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Connections by James Burke (1978)

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Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#51

Post by [deleted] »

Sargos wrote: post #44
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just my opinion but, as I said, people don't want to think about it or believe it. The pandemic should be a wake up call, both in terms of demonstrating supply chain disruptions and in terms of people refusing to wear masks and those ignoring shelter-in-place directives. Let's just take one more non-war example: Another Carrington level solar storm is an inevitability ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carringto…

I would use the Pandemic to argue the exact opposite really. It's the worst disaster most people have seen in their lifetimes but it hasn't caused civilization to break down. For a lot of people life hasn't even changed that much. We are more resilient than many people think.

[deleted]

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#52

Post by [deleted] »

lostcolony wrote: post #48
Sargos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would use the Pandemic to argue the exact opposite really. It's the worst disaster most people have seen in their lifetimes but it hasn't caused civilization to break down. For a lot of people life hasn't even changed that much. We are more resilient than many people think.

Oh, I think for most people it's changed quite a bit. It accelerated WFH adoption by at least two decades. The knock on effects of transportation, city planning, and the demographic effects of people moving due to no longer needing to be so close to their jobs, we've only begun to see. That said, I agree that it still points to the opposite conclusion - civilization has not ended, but has changed dramatically. Same a…

[deleted]

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#53

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

lqet wrote: post #5
wegs wrote: post #3

I see a lot of similar stuff on Youtube these days. A recent Economics Explained walked through wealth inequality in some Scandinavian countries (TL;DR: it's high). This is different from income inequality, which is quite low. It walked through the wealth of Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who has a net worth of $13B, by virtue of having inherited Heineken. Her family bought (not founded) Heineken 200 years ago, and t…

If I am not mistaken, you are saying that technical entry barriers into documentary filmmaking are much, much lower today than in 1978, and therefore it is much easier to create such a series today. The former is definitely true, but consider the following: - "Connections" used a substantial amount of acted historical scenes. Creating them in such a quality (and not some sketchy animation or a re-cut of existing work…

I can't speak specifically to "historical documentation", but in a field that interests me, which I suppose we could call "music, musicking and music theory", YT is better than anything I'm aware of from TV with the possible exception of the Bernstein lectures.

For a TV station/network/organization to have exposed us to just one of (for example): David Bruce, 12Tone or Adam Neely would be remarkable enough, but we actually get all three and then a whole bunch of others who are in the same general ballpark.

For example, the "David Bennett Piano" channel, produced by a young UK piano player, has a 15 minute segment that is hands-down the best explanation of why many musical cultures settled on dividing the octave into 12 tones. It's better than anything I've ever seen on TV.

It is true that these tend to be shorter and more focused presentations than series like Connections. I'm not sure I see anything inherently wrong with that. It's also true that they don't score always hit it out of the park for every "episode" they produce (unlike much the more collaborative processes that would have led to each episode of Connections). But I'm not sure I see much a problem with that either.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#54

Post by joe_the_user »

rsj_hn wrote: post #37
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #22

I'm surprised by how many people are missing the central thesis of Connections. Yes, it was about how technological progress is a web of interlocking discoveries, which is entertaining, but that wasn't the _ point _ of it. The first and last episodes of Connections 1 introduce and wrap up the theme of the entire series and it ought to terrify people to the core. (Warning: spoilers ahead) The first, "The Trigger Effec…

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas, and pretty much all civilizations that flourished in the past. There are many attempts to study this and many different takes on it, for example Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies . I'm not sure that this should be terrifying, civilizations come and go, it's a question of when rather…

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas,

I would note that "the collapse of the Roman Empire" was a very relative thing. The Western empire split and East empire kept going. Things that seemed collapse-related happened; the Vandals lived by looting civilization for quite a while, population and cities shrank, and Vikings also plundered for hundreds of years. But agricultural society and a number of social/technological innovations continued and in ways made progress. And Eastern Roman/Byzantium continued until conquered by a more advanced society. Mentioning this 'cause the classical collapses of the Maya, precolumbian-society or bronze age societies apparently didn't do this. People left, died, went back to hunting and gathering. Those could be called "true" collapses.

Which is to say that even Roman may have been at the point that a classical Tainter collapse couldn't quite happen. And today, while our create multiple disasters, we seem be well past a point where you could talk about a rise and fall of civilization. What we're looking at is the direction of the explosive expansion of market/technological/social progress. Even a disaster wiping out, say 90% of the human population on earth would see a rebound in a terrifying short period of time, historically speaking.

But anyway, I agree with the rest of what the parent says.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#55

Post by npunt »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #49
djmips wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others. I don't think there is even a question that it's unique considering how far it's come in understanding physics math and engineering. To lose all of that would be a great disaster.

Why do you believe it would be lost? Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed? I humbly suggest that we did not ....

For the peoples living in the decline and aftermath of those collapses, yes they absolutely lost a lot of knowledge. What was common knowledge or specialized in different trades was replaced with ignorance. They didn't know how to farm in the same way or manufacture the same goods, they didn't understand the principles behind the infrastructure that was now crumbling around them, etc. They lacked the engine of broadly perpetuating knowledge we call civilization. Sure, there were individuals in certain places that possessed a fair amount of knowledge, but that knowledge was not widely distributed, and thus it was fragile.

For those collapsed civilizations, it was only that there were sufficient remaining resources in the earth and that their civilization was geographically limited that after centuries and many injections of knowledge from elsewhere that they were able to slowly bounce back, to rediscover what they lost.

The risk today is that we're so interconnected, we've extracted so much of earth's resources, and we've set ourselves on a path towards permanent environmental change, that we may not get another chance at civilization. It may be we recede back to ignorance permanently.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#56

Post by russellbeattie »

wegs wrote: post #3

I see a lot of similar stuff on Youtube these days. A recent Economics Explained walked through wealth inequality in some Scandinavian countries (TL;DR: it's high). This is different from income inequality, which is quite low. It walked through the wealth of Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who has a net worth of $13B, by virtue of having inherited Heineken. Her family bought (not founded) Heineken 200 years ago, and t…

Mechanical Universe is so awesome! It's one of the best series to watch to get an broad understanding of the history of science and science itself. I've watched and rewatched them since college in the 90s. All of the videos are on YouTube and they're still incredible.

Though Connections is entertaining, an afternoon down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on any topic will give you sooo much more information and context than Burke could have dreamed of in 1978. My issue with many of those YouTube channels you're talking about is they do little but read for the viewer (NOT 3Blue1Brown, his work is the gold standard of course).

This isn't a horrible thing, but it would be nice if those channels put a bit more work into synthesizing their content, rather than just regurgitating Wikipedia for views.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#57

Post by tbirdny »

koudelka wrote: post #39
fsewe20 wrote: post #32

Back in 2017 there was a kickstarter to fund a connections app, it didnt hit the goal and i havent heard anything since. I remember he was on Dan Carlins podcast talking about it. Anyone know what became of the project? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/504632459/james-burke-c...

I don't think it's exactly connected to the kickstarter, but in this[1] interview with James from May, he talks about how he's currently working on the K-Web[2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUb6Sv-rUv0 [2] http://k-web.org

In the youtube interview you linked to he also says he's coming out with a new Connections series in Jan 2022.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#58

Post by leoc »

lqet wrote: post #27
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #22

I'm surprised by how many people are missing the central thesis of Connections. Yes, it was about how technological progress is a web of interlocking discoveries, which is entertaining, but that wasn't the _ point _ of it. The first and last episodes of Connections 1 introduce and wrap up the theme of the entire series and it ought to terrify people to the core. (Warning: spoilers ahead) The first, "The Trigger Effec…

IMHO, this is only one of the theses, and not the central one. The central thesis is already hinted at in the subtitle: change and progress are caused by humans either aimlessly playing around with ideas or concepts, possibly from totally unconnected fields, or by creating something entirely different than what they initially set out to do (possibly without even realizing it). Very, very seldomly can change and progr…

> In that regard, Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.

TBF the fear of systemic collapse was very much on-Zeitgeist in the '70s, too.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#59

Post by alexvoda »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #49
djmips wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others. I don't think there is even a question that it's unique considering how far it's come in understanding physics math and engineering. To lose all of that would be a great disaster.

Why do you believe it would be lost? Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed? I humbly suggest that we did not ....

Can you elaborate why you suggest we did not?

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#60

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

alexvoda wrote: post #59
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe it would be lost? Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed? I humbly suggest that we did not ....

Can you elaborate why you suggest we did not?

Mostly the Arabic civilization(s) next door, which managed to retain (and extend) much (not all) of the knowledge of the Greco-Roman civilizations for several centuries.

[EDIT: Along with various libraries throughout Europe that also acted as repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge ]

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