@k00b's post #859025 had this byline from the Open Source Defense podcast:
In-depth interviews with outstanding founders and builders in the civilian defense industry. Culture is upstream of politics, and technology is upstream of culture.
I've heard of "politics is downstream from culture", but not "culture is downstream from technology", and I thought the idea was interesting enough to deserve its own post.
In what ways have you observed that culture is downstream from technology?
I think, for example, that recent political divisiveness may have arisen from the format and incentives built into social media. Any other examples?
Another example could be how a lot of bitcoiners reported a changing time preference after they got into Bitcoin. More stacking, less spending, all motivated by a technology that allows real savings
We seem to blame technology for cultural problems first - eg why we don't trust institutions, why teens are depressed and single - which is at least one data point from the wise crowd.
I think if you look at any tech - cars, video games - you can find cultures formed around them. I expect macroculture to be downstream of microculture and that these technologies at least exert a weak, derivative force on broader culture.
This also loosely reminds me of Technological determinism and splitting the atom of cause and effect - Lyn's theory is that communication technology determined money technology.
@Car is fond of saying ~culture is downstream of ~music which is a form of ~tech.
Speaking of the atom, some of my favorite cultural products arose out of the fear of nuclear war. Namely, the Fallout video game series and the Watchmen graphic novel.
Just because something is downstream of technology doesn’t mean it receives it last or necessarily first. History suggests it often gets an early, half-baked version instead.
Steve Jobs discussed computers as a new medium of communication.
I actually wrote about this last year on Thriller and tend to think about this a lot. I've come to the conclusion like everyone that its just iterative.
https://www.thrillerbitcoin.com/communication-medium-sunday-orange-flow/
Humans like to blame things outside of their control. Its a way that we can absolve ourselves of responsibility for solutions and blame. Most of all it can be an excuse for doing nothing.
Its true of me with blaming government for so many problems. It almost doesn't matter if we are correct because its outside of our control. I might say the government is doing something and its terrible. As an individual I have very minimal effect on that. But... what can I do in response to avoid the negative consequences?
Well that takes work and its much easier to call out statists and collect my sats from the people that like my memes...
Preaching to myself but I think many here are hit by this too if they're honest.
For sure, the screen thing. If we didn't have the (smartphone) tech, we would not, as a culture, be constantly staring at the little device that sucks up so much of our life.
Just yesterday I was at a tire repair place, and had to stay in the waiting room a while. And EVERYONE else was on their phone the entire time. I took off and walked around the area a bit (Walmart, McDonalds).
It feels so wrong that there's no more spontaneous conversation or anything in places like this anymore.
I even remember in college, a big moment is when I instant-messaged my apartment-mate instead of just walking over to his room to talk to him. It hit me that things were changing in a weird way.
Tech makes us lazy
This seems almost tautological to me.
Technologies are the mechanisms of action. The way we (economists) use the term is just that it's how people transform the resources they have into the resources they want, usually that's for the purpose of selling them, but it doesn't have to be.
New technologies inherently mean different ways of acting and "culture" is a broad set of descriptions for how people in a particular group act.
Oh shiiiiii, that is so true.
So, just like in macro models, dA/dt really does drive everything!
Sometimes, macro models have their merits. Don't tell anyone I said that, though.
The devil is in the assumptions
Firearms. Firearms revolutionized the ability for Lords to control large areas of land by making the knight vulnerable to attack from a distance.
At least this is what I've read historians say and explains why the knights as a method of control died.
That's interesting. But I wonder its power to explain the demise of feudalism. Couldn't lords just equip their knights with modern arms and armor? Wonder if it has to do with the relative importance of training & upbringing vs. mass production in warfare.
Yeah, I wonder about it as well. I think there's more complexity there.
The knight was pretty much invincible with his armor, weapons, and horse vs. a large number of plebs. Give a couple plebs fire-arms and the field is leveled.
Birth control:
As a technology the invention of the birth control pill revolutionized the family, the workforce, and women's autonomy in ways we are still figuring out.
So true. That's a huge one.
I think its important will all of the things I mentioned that all of them had positives and negatives. They all have third order effects. We seem to lack the ability to discuss these topics because our culture is so fragile and bipolar.
Printing press:
The printing press transformed European culture and governance. I don't think you'd have the protestant reformation without that tech. Its impacts were not limited to that but to me its the biggest impact. It weakened the power of the Catholic Church over the people.
Another great one, how could I forget!
#859085
Also 30 years of religious wars and conflict
hold on, you seem to be interchanging both upstream and downstream to mean the same thing?
No, I just like to think of the word "downstream", but the byline used "upstream"
"Technology is upstream of culture" == "Culture is downstream of technology"
Both mean that technology determines culture rather than the other way around.
They reverse them according to what's upstream and downstream.
@plebpoet he has been on a tenet kick all year, it's the Balaji paradox where everything in the future will happen just in reverse, @ODELL says this in a similar way but calls it Mandibles then Bitcoin standard.
upstream and downstream rhyme so same difference why would the fuck would you care
Social media as a cultural phenomenon is downstream from the technology that enables it.
From first principles it makes sense that culture is downstream from technology. Inventing tech is uncovering the mysteries of the Universe, and as they get uncovered by bright individuals, the masses adopt the things they enable. You couldn't have had social media in the Middle Ages, even if people had wanted them (which they didn't, we needed intermediate technologies like the printing press, electricity, radio communication, computers, the internet and smartphones for that desire to even emerge).
Squid game, logan's run, dune etc
The Reformation would not have succeeded without the printing press which also created conditions for 30 year religious wars
Literacy also increased so technology allows one to consume more culture
Chivalry. Examples maybe are not exclusive to but often associated with vehicles.
I think there were more like popularization of men's belts and ladies' suspenders used for fan belts and such. Yeeeea.