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Connections by James Burke (1978)
61–70 of 85 posts
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#62An interesting point Burke repeatedly made is that the connections were made by people wanting to make money. Gutenberg invented the printing press to make money, the Wrights invented the airplane to make money, Enbrel (first effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis) was invented to make money.
Free markets for the win!
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#63Earlier 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 ....
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 broadl…
Yes, that is a risk, but ...
1) the amount of valuable resources sitting above ground is now immense. What's currently missing is a good way to "harvest" them. Necessity being the mother of invention ...
2) Problems with "sufficient remaining resources" are only really relevant if population levels do not decline dramatically. It seems likely to me the civilizational collapse in our era would also be accompanied by substantial population declines, some through the death of the living, some through reduced life expectancy of newly born people, some through reduced birth rates.
3) In the long run, it doesn't matter if individuals lose knowledge, only if the knowledge becomes lost to all and needs to be discovered anew (from the world, rather than from some sort of cultural artifact).
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#64An interesting point Burke repeatedly made is that the connections were made by people wanting to make money. Gutenberg invented the printing press to make money, the Wrights invented the airplane to make money, Enbrel (first effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis) was invented to make money. Free markets for the win!
I think ThrowawayR2's comment really makes yours seem a bit ridiculous
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#65I'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…
I've been cognizant of that for a long time. I figure if civilization collapsed, the human die-off would be something like 99%.
Just think of things like cars. It's fairly straightforward to keep cars pre-1980 on the road even if the manufacturer is no longer making parts for it. A craftsman can still make the parts.
But more modern cars? Fuggeddabootit. Watchagonna do with the computer systems? Write a few million lines of code? You can't even buy the chips anymore.
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it seems likely that James Burke more or less created the idea too of connectedness across disciplines Is there a name for this idea?
Idk, interdisciplinary?
That word alone doesn’t quite capture the narrative of science as something non-linear, meandering and somewhat accidental.
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ]
> repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge
True, but a lot of that stuff was re-invented only to be later discovered that the Greeks/Romans had done it first.
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#68An interesting point Burke repeatedly made is that the connections were made by people wanting to make money. Gutenberg invented the printing press to make money, the Wrights invented the airplane to make money, Enbrel (first effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis) was invented to make money. Free markets for the win!
I think ThrowawayR2's comment really makes yours seem a bit ridiculous
There's a scene in the series where Burke specifically holds up a series of coins and makes the point dramatically.
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#69I 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…
The Western Tradition by Weber is another great series giving an overview of world history (but not from a technological point of view).
Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Connections was savvy in finding faires, working museaums, and access to the BBC's film vaults for providing much (though not all) such footage. Burke describes going to reenactment festivals to film many of the medieval life scenes. And his journalist background and connections enabled him to have the access necessary to shoot single-take sequences such as this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WoDQBhJCVQ (Hardly the on…
I'd like to give a shout out to Alistair Cooke's "America".