Timeline of the Human Condition

Vaclav Smil (already mentioned several times in this thread) points to the half-century from 1875--1925 as the peak of invention, and more specifically, the decade of the 1880s. This was the time when discoveries based on electricity, coal-tar chemistry, petroleum, some bits of genetics, and others were coming into the fore. There are very few modern inventions which cannot be traced to this period. (Radio, TV, lasers, microwaves, and genetic engineering are the main exceptions). I see this as a landmark breakthrough in both knowledge and means, the latter largely supplied through the vast untapped energy of fossil fuels.

(Aknowledging their impact and declaring them an unqualified good are two entirely different matters. Yes, they changed our world and made modernity possible. Yes, they will destory that as well if we keep using them, and even if we want to, they will ultimately be exhausted.)

There are a few laws of progress. Moore's refers specifically to network and size effects, and has some foundation in business practices and goals (that is, what we see as "Moore's law" phenomenon is in part driven by the performance and product targets and timelines of firms in the sector). There's also Wright's Law, which refers to the level of improvement seen with additional experience. If memory serves, about a 20% efficiency gain with each doubling of output. (This was noted especially in the US with military output during WWII, especially in the rate of aircraft and ship manufacture.)

There are also scaling laws which refer to the reduction of defects, increases in precision or accuracy, and reduction of downtime. Here, each additional "nine" of performance tends to cost 10x the previous --- a case of rapidly diminishing returns.

On the progress of science, I've only looked into this casually and haven't found a good or suitable measure (itself a fairly deep question --- typical metrics such as patents filed have ... ginormous fucking issues, as a term of art...). But looking at Nobel Prize awards in Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine, what we tend to see is highly foundational discoveries prior to about 1960, and remarkably less so afterwards. In all three cases, I also note a strong presence of detection and measurement discoveries in the post-1960 era, which is to say, discoveries that increase our ability to detect various phenomena, as in remote astronomical measurements, chemical detection, or looking at body or cellular processes. Physics seems especially notable, with the pre-1960 period seeing numerous particles, forces, and principles (quantum mechanics, relativistic effects (but not the Theory of Relativity itself), and basic phenomena such as radiation).

I've got thoughts on that, you might try looking up my past threads on "ontology of technology" --- these are informational mechanisms.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

That is certainly absurd! I hadn't looked past about 5,000 yrs ago.

> the first post-colonial/indigenous "superstate"

I've read a good amount of Chinese history and other works, including by Chinese authors (translated), and I haven't heard that idea so I am interested in learning a bit:

Who uses the term? Historians? Political scientists? The CCP? Is it new?

What do you meant by "superstate"? A major power?

Post-colonial: The US, Canada, etc. are post-colonial, former British colonies. If you mean, after the West's period of colonization post-Industrial Revolution, what about India, which was founded a few years before? Japan, which was itself a colonial power (with some horrible consequences)? The post-WWI Middle East?

Finally, I'm not quite sure how 'indigenous' applies. China has been a collection of cultures, enough so that holding it together has always preoccupied whoever was in power. My impression is that it is more like Europe in that sense, including varying local languages, than the US (though different than both).

All those questions don't make it wrong; they are merely what I don't understand.

> It will certainly be at least as historically consequential as the founding of the USA. No mention of PRC eradicating extreme poverty nor surpassing the USA in GDP PPP.

> Reading the timeline, you get the sense that all recent human progress is occurring in the West and the West alone is positioned to address global issues. Which is a very distorted view.

Isn't this as Sino-centric as the timeline is Western-centric? If we know such approaches are factually distorting (you just made a good point about it), and we know also that nationalistic competition leads to catastrophe (WWII being a prominent example), why take them? Do you want to intentionally make the same mistakes as the timeline?

I hope the people of China do great things - not only for themselves, but for the world, and that they have freedom to live their lives as they choose, with health and prosperity. Do better than the colonial powers.

There's much more we can do in the world, but not through ignorance and outrage. You can see right here that we can learn nothing from it, gain no ground.