The ASI, as you aptly describe it, always reminds me of JG Ballard: "I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game."
Hofstadter's "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" speaks to one aspect of this - demonizing contact with the ASI - the ultimate source of all that growth.
The current crop of chaos-monkeys are flinging feces at the ASI as never before while successfully destroying faith in the notion that there is, actually, truth.
Have you ever considered putting the second chapter Of Keynes Consequences of the Peace alongside Kuznets in 6? It nicely summarizes the end of the Malthusian period and birth of modern growth (he uses 1870 as the hinge). Opening lines are:
"Before 1870 different parts of the small continent of Europe had specialised in their own products; but, taken as a whole, it was substantially selfsubsistent. And its population was adjusted to this state of affairs.
After 1870 there was developed on a large scale an unprecedented situation, and the economic condition of Europe became during the next fifty years unstable and peculiar. The pressure of population on food, which had already been balanced by the accessibility of supplies from America, became for the first time in recorded history definitely reversed."
That's a very interesting question! The closest I have seen is Patrick Geddes, "Cities in Evolution", with his contrast between the "paleotechnic" city of the coal‑and‑smoke industrial order and the “neotechnic” city of the electricity-and-science industrial order: new energy sources, new communications technologies, new transport, new scientific knowledge, and the beginnings of town planning and civic consciousness.
> Paul: Not sure if you will see this, but do you know if Keynes is the first to cast 1870 (circa) as an important hinge?
>> Keynes (1919): 'Before 1870 different parts of the small continent of Europe had specialised in their own products; but, taken as a whole, it was substantially selfsubsistent. And its population was adjusted to this state of affairs. After 1870 there was developed on a large scale an unprecedented situation, and the economic condition of Europe became during the next fifty years unstable and peculiar. The pressure of population on food, which had already been balanced by the accessibility of supplies from America, became for the first time in recorded history definitely reversed...
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**DELONG’S GRASPING REALITY: Trying to make my readers—and myself—smarter. I think I am a go-to source to understand things economic in the past and in the present. Too online since 1995. Currently featuring**:
The ASI, as you aptly describe it, always reminds me of JG Ballard: "I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game."
Hofstadter's "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" speaks to one aspect of this - demonizing contact with the ASI - the ultimate source of all that growth.
The current crop of chaos-monkeys are flinging feces at the ASI as never before while successfully destroying faith in the notion that there is, actually, truth.
All very Ballardian.
Have you ever considered putting the second chapter Of Keynes Consequences of the Peace alongside Kuznets in 6? It nicely summarizes the end of the Malthusian period and birth of modern growth (he uses 1870 as the hinge). Opening lines are:
"Before 1870 different parts of the small continent of Europe had specialised in their own products; but, taken as a whole, it was substantially selfsubsistent. And its population was adjusted to this state of affairs.
After 1870 there was developed on a large scale an unprecedented situation, and the economic condition of Europe became during the next fifty years unstable and peculiar. The pressure of population on food, which had already been balanced by the accessibility of supplies from America, became for the first time in recorded history definitely reversed."
very good idea1 Let me add it! - B.
Not sure if you will see this, but do you know if Keynes is the first to cast 1870 (circa) as an important hinge?
That's a very interesting question! The closest I have seen is Patrick Geddes, "Cities in Evolution", with his contrast between the "paleotechnic" city of the coal‑and‑smoke industrial order and the “neotechnic” city of the electricity-and-science industrial order: new energy sources, new communications technologies, new transport, new scientific knowledge, and the beginnings of town planning and civic consciousness.
> Paul: Not sure if you will see this, but do you know if Keynes is the first to cast 1870 (circa) as an important hinge?
>> Keynes (1919): 'Before 1870 different parts of the small continent of Europe had specialised in their own products; but, taken as a whole, it was substantially selfsubsistent. And its population was adjusted to this state of affairs. After 1870 there was developed on a large scale an unprecedented situation, and the economic condition of Europe became during the next fifty years unstable and peculiar. The pressure of population on food, which had already been balanced by the accessibility of supplies from America, became for the first time in recorded history definitely reversed...
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**DELONG’S GRASPING REALITY: Trying to make my readers—and myself—smarter. I think I am a go-to source to understand things economic in the past and in the present. Too online since 1995. Currently featuring**:
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<https://braddelong.substack.com/p/memo-to-self-what-it-looks-like-i/>