[ThrowawayR2]

I'm surprised by how many people are missing the central thesis of Connections. Yes, it was about how technological progress is a web of interlocking discoveries, which is entertaining, but that wasn't the _point_ of it. The first and last episodes of Connections 1 introduce and wrap up the theme of the entire series and it ought to terrify people to the core.

(Warning: spoilers ahead)

The first, "The Trigger Effect" highlights how utterly and irrevocably dependent human civilization is on a broad web of technology and how delicate that web is, the so called "technology trap". Break it and we can expect an astronomical death toll. (We got a tiny taste of this in the supply chain disruptions of COVID-19.) No one wants to think about it or believe it but the breakdown of civilization is actually possible.

The final episode, "Yesterday, Tomorrow and You", ties together the past episodes by pointing out that technological progress is not really controllable or stoppable because of its incremental and interlocking nature. Yet by doing so, we are only deepening our dependence on an ever more delicate web of technology without which we are helpless. Moreover, we don't even know where this unstoppable technological progress is taking us; perhaps a utopia but just as likely a hellscape. (An example of this is the unforeseen societal consequences of the growth of social media or the loss of privacy caused by the web.) It is enough to make one think that the apocalypse preppers aren't entirely wrong.

It is one of the most utterly terrifying and thought provoking concepts I have encountered over a lifetime of gathering knowledge.

[lqet]

IMHO, this is only one of the theses, and not the central one. The central thesis is already hinted at in the subtitle: change and progress are caused by humans either aimlessly playing around with ideas or concepts, possibly from totally unconnected fields, or by creating something entirely different than what they initially set out to do (possibly without even realizing it). Very, very seldomly can change and progress be planned, and therefore it is a pointless endeavor to predict or plan future technologies. In that regard, Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.

What you are describing is one of two cautionary tales in the series: technological progress will continue to accelerate (because the possible recombinations of existing ideas will grow exponentially), and we will be increasingly dependend on and caught in it. This is not entirely original, but has been lamented over and over again for many centuries before Burke. Just consider this verse of a still popular German lullaby from the 18th century:

  We, with our proud endeavour,
  Are poor vain sinners ever,
  There’s little that we know.
  Frail cobwebs we are spinning,
  Our goal we are not winning,
  But straying farther as we go [0].

It's basically the same concept. The German original even specifically addresses "Künste", a term which still had a technlogical meaning at that time (as preserved in "Baukunst", "Wasserkunst", "künstlich", etc.)

PS: a possible corrolary of the central thesis is that we should stop goal-driven research to progress further. But that is of course not true: goal-driven research is exactly what caused a great part of human progress, it's just that the initial goal was almost never met.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Mond_ist_aufgegangen

[leoc]

> In that regard, Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.

TBF the fear of systemic collapse was very much on-Zeitgeist in the '70s, too.

[voldacar]

> Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.

I have to disagree - this theme, though reaching its greatest exposition in the 20th century, is not really a modern concept and was discussed by multiple ancient philosophers, including Laozi, Zhuangzi, and at least one Roman writer whose name escapes me at the moment

[rsj_hn]

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas, and pretty much all civilizations that flourished in the past. There are many attempts to study this and many different takes on it, for example Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies.

I'm not sure that this should be terrifying, civilizations come and go, it's a question of when rather than if, unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others. But I don't think people should stay awake, worrying about civilizational collapse. Our own individual life is much more fragile, so maybe worry about getting enough exercise instead.

But this point doesn't seem very profound or interesting to me, nor do I believe it is Burke's central thesis, which I really believe is about the connections between different technological advances. That is, how does technological process happen, and specifically, how did it happen in the West? History of technology is fascinating to me.

I love this show, it's really a masterwork and a great learning program for young students as well as entertainment for us geezers.

[joe_the_user]

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas,

I would note that "the collapse of the Roman Empire" was a very relative thing. The Western empire split and East empire kept going. Things that seemed collapse-related happened; the Vandals lived by looting civilization for quite a while, population and cities shrank, and Vikings also plundered for hundreds of years. But agricultural society and a number of social/technological innovations continued and in ways made progress. And Eastern Roman/Byzantium continued until conquered by a more advanced society. Mentioning this 'cause the classical collapses of the Maya, precolumbian-society or bronze age societies apparently didn't do this. People left, died, went back to hunting and gathering. Those could be called "true" collapses.

Which is to say that even Roman may have been at the point that a classical Tainter collapse couldn't quite happen. And today, while our create multiple disasters, we seem be well past a point where you could talk about a rise and fall of civilization. What we're looking at is the direction of the explosive expansion of market/technological/social progress. Even a disaster wiping out, say 90% of the human population on earth would see a rebound in a terrifying short period of time, historically speaking.

But anyway, I agree with the rest of what the parent says.

[djmips]

> unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others.

I don't think there is even a question that it's unique considering how far it's come in understanding physics math and engineering. To lose all of that would be a great disaster.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Why do you believe it would be lost? Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed? I humbly suggest that we did not ....

[npunt]

For the peoples living in the decline and aftermath of those collapses, yes they absolutely lost a lot of knowledge. What was common knowledge or specialized in different trades was replaced with ignorance. They didn't know how to farm in the same way or manufacture the same goods, they didn't understand the principles behind the infrastructure that was now crumbling around them, etc. They lacked the engine of broadly perpetuating knowledge we call civilization. Sure, there were individuals in certain places that possessed a fair amount of knowledge, but that knowledge was not widely distributed, and thus it was fragile.

For those collapsed civilizations, it was only that there were sufficient remaining resources in the earth and that their civilization was geographically limited that after centuries and many injections of knowledge from elsewhere that they were able to slowly bounce back, to rediscover what they lost.

The risk today is that we're so interconnected, we've extracted so much of earth's resources, and we've set ourselves on a path towards permanent environmental change, that we may not get another chance at civilization. It may be we recede back to ignorance permanently.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Yes, that is a risk, but ...

1) the amount of valuable resources sitting above ground is now immense. What's currently missing is a good way to "harvest" them. Necessity being the mother of invention ...

2) Problems with "sufficient remaining resources" are only really relevant if population levels do not decline dramatically. It seems likely to me the civilizational collapse in our era would also be accompanied by substantial population declines, some through the death of the living, some through reduced life expectancy of newly born people, some through reduced birth rates.

3) In the long run, it doesn't matter if individuals lose knowledge, only if the knowledge becomes lost to all and needs to be discovered anew (from the world, rather than from some sort of cultural artifact).

[bsder]

> Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed?

We lost an enormous amount of knowledge in those time frames.

It took six hundred years for the Romans to reach the same technical level as the Athenians. It then took almost one thousand years for the Italians to again reach the same level as the Romans (this time being greatly increased by the shenanigans of Catholic church).

That was the whole point of the rediscovery of "classical" knowledge from the "ancients" in the Renaissance.

[Mediterraneo10]

> It took six hundred years for the Romans to reach the same technical level as the Athenians.

When we speak of Ancient Greek technical innovations, we're usually talking about the Hellenism era. That was after Athens had begun to wane as a major intellectual center, and much closer in time to the Romans' ascent in the Mediterranean.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I think we need to differentiate between several different things:

  * the social organization and structures required for technologically complex societies
  * the knowledge required for certain technologies
  * the loss (or otherwise) of knowledge by humanity, as opposed to local loss of knowledge

[mymythisisthis]

When Copernicus was working out the solar centric system, he was using 1000 year old star charts dating to Ptolmey. They were the best Europe had at the time. The Alfonsine tables were just being compiled and printed as Copernicus was working.

[alexvoda]

Can you elaborate why you suggest we did not?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Mostly the Arabic civilization(s) next door, which managed to retain (and extend) much (not all) of the knowledge of the Greco-Roman civilizations for several centuries.

[EDIT: Along with various libraries throughout Europe that also acted as repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge ]

[WalterBright]

> repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge

True, but a lot of that stuff was re-invented only to be later discovered that the Greeks/Romans had done it first.

[space_ghost]

There's a wonderful podcast [1] on Youtube that deep-dives into the collapse of various historical civilizations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew

[AareyBaba]

I second this recommendation. Really well done - I'm on the Sumerian civilization episode. The episode on the Khmer Empire was outstanding.

[WalterBright]

I've been cognizant of that for a long time. I figure if civilization collapsed, the human die-off would be something like 99%.

Just think of things like cars. It's fairly straightforward to keep cars pre-1980 on the road even if the manufacturer is no longer making parts for it. A craftsman can still make the parts.

But more modern cars? Fuggeddabootit. Watchagonna do with the computer systems? Write a few million lines of code? You can't even buy the chips anymore.

[makuto]

I disagree. I think the point of the show is to illustrate how technology progresses. You could say one piece of it is about how we are reliant on it, and not in control of it, but I'd say overall, the show is optimistic about technology and celebrates innovation.

Edit: The Wikipedia article [0] does have a good summary, which I think makes us both right: There are really a collection of theses, none of which in my opinion dominate the show, except possibly the unplanned nature of technological evolution.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)

[ThrowawayR2]

Take a look at the scene in the first episode while discussing the consequences of being in a scenario where one needs to escape the technology trap where he asks the viewer whether they are willing to kill to ensure their survival.

Take a look at the scene about 42 minutes into the last episode where technological artifacts are being smashed to Wagnerian music and listen to what he says just beforehand.

Does any of that sound optimistic?

[nitrogen]

If I remember right he said in a later interview that he regretted the alarmism in the first series. I believe it was an interview/presentation where he was demoing his idea of a global knowledge web, but do not recall where I watched it.

[selimthegrim]

In 1989-90 or so he had a much more optimistic special (After the Warming) about climate change.

[hindsightbias]

Optimistic? He ends with the Atlantic Conveyor slowing and saying we’re screwed because we waited too long.

[JKCalhoun]

I get the way Burke tied together all ten episodes of the first season and put a bow on it.

I'm not convinced though as to how terrified I ought to be. I understand that there is a complexity and inter-connect-edness in our present day society, but the fear of nuclear, mutual annihilation is the part of the original series that seems the most dated.

I suppose I choose to feel a little more optimistic. I consider the people in the first episode, when all of greater Manhattan lost power, that gathered, celebrated, and ate a birthday cake by candlelight.

Civilization won't break down. Though there may be momentary, brief interruptions.

[ThrowawayR2]

This is just my opinion but, as I said, people don't want to think about it or believe it. The pandemic should be a wake up call, both in terms of demonstrating supply chain disruptions and in terms of people refusing to wear masks and those ignoring shelter-in-place directives.

Let's just take one more non-war example: Another Carrington level solar storm is an inevitability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event). Imagine a global power and network outage for an indeterminate period of time and what it's effects would be.

[Sargos]

I would use the Pandemic to argue the exact opposite really. It's the worst disaster most people have seen in their lifetimes but it hasn't caused civilization to break down. For a lot of people life hasn't even changed that much. We are more resilient than many people think.

[lostcolony]

Oh, I think for most people it's changed quite a bit. It accelerated WFH adoption by at least two decades. The knock on effects of transportation, city planning, and the demographic effects of people moving due to no longer needing to be so close to their jobs, we've only begun to see.

That said, I agree that it still points to the opposite conclusion - civilization has not ended, but has changed dramatically. Same as every other time.