The only theories that actual historians recognize are short term theories. When you are an actual historian, not an archaeologist out of his depth, you understand how contingent all events really are. There are no answers to "great why" questions, despite how unhappy that makes our monkey brains. His book does a decent job describing "development" in different regions of the world and over the centuries but is totally unable to answer the "great why" question as well. All of history is an accident, so it's no surprise that Western development of the industry and subsequent 2 centuries of dominance was also an accident.
59:53 Well, it's 2022 and we aren't even close to mimicking human brains in silico. We don't even have AI with comparable competency to humans outside of fairly narrow tasks...
That's a pretty weak ending to an otherwise fascinating talk. Mr Morris basically says it'll be different in ways we cannot imagine, which is honestly a cop out. In a bid not to become the next Fukuyama he forfeits any attempt at narrowing the future besides pointing out the, rather obvious by now, "east will overtake the west".
Not even 4 minutes in and I have one major issue with something this second speaker says: People will kill one another over anything, doesn't make historical materialism any less true. Besides, saying everything is dependent on geography is basically just historical materialism rephrased and from a slightly different PoV. Our conditions shape our consciousness. This was true when Marx said it, and it's true now that Morris is saying it. Morris may not be discussing Class, but it doesn't really seem like he's disagreeing with Marx; It's on top of our geography that class conflict occurs. These do not seem mutually exclusive to me. Honestly! 'Marx was bad because people died' is such a fucking shitty take. No actual debunking of his ideas, just throwing it away because people were killed. So we should throw away all religions, probably all of science, and whatever else? JFC I would expect better.
Doesn't putting words into the mouths of speakers sidestep the issue that he was paid to say it for the reason that he is really an expert and that because of his expertise people want his input?
Long Now needs to get the word out there.
These talks are excellent and more people need to hear them.
Tens of millions of Asians moving into Russia - I doubt that's a problem for anyone. But it's hard to live there - much colder than South Asia.
The only theories that actual historians recognize are short term theories. When you are an actual historian, not an archaeologist out of his depth, you understand how contingent all events really are. There are no answers to "great why" questions, despite how unhappy that makes our monkey brains. His book does a decent job describing "development" in different regions of the world and over the centuries but is totally unable to answer the "great why" question as well. All of history is an accident, so it's no surprise that Western development of the industry and subsequent 2 centuries of dominance was also an accident.
If Genghis Khan's son Ogodie didn't die in 1241, the Mongols would have swept through Europe.
59:53 Well, it's 2022 and we aren't even close to mimicking human brains in silico. We don't even have AI with comparable competency to humans outside of fairly narrow tasks...
That's a pretty weak ending to an otherwise fascinating talk. Mr Morris basically says it'll be different in ways we cannot imagine, which is honestly a cop out. In a bid not to become the next Fukuyama he forfeits any attempt at narrowing the future besides pointing out the, rather obvious by now, "east will overtake the west".
Not even 4 minutes in and I have one major issue with something this second speaker says: People will kill one another over anything, doesn't make historical materialism any less true. Besides, saying everything is dependent on geography is basically just historical materialism rephrased and from a slightly different PoV. Our conditions shape our consciousness. This was true when Marx said it, and it's true now that Morris is saying it. Morris may not be discussing Class, but it doesn't really seem like he's disagreeing with Marx; It's on top of our geography that class conflict occurs. These do not seem mutually exclusive to me.
Honestly! 'Marx was bad because people died' is such a fucking shitty take. No actual debunking of his ideas, just throwing it away because people were killed. So we should throw away all religions, probably all of science, and whatever else? JFC I would expect better.
Doesn't putting words into the mouths of speakers sidestep the issue that he was paid to say it for the reason that he is really an expert and that because of his expertise people want his input?
Just another self-hating western intellectual. Ho-hum.
Ignorance is bliss is it not?
His whole lecture is against exactly this..
Allah hu Akbar