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Musings Report 2017-3 1-21-17 Eyeglasses in China and the Internet
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Eyeglasses in China and the Internet
Although I don't recall the source (perhaps Fernand Braudel?), this factoid stuck in my mind: not long after eyeglasses became available in Europe (early 1300s), they were being transported to Beijing.
Trade between East and West had been active since ancient times, so the trade in high-value goods isn't surprising. What's surprising is the rapidity of the spread of new technologies that solved problems that had not just been unsolvable--they weren't even recognized as "problems" that could be solved.
To the person suffering from poor vision in 1301 AD, the idea of a device that one could wear to restore clear vision would have sounded like science fiction--but since science fiction had not yet been invented, it would have seemed like witchcraft or a miraculous cure gifted by God.
Declining vision was a condition of life, not a "problem" that could be solved with technology. The idea that poor vision was a "problem" that could be solved was itself as radical as the actual technology.
(The historical roots of eyewear are lost in the mists of time. Some evidence supports the claim that the optics were first invented in India and transported to Venice, Italy, by Arab traders.)
What we do know is that by 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses, which means the manufacture of eyewear was already widespread enough to have its own guild to control the distribution of the eyewear and protect the intellectual-property secrets and skills of the manufacturing process.
All of this reminds me of the Internet, of course, a technology that arose from the invention of protocols such as TCP/IP and networked computers.
The initial "problem" the Internet solved was limited: create real-time communications between research universities performing advanced work for the U.S. government (DARPA, DoD, etc.)
That the "solution" went on to solve problems that were not even recognized as problems is the story of the world wide web.
This is the story of new technologies as well. Famously, the market for copiers was at first viewed as too small to even be worth developing: a few dozen companies and government agencies were seen as the only market.
The first personal computers were also viewed as gadgets with limited potential. I recall commentators tossing around for uses of the first PCs in the early 1980s: keeping track of homemakers' recipes was one such example.
As my friend GFB observed, the difference between the introduction of globally traded eyewear and the Internet is this: trade enabled the spread of eyewear, but the Internet enables the spread of the knowledge and tools needed to make eyewear.
In effect, the Internet ends the monopolies imposed by guilds and their modern offspring (cartels, government regulations, etc.) since the dawn of modern capitalism.
It's not just the fruits of technology that are available via the web: the knowledge and tools needed to manufacture the fruits of technology are also available.
For example, within the computer chip industry, you don't need to buy a $2 billion fab to make a customized chip; there are commodity programmable chips available at a low cost that can be programmed to optimize various outputs. The knowledge needed to do so is readily available on the Internet.
For all these reasons, I am confident we are in the very early stages of recognizing "problems" that can be solved or remedied by the Internet. In effect, we are figuratively in the early 1700s of the development of the Internet, having compressed what took 400 years in the early age of capitalism and globalization into 20 years.
Looking ahead, I see multiple opportunities for web-enabled 90% reductions in the cost of goods and services going forward.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
25 Years of Neocon-Neoliberalism: Great for the Top 5%, A Disaster for Everyone Else 1/20/17
Why Outsiders Need Insiders To Get Anything Done 1/19/17
Does a Rogue Deep State Have Trump's Back? 1/18/17
Trump as Lightning Rod--Not Just for Disaffected Progressives, But For Panicked Insiders 1/17/17
Will Our Grandchildren Wonder Why We Didn't Build a Renewable Power Grid When It Was Still Affordable? 1/16/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
That I remained blissfully detached from the hysteria and hype surrounding the Inauguration of Trump as the nation's 45th president. Happy to focus on helping a friend with his woodworking projects.
Market Musings: Disrupting the Status Quo
That Trump's assuming the powers of the presidency introduces an unpredictable, disruptive variable in financial/economic equations is a given.
While most commentators seem to focus on the fears generated by disruption--that the status quo can't count on all the things it has counted on for eight years--the potential upside gets much less attention.
When status quos are disrupted, the grip of monopolies and cartels tend to be loosened or broken, enabling the rise of competition and innovation that was anathema to entrenched interests. Competition and innovation are unalloyed positives to the general public, as they tend to lower costs and offer wider choices than those allowed by cartels and monopolies.
Here's an anecdotal point about fear of disruption and the focus on fear that is the primary indulgence of American mainstream media. I listen to people vent their fears that Trump will usher in a new Nazism, a coup d'etat of everything good and just, etc. etc. etc., and then in the next sentence they describe their plans for a kitchen remodel.
If Trump were truly the modern equivalent of Genghis Khan, people wouldn't be planning kitchen remodels. When the real Genghis Khan arrived at the gates of your city, the prospects were dire indeed: failure to surrender immediately would bring about an invasion that led to looting of the city, enslavement or death of its populace, and the end of life as the residents knew it. Nobody planned kitchen makeovers when the real Genghis Khan rode over the horizon.
Those with the most to lose from a disruption of the status quo are simply pursuing their self-interests in hyping the fear of disruption. But the benefits of disruption --if they include competition and innovation--are always wider than the losses to narrow entrenched interests.
From Left Field
Solar-Powered “Farm From a Box” Is a Farm Kit That Can Feed 150 People (via G.F.B.)
Everyone has got China's debt problem all wrong -- interesting...
Lost in Trumpslation: An Interview with Bérengère Viennot -- an analysis of Trump's verbal responses to questions...
Food and Pharm WikiLeaks
What is this ‘Crisis’ of Modernity? -- excellent essay on energy and stagnant growth...
Germany Prepares for Trade Conflict with Trump -- more than trade is about to be put on the table for discussion...
Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours.
A Foreign Nation Did Interfere In A US Election...In 1980
The Hate that Dare Not Speak its Name (via Lew G.) -- on social class bigotry....
How Barack Obama paved the way for Donald Trump -- from the U.K. (US MSM shies away from analysis like this...)
Goodbye, American neoliberalism. A new era is here
Good For Nothing (by Mark Fisher)
"In his crucial book 'The Origins of Unhappiness', Smail describes how the marks of class are designed to be indelible."
Slavoj Zizek: Lessons From the “Airpocalypse”: On China’s smog problem and the ecological crisis
"Perhaps the most surprising thing about this airpocalypse is its quick normalization."
"All who surrender will be spared; whoever does not surrender but opposes with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated." Genghis Khan
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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