,
>essentially "turned the Western world upside down in less than a fifty
>years. It (1) eliminated agrarian power and influence (2) destroyed the
>tradesman guilds (3) created a dependence by its vast multitude of workers
>on the need for currency. Everything else eliminated, a worker's time
>became his only worth, economically. ( Before anyone calls me a Luddite,
>allow me to add that there were also many, many positive consequences of
>the Industrial Revolution, not the least of which is the computer from
>which I now correspond.)
>
>If we view time as a never ending, yet slowly expanding spiral, we see that
>the Industrial Revolution is the beginning of a new cycle. It's beginning
>is more obvious than previous cycles, because so much more documentation
>exists. This new cycle produced a new set of monarchs - venture
>capitalists. It is not the capitalism that is in contradiction to socialism
>(or quality), it is this new power structure that resulted from the
>Industrial Revolution. Socialism, in its naturally dynamic way has now
>developed into a new movement by the wage-earning workers, fueled by the
>words of Marx and others, to ensure that power is shared by both the
>workers (many of whom are both socialist and capitalist) and the
>investor/entrepreneurs.
>
>For brevity's sake, I've tried to condense what could have been a tome. But
>I would be delighted to elaborate on any of the points!
>
>Regards!
>The Bard
>
>
>
>
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