Poet Nine

*The first bronze swords appear in about 1700 BC.

*It takes about 700 years - 1000 or so BC - for the first iron sword to appear. 700 years! For a change of material only.

*Warfare changes here and there, with a greater usage of calvary, siege weapons are introduced, long bows are introduced, different tactics are introduced, etc. But it takes something like 2500 years for the next major change in personal weapon: the firearm, which was first used in 1350 AD.

*It takes about 500 years (1830 or so) for the first multi-shot firearm to be developed, with Colt revolvers and the Spencer repeating carbine.

*Very shortly after that, we get the first 'machine-gun', the Gatling Gun, in 1862.

*In 1873, the Winchester 'automatic' (lever-action, using cartridges) rifle is developed.

*In 1892, the first 'automatic' (double action, magazine loaded) handguns.

*You then have trench warfare and modern machine-guns: a single machine-gun nest could easily wipe out a whole squad of soldiers.

*Around 1910, the first tank, which could easily wipe out a bunch of machine-gun nests.

*Also around 1910, the first use of airplanes in a combat (i.e. non-observational) role, which eventually can easily wipe out a bunch of tanks.

*In just 30-40 years, we then go from dinky flying airplane to bomber equipped with nuclear devices capable of annihilating whole cities.

And consider, it took 700 years to go from bronze to iron! Some 2500 years to evolve beyond Pointy Metal Thing. Can you even IMAGINE what weapons will look like in 700 years from now? The WORST weapon I can possibly imagine would be induced supernova or induced singularity in a solar system's star or in a galaxy or in the universe (i.e. Big Bang). And I don't think it will take us 700 years to get there.

So that's what I mean by the acceleration of change. Society (technology, moral values, etc) changed as much from 2000 to 2014 as it did from 1950 to 2000 which in turn is roughly equivalent to the change from say 1750 to 1850 which in turn is roughly equivalent to the change from 1500 to 1750. And so on.

The acceleration of change is crazy dangerous. Because we get these new tools and we know they're powerful but we have no idea HOW to use them. Air-power is a perfect example of this:

Clearly air-power was a mighty weapon - a real game-changer. But how did you utilize that power in the most effective and humane manner?

At first, the idea was to use them as support in ground operations. You'd bomb the soldiers and tanks. Then came about strategic bombing of factories. You'd take out the enemy's ability to wage war. But the precision wasn't there. So strategists happened upon a new idea: you could utterly destroy a major enemy city. The death and destruction would be SO GREAT that the civilians would lose all will to fight and would somehow force their government to surrender.

The idea was we'd have some very dense and horrible destruction right at the beginning to spare us all from a much longer war. It sorta makes sense. Obviously this didn't happen. But at the time who was to know?

So the acceleration of change is dangerous because change outpaces our understanding of how to utilize the changes. Eventually we're going to reach a 'Stagnation Point' where human intelligence / human society is no longer capable of maintaining such change rates and we're going to end up with $50 weapons of mass destruction and every person with a bad hair-day becomes a potential threat to humanity.

In fact, I believe we have already reached such a point. Let us talk about intelligence and education:

For most of history, intelligence has been graded 'in isolation.' That is, if I want to test you on history knowledge, I sit you in an empty room with nothing but your brain to answer my test questions or undergo some sort of oral examination. This is still the preferred method of examination.

Does such a grading system make any sense anymore? Of course not. We've entered the age of networked intelligence. We don't store facts in our brains so much as pathways to where we would obtain facts. Recently I repaired my own car engine, despite never having done so much as changing my own oil. When I write stories, I get them critiqued and edited by other writers from all over the world, a resource which would completely useless if I didn't know how to sift between the bad responses and the good ones. I learn German and C# via online resources. I do all these things, and I'm relatively old fashioned! It's the rare job that cannot benefit from being networked to other experts around the world. There's forums on plumbing, on cooking, on medicine, on everything. A plumber who has less experience with plumbing but who is savvier at utilizing these online resources could very well be a BETTER plumber than an old hand who is computer illiterate. Certainly the plumber who has hands-on experience AND an ability to navigate online resources would be better than both.

So it would make sense to structure examinations in such a way that students are tested primarily on their ability to pull information from other sources and properly synthesize them to draw novel or otherwise insightful conclusions. But can you imagine if a history teacher suggested allowing students to use their computers during a test?!

Insane! But even that's relatively radical example. I still hear about English teachers who won't allow students to cite internet resources. Ahaha! Now that is truly insane. In ten years time, INTERNET RESOURCES WILL BE ALL THERE IS! Libraries are closing down! Books are being digitized. Everything is being digitized. Tumblr/facebook/twitter/instagram is the digitization of social interaction. Steam is the digitization of games. Debit-cards are the digitization of monetary transaction, etc, etc, etc.

The problem is this acceleration of change. The people in charge - the teachers and the administrators - are too old. Back when they were in school, the internet either didn't exist or wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today. They're defining intelligence 'in isolation' when networked intelligence is now much more important. But how do you change this?

I mean, we're getting to a point where 'the generation gap' could be as small as 4 years. That is, high-school seniors ought to be judged and taught via a different system than high-school freshmen. How do you possibly develop a system that flexible?

Of course, looking at education is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Acceleration of Change. The problems are so much wider. We have a SHIT TON of automation now. Enough that, honestly, a large portion of the populace probably doesn't need to work and in fact shouldn't work because they're relatively useless/stupid and end up just serving as a barrier to younger, more intelligent, more energetic workers.

But there's a HUGE stigma attached to unemployment and a HUGE stigma attached to the 'welfare state.' For essentially the entire history of human civilization, working - contributing to society in a material fashion - was the basis of social contract. You worked and followed rules of society and you got to exist with the reasonable expectation of happiness. But we're getting to this point where everyone doesn't need to work in order to sustain society. In fact, requiring everyone to do so actually SLOWS progress.