The Long Boom (1997)(wired.com)
wired.com
The Long Boom (1997)
https://www.wired.com/1997/07/longboom/
9 comments
> benevolence of unfettered globalism hasn't exactly come to pass.
I remember laughing out loud listening to people talking about the "Arab Spring". As someone who splits his time between the US and the mid-east, I knew there wouldn't suddenly be a rush of western-style democracy flooding the Arab world.
I remember laughing out loud listening to people talking about the "Arab Spring". As someone who splits his time between the US and the mid-east, I knew there wouldn't suddenly be a rush of western-style democracy flooding the Arab world.
This really misses the mark for me, as well.
There was also absolutely no mention of any thought of climate change, besides a flippant, throwaway passage about how "with global warming and ozone depletion, we'll all either die of cancer or live in Waterworld." Well, that, and a dash of "oh, biotech will save us!"'
We have largely done nothing to reverse or slow the trajectory toward climate disaster we were on in 1997, and now we're down to the last few years where we can even hope to make a difference. Had people started taking greenhouse emissions seriously in 1997, we might have had a chance.
There was also absolutely no mention of any thought of climate change, besides a flippant, throwaway passage about how "with global warming and ozone depletion, we'll all either die of cancer or live in Waterworld." Well, that, and a dash of "oh, biotech will save us!"'
We have largely done nothing to reverse or slow the trajectory toward climate disaster we were on in 1997, and now we're down to the last few years where we can even hope to make a difference. Had people started taking greenhouse emissions seriously in 1997, we might have had a chance.
The emissions have been near the best-case projections, and far below the average and worst-case projections
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu...
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu...
The best-case projections (of the unmitigated emission scenarios) are pretty frigging scary.
There is an interview question that is : “If you could add a President to Mt. Rushmore, who would it be?” The correct answer is Ronald Reagan. Not for any reason, other than that if you don’t say Reagan, than you’re not “one of us”. In 1997, I think people could reasonably say that “Reagonomics” was working, and this sort of litmus test likely would add credibility to a person’s rationality.
In 2021, it’s obvious that the combination of The Southern Strategy, The Moral Majority, and Gingrichian Hyper-Partisanship have endangered The Great Experiment to the brink of disaster. Reagonimics, today, stands for the destruction of main-street, the outsourcing of American jobs and prosperity, the heightening of capitalism-fueled inequality, the death of The American Dream for millions of Americans, and the near complete disillusionment of The Millennial Generation having been born while Reagan was in office and the first American generation to be financially worse off than their parents since these things have been measured.
Today, that litmus test is not a sign of rational thinking and grounded values. Today, it is an American flag being used to beat a federal police officer. It is a gun being used in a mass shooting and synagogue. It is a New York slumlord and Reality TV actor trying to become God-King and his throngs of loyal followers decrying reality itself in order to... well, the end never was clear.
I would like to think that I am morally innocent, that I do the right thing as often as possible. But, God save me from the morality of the future. I think that it’s hard to look at an article written a quarter of a century ago and project today’s sensibilities onto it. Though anyone interpreting these works today absolutely should see and understand the failures of their belief systems, especially when so clearly stated.
In 2021, it’s obvious that the combination of The Southern Strategy, The Moral Majority, and Gingrichian Hyper-Partisanship have endangered The Great Experiment to the brink of disaster. Reagonimics, today, stands for the destruction of main-street, the outsourcing of American jobs and prosperity, the heightening of capitalism-fueled inequality, the death of The American Dream for millions of Americans, and the near complete disillusionment of The Millennial Generation having been born while Reagan was in office and the first American generation to be financially worse off than their parents since these things have been measured.
Today, that litmus test is not a sign of rational thinking and grounded values. Today, it is an American flag being used to beat a federal police officer. It is a gun being used in a mass shooting and synagogue. It is a New York slumlord and Reality TV actor trying to become God-King and his throngs of loyal followers decrying reality itself in order to... well, the end never was clear.
I would like to think that I am morally innocent, that I do the right thing as often as possible. But, God save me from the morality of the future. I think that it’s hard to look at an article written a quarter of a century ago and project today’s sensibilities onto it. Though anyone interpreting these works today absolutely should see and understand the failures of their belief systems, especially when so clearly stated.
I would think it would be FDR. Sure, Reagan convinced the boomers his policies made them rich...
FWIW I read the article when it came out and it enraged me. It seemed completely out of step with reality then, and in hindsight even more so.
And in the context of the .com crash that happened a handful of years later, and then the 2008 crisis after it...
And in the context of the .com crash that happened a handful of years later, and then the 2008 crisis after it...
Ronald Reagan, the man with blood in his hands for sponsoring terrorism in Central America while arming an enemy, ignoring AIDS, using mass incarceration, kicking mental patients to the curb and purposely delaying the release of American hostages for political points? fuck him.
I think that's the parent posters point.
> I think the author's ideological bias is most revealed
> gap between rich and poor has become shockingly large
Your ideological bias is clearly revealed as well.
> gap between rich and poor has become shockingly large
Your ideological bias is clearly revealed as well.
On the contrary, I think the gap is a statistical fact in many places. e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality
Global inequality going down, inequality going down in continental Europe, and Latin America. Inequality increasing in anglosphere.
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/07/Top-Incomes-768x5...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/income-inequality-in-lati...
https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#global-income-i...
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/07/Top-Incomes-768x5...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/income-inequality-in-lati...
https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality#global-income-i...
That's income inequality. Try looking into wealth inequality for the real picture. Governments, at least in europe, are quick on the trigger to tax income but never wealth. In Germany, that already leads to an insane level of wealth inequality, among the highest in europe, where tons of families have mini feudalistic empires quietly stashed away.
This article is the peak of the "end of history" period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the World Trade Center.
Its technology and economic prediction for the US startup economy is actually pretty great. But it falls down in assuming that integrating China and Russia into the growing economy would make them freer and more west-aligned.
9/11 was the freak unpredicted event that caused the US to waste over a trillion dollars and start a chain of wars which is still consuming the Middle East.
Its technology and economic prediction for the US startup economy is actually pretty great. But it falls down in assuming that integrating China and Russia into the growing economy would make them freer and more west-aligned.
9/11 was the freak unpredicted event that caused the US to waste over a trillion dollars and start a chain of wars which is still consuming the Middle East.
5-10 trillion.
I love these type of prediction articles from the past. I loved the specificity, depth, and unbridled optimism of the article.
Though most of it was wrong in terms of timing, this was bang on: "Around 2010, Intel builds a chip with a billion transistors". Intel released core i7 chip with 1.16 billion transistors in 2010. I guess Moore's law was still in full effect.
Even though timing was wrong, I do feel the authors will be eventually proven right on many. Clearly they were intentionally being overly optimistic, by the way they end the article.
Though most of it was wrong in terms of timing, this was bang on: "Around 2010, Intel builds a chip with a billion transistors". Intel released core i7 chip with 1.16 billion transistors in 2010. I guess Moore's law was still in full effect.
Even though timing was wrong, I do feel the authors will be eventually proven right on many. Clearly they were intentionally being overly optimistic, by the way they end the article.
> prediction articles from the past -- I loved the specificity, depth, and unbridled optimism
Talking about Wired's unbridled optimism:
I recall a Wired article from approximately 20 years ago that predicted that someone born 20 years later (i.e. born today) would ride the technology curve to infinite lifespan. As he or she got older, more and more longevity problems would be solved keeping pace with your age. Today would be date to be born at which technology could outrace death.
I wish I could find the article to re-read it to see how the arguments hold up. A phrase from the article that sticks in my mind is something like if you're born negative 20 years ago, then bingo, where the author meant that "negative 20", from his perspective, is 20 years in the future.
Talking about Wired's unbridled optimism:
I recall a Wired article from approximately 20 years ago that predicted that someone born 20 years later (i.e. born today) would ride the technology curve to infinite lifespan. As he or she got older, more and more longevity problems would be solved keeping pace with your age. Today would be date to be born at which technology could outrace death.
I wish I could find the article to re-read it to see how the arguments hold up. A phrase from the article that sticks in my mind is something like if you're born negative 20 years ago, then bingo, where the author meant that "negative 20", from his perspective, is 20 years in the future.
It's still possible that people born today will stop aging at some point e.g. when they get to be 50 years old in 2070.
There are some promising venues like CRISPR, mRNA related research or stem cells.
There is also very serious possibility of super-humanity AGI in the next 50 years.
There are some promising venues like CRISPR, mRNA related research or stem cells.
There is also very serious possibility of super-humanity AGI in the next 50 years.
I remember this on the front cover of the magazine at the time. It struck me then as the most complacent, self-congratulatory sort of article, worse than the one where they put the cable TV executive on the cover depicted as a Mad Max character.
I enjoyed the writing of early Wired. What duo you read today that resembles it?
I asked Kevin Kelly this in an AMA around 2010 or so and he said that he didn’t read any published magazines that were similar and the closest was an RSS feed of blogs. I followed up with that that list was but never got an answer.
I miss Wired. The current magazine is closer to Seventeen than the pub in the 90s and early 00s.
I miss Wired. The current magazine is closer to Seventeen than the pub in the 90s and early 00s.
Ars Technica is perhaps the spiritual successor to the Wired of old.
Which one of the few I pay for a subscription for.
China declared the "end of poverty" in China this year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56194622
This was 40 year program initiated by the pragmatist Deng Xiaoping, when 800,000 lived in poverty.
Poverty is defined as making ten Chinese dollars a day, or about US$1.60.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56194622
This was 40 year program initiated by the pragmatist Deng Xiaoping, when 800,000 lived in poverty.
Poverty is defined as making ten Chinese dollars a day, or about US$1.60.
Was “meme” a word in use in English in 1997 already? I first saw the word “meme” in 2006 or 2007 I think, and I never really thought about how long it may have existed in English, I only know that it originates from a similar word in French, and that it means something like the spread of an idea.
Wikipedia gives credit to Dawkins for coining "meme" in 1976. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Yeah, there was a chapter dedicated to it if I recall. As if the book itself wasn't mind-blowing enough to a teenager.
Yes, except back then it was mainly used by the late 90s equivalent of the TED talk set. Richard Dawkins coined it in The Selfish Gene to refer to ideas that replicate and spread in the manner of genes.
Richard Dawkins coined the term in his 1976 book titled The Selfish Gene. It was added to the dictionary by Merriam-Webster in 1998.
Two books from 1996:
Brodie - Viruses of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme;
Lynch - Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society
"All Your Base Belong To Us" was called a meme in 1998, so people already knew what a meme was.
"All your base are belong to us" you forgot the most important word :)
> Was “meme” a word in use in English in 1997 already?
I would assume so. Susan Blackmore's popular science book on memetics was published in 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine
I would assume so. Susan Blackmore's popular science book on memetics was published in 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine
You are right about the timing. Google trend indicates it didn’t really register until 2007
Archive.org has memepool goin back to at least 1998
id doesn’t come from the french. it’s a cognate of gene, to get across the idea of information transmission
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Yes, we've had substantial economic growth, but the sort of emergent benevolence of unfettered globalism hasn't exactly come to pass. Yes, many fewer people now live in extreme poverty, but the gap between rich and poor has become shockingly large and continues to grow, with highly un-democratic ramifications. And the slow motion ecological disaster we're witnessing hasn't been enough to motivate businesses to curtail their negative externalities.
I think the author's ideological bias is most revealed by this passage:
> Right around 1980, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan begin putting together the formula that eventually leads toward the new economy. At the time it looks brutal: busting unions, selling off state-owned industries, and dismantling the welfare state. In hindsight, the pain pays off.