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Connections by James Burke (1978)

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Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#71

Post by WalterBright »

russellbeattie wrote: post #56
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…

MU is presented by my Caltech physics professor!

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#72

Post by voldacar »

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…

> 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.

I have to disagree - this theme, though reaching its greatest exposition in the 20th century, is not really a modern concept and was discussed by multiple ancient philosophers, including Laozi, Zhuangzi, and at least one Roman writer whose name escapes me at the moment

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#73

Post by AareyBaba »

space_ghost wrote: post #42
rsj_hn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a wonderful podcast [1] on Youtube that deep-dives into the collapse of various historical civilizations. [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew

I second this recommendation. Really well done - I'm on the Sumerian civilization episode. The episode on the Khmer Empire was outstanding.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#74

Post by selimthegrim »

WalterBright wrote: post #71
russellbeattie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

MU is presented by my Caltech physics professor!

Poor Goodstein was never the same after the stroke. Incidentally, I have to wonder if he and Jearl Walker ever had a personal rivalry.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#77

Post by bsder »

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 ....

> Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed?

We lost an enormous amount of knowledge in those time frames.

It took six hundred years for the Romans to reach the same technical level as the Athenians. It then took almost one thousand years for the Italians to again reach the same level as the Romans (this time being greatly increased by the shenanigans of Catholic church).

That was the whole point of the rediscovery of "classical" knowledge from the "ancients" in the Renaissance.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#78

Post by WalterBright »

selimthegrim wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MU is presented by my Caltech physics professor!

Poor Goodstein was never the same after the stroke. Incidentally, I have to wonder if he and Jearl Walker ever had a personal rivalry.

Oh, I am so sorry to hear that happened to him. My favorite physics co-professor of Goodstein's was Prof Ricardo Gomez, who pretty much single-handedly saved me from flunking out. Prof Gomez was one of those people who made Caltech a special place.

Re: Connections by James Burke (1978)

#79

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

dboreham wrote: post #75

Interesting to see Burke's transformation from "TV idiot" into genius prophet, over 40 years.

> "TV idiot"

Much as I love James Burke, there is a rather funny parody of him from the old "Not The Nine O'Clock News" comedy series in the UK: https://youtu.be/82GUX_NA7AU?t=65

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