Posted by George A Simpson <gsimpso4@csc.com>
The BBC Reith Lectures this year have the provocative title ""Triumph of
Technology"" which started me wondering about the systems dynamics of the
engine of technology growth. Clearly we have been on an exponential phase
of growth for some centuries, but are there factors that will come into
play to cause this to follow an S-shaped profile?
Does anyone know of work in this area?
..george...
Dr. George Simpson, Principal Consultant, CSC
CSC Alliance: Performance Engineer
CSC House, Fleet
tel +44 1252 813930 mobile 07814 623518
email: gsimpso4@csc.com
Posted by George A Simpson <gsimpso4@csc.com>
posting date Fri, 13 May 2005 13:08:38 +0100
Triumph of Technology
-
George A Simpson gsimpso4 csc.co
- Junior Member
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
-
Paul Ellis pellis london.edu
- Newbie
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
Triumph of Technology
Posted by Paul Ellis <pellis@london.edu>
In reply to George Simpson,
While I'm not aware of SD work on the factors slowing technology growth,
is it worth considering whether (as I've suspected for a while) we have
now entered a phase of slowing technology growth?
If so, it should be possible to identify factors that could already be
acting to bend the technology-growth curve downwards.
In summary, and in partial answer to George's question, the factors for
the logic of the logistic curve would seem, to me at least, to be:
a) Bending the exponential curve downwards: Peaking of human population
as globalisation approaches completion, leading to a focus on
applications to solve known problems using many decades-worth of
extensions to technologies that have emerged already from known basic
science.
versus
b) Continuation of the exponential curve upwards, requiring radical new
discovery/ies - either an applicable quantum gravity, or another
currently unforeseeable and fundamentally new direction.
Paul G. Ellis (Dr)
Teaching & Research Coordinator
Decision Sciences
London Business School
Logic for a Logistic Technology Growth Curve[1]?
Presumably, most would accept that the C18th-20th
power/transport/urbanisation/communications revolution enabled the early
(i.e. Western) transition from rural/agricultural to urban/industrial
society (a somewhat technological-determinist view).
Arguably, the next phase (and, I'm about to suggest, possibly the last
for a while) was the result of acceptance of the atomic hypothesis at
the start of the C20th with all the consequent developments in materials
science, biochemistry, nuclear sciences and solid state physics.
The way in which these developments have been applied
(warfare/welfare/industrial production/trade/medicine/research/media
growth...) are, mostly, visible around us now.
However, is it the case that the main technology growth occurring now,
in the early C21st, is ""merely"" applying the results of one fundamental
breakthrough in physics/chemistry made a century ago? For example, has
there been any fundamental technological advance in flight since the jet
engine and the liquid-fuelled rocket, both effective from 1945; or in
the basic technology for the computer, since the invention of the
transistor in 1947, and maybe fibre-optics somewhat later.
My point is that the opportunities opened up by the understanding of the
composition and properties of matter and radiation at the atomic/nuclear
scales were, in effect, a one-off opportunity. We'll spend a great many
more decades (but not centuries?) reaping the full range of benefits,
but we probably won't see a new horizon (comparable to the one opened up
~100 years ago) until we have a true synthesis of quantum mechanics and
gravitation or, more questionably, some other fundamental change in a
currently unforeseeable direction.
Until then (shifting, appropriately, from technological to
socio-economic determinism), I would argue that the main directions of
technology growth are likely[2] to be in two areas:
1) A more sustainable relationship between mankind and the planet (with
the proportion of technology development devoted to war/defence
technologies remaining an open question (for another George, perhaps))
in effect a ""completion"" of the long-running globalisation saga, as
world population peaks, quite probably, later this century[3]. The
demand for radical ""material"" technologies therefore appears unlikely to
be as strong as in the now-recent past. Maybe demand will shift to the
area of geo-engineering (e.g. learning to ease earthquakes and
volcanoes, as well as climate change) but that won't be a fundamentally
new technology. More likely, I imagine, the interest will move to
""mentalist"" technologies and other feedback, simulation and educational
techniques emerging from computing, the media and neuroscience - but,
again, not a truly radical technology, rather an extension (mainly of
existing infrastructure, or ""cyberNation"", perhaps).
2) Developments off-planet, maybe. Colonisation of parts of the rest of
the solar system (for security alternatives rather than large-scale
migration), perhaps coming more from the East, would need great
technology developments, but again these are likely to be extensions of
known basic technologies.
So unless quantum gravity, or some totally unforeseeable new direction
opens up possibilities as revolutionary as the C18-C20th technologies
would have appeared to Galileo (but not da Vinci?), then the technology
growth to come will be more about refinements and extensions than truly
new technologies[4].
Awaiting the remainder of the Reith lectures with interest.
Paul G. Ellis
[1] Without being distracted for the moment by questions either of
timescales - on a 2m-yr timescale we're clearly still advancing, while
on say a 2-20 yr timescale one can see fluctuations in specific
technologies; or of precise definition of what constitutes technology
growth. Refinements of existing technology will likely accelerate.
[2] Assuming, with 80% confidence, that we do avoid any of the
post-modern ""Horsemen of the Apocalypse"" - astronomical body-hits, new
plagues, serious global warming impacts etc., which might set mankind
back anything from 10 yrs to eternity.
[3]
http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section ... entID=9803
Bearing in mind that the most rapid human population growth occurred
during the C20th, and seems extremely unlikely to be repeatable (on
Earth), then the focus of change seems almost inevitably to be moving in
the direction of learning to live together on ""Lifeboat Earth"" (recall
Vickers' book-title: Freedom in a Rocking Boat).
[4] However, I'm not sure how one would distinguish fundamental
technologies from refinements in anything but a very long-term model, in
which maybe fundamental technologies could be represented as stocks, and
refinements might be viewed as flows, perhaps?
Posted by Paul Ellis <pellis@london.edu>
posting date Sun, 15 May 2005 10:51:50 +0100
In reply to George Simpson,
While I'm not aware of SD work on the factors slowing technology growth,
is it worth considering whether (as I've suspected for a while) we have
now entered a phase of slowing technology growth?
If so, it should be possible to identify factors that could already be
acting to bend the technology-growth curve downwards.
In summary, and in partial answer to George's question, the factors for
the logic of the logistic curve would seem, to me at least, to be:
a) Bending the exponential curve downwards: Peaking of human population
as globalisation approaches completion, leading to a focus on
applications to solve known problems using many decades-worth of
extensions to technologies that have emerged already from known basic
science.
versus
b) Continuation of the exponential curve upwards, requiring radical new
discovery/ies - either an applicable quantum gravity, or another
currently unforeseeable and fundamentally new direction.
Paul G. Ellis (Dr)
Teaching & Research Coordinator
Decision Sciences
London Business School
Logic for a Logistic Technology Growth Curve[1]?
Presumably, most would accept that the C18th-20th
power/transport/urbanisation/communications revolution enabled the early
(i.e. Western) transition from rural/agricultural to urban/industrial
society (a somewhat technological-determinist view).
Arguably, the next phase (and, I'm about to suggest, possibly the last
for a while) was the result of acceptance of the atomic hypothesis at
the start of the C20th with all the consequent developments in materials
science, biochemistry, nuclear sciences and solid state physics.
The way in which these developments have been applied
(warfare/welfare/industrial production/trade/medicine/research/media
growth...) are, mostly, visible around us now.
However, is it the case that the main technology growth occurring now,
in the early C21st, is ""merely"" applying the results of one fundamental
breakthrough in physics/chemistry made a century ago? For example, has
there been any fundamental technological advance in flight since the jet
engine and the liquid-fuelled rocket, both effective from 1945; or in
the basic technology for the computer, since the invention of the
transistor in 1947, and maybe fibre-optics somewhat later.
My point is that the opportunities opened up by the understanding of the
composition and properties of matter and radiation at the atomic/nuclear
scales were, in effect, a one-off opportunity. We'll spend a great many
more decades (but not centuries?) reaping the full range of benefits,
but we probably won't see a new horizon (comparable to the one opened up
~100 years ago) until we have a true synthesis of quantum mechanics and
gravitation or, more questionably, some other fundamental change in a
currently unforeseeable direction.
Until then (shifting, appropriately, from technological to
socio-economic determinism), I would argue that the main directions of
technology growth are likely[2] to be in two areas:
1) A more sustainable relationship between mankind and the planet (with
the proportion of technology development devoted to war/defence
technologies remaining an open question (for another George, perhaps))
in effect a ""completion"" of the long-running globalisation saga, as
world population peaks, quite probably, later this century[3]. The
demand for radical ""material"" technologies therefore appears unlikely to
be as strong as in the now-recent past. Maybe demand will shift to the
area of geo-engineering (e.g. learning to ease earthquakes and
volcanoes, as well as climate change) but that won't be a fundamentally
new technology. More likely, I imagine, the interest will move to
""mentalist"" technologies and other feedback, simulation and educational
techniques emerging from computing, the media and neuroscience - but,
again, not a truly radical technology, rather an extension (mainly of
existing infrastructure, or ""cyberNation"", perhaps).
2) Developments off-planet, maybe. Colonisation of parts of the rest of
the solar system (for security alternatives rather than large-scale
migration), perhaps coming more from the East, would need great
technology developments, but again these are likely to be extensions of
known basic technologies.
So unless quantum gravity, or some totally unforeseeable new direction
opens up possibilities as revolutionary as the C18-C20th technologies
would have appeared to Galileo (but not da Vinci?), then the technology
growth to come will be more about refinements and extensions than truly
new technologies[4].
Awaiting the remainder of the Reith lectures with interest.
Paul G. Ellis
[1] Without being distracted for the moment by questions either of
timescales - on a 2m-yr timescale we're clearly still advancing, while
on say a 2-20 yr timescale one can see fluctuations in specific
technologies; or of precise definition of what constitutes technology
growth. Refinements of existing technology will likely accelerate.
[2] Assuming, with 80% confidence, that we do avoid any of the
post-modern ""Horsemen of the Apocalypse"" - astronomical body-hits, new
plagues, serious global warming impacts etc., which might set mankind
back anything from 10 yrs to eternity.
[3]
http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section ... entID=9803
Bearing in mind that the most rapid human population growth occurred
during the C20th, and seems extremely unlikely to be repeatable (on
Earth), then the focus of change seems almost inevitably to be moving in
the direction of learning to live together on ""Lifeboat Earth"" (recall
Vickers' book-title: Freedom in a Rocking Boat).
[4] However, I'm not sure how one would distinguish fundamental
technologies from refinements in anything but a very long-term model, in
which maybe fundamental technologies could be represented as stocks, and
refinements might be viewed as flows, perhaps?
Posted by Paul Ellis <pellis@london.edu>
posting date Sun, 15 May 2005 10:51:50 +0100
-
George A Simpson gsimpso4 csc.co
- Junior Member
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
Triumph of Technology
Posted by George A Simpson <gsimpso4@csc.com>
Paul points out some interesting factors that may relate to growth of
technologies, which may help us to define a model.
I wonder about the reference behaviour pattern - can we look over the whole
of history, asking when technology growth occurred and when it halted.
It seems that not every culture drives technology growth - what are the
requisites? And the counterforces?
I suspect there is a stock of total human needs and wants, with the
increase in this stock linked somehow to population growth.
We have a stock of technologies, and another of knowledge. A virtuous
circle links these, when knowledge leads to technologies, and technologies
to knowledge. E.g., superconductivity opening the potential for new
advances in particle accelerators.
The development of technologies is sustained by demand for the products -
the ability to make a profit through production.
What happens if demand stops growing - connected e.g., due to the end of
population growth? Is the motivation still there - both to produce and to
consume?
And at the root of it all is the individual's desire to pay to play. (The
cost of survival is negligible in the West.) Suppose values shifted
towards more artistic investments - wasn't this the case during the Ottoman
empire?
Lots of questions...
Dr. George Simpson, Principal Consultant, CSC
CSC Alliance: Performance Engineer
CSC House, Fleet
tel +44 1252 813930 mobile 07814 623518
email: gsimpso4@csc.com
Posted by George A Simpson <gsimpso4@csc.com>
posting date Tue, 17 May 2005 17:05:37 +0100
Paul points out some interesting factors that may relate to growth of
technologies, which may help us to define a model.
I wonder about the reference behaviour pattern - can we look over the whole
of history, asking when technology growth occurred and when it halted.
It seems that not every culture drives technology growth - what are the
requisites? And the counterforces?
I suspect there is a stock of total human needs and wants, with the
increase in this stock linked somehow to population growth.
We have a stock of technologies, and another of knowledge. A virtuous
circle links these, when knowledge leads to technologies, and technologies
to knowledge. E.g., superconductivity opening the potential for new
advances in particle accelerators.
The development of technologies is sustained by demand for the products -
the ability to make a profit through production.
What happens if demand stops growing - connected e.g., due to the end of
population growth? Is the motivation still there - both to produce and to
consume?
And at the root of it all is the individual's desire to pay to play. (The
cost of survival is negligible in the West.) Suppose values shifted
towards more artistic investments - wasn't this the case during the Ottoman
empire?
Lots of questions...
Dr. George Simpson, Principal Consultant, CSC
CSC Alliance: Performance Engineer
CSC House, Fleet
tel +44 1252 813930 mobile 07814 623518
email: gsimpso4@csc.com
Posted by George A Simpson <gsimpso4@csc.com>
posting date Tue, 17 May 2005 17:05:37 +0100