9 ms·

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500

120 points by zazerr 2y ago

SI_Rob 2y ago
Beautiful from a conceptual arm's-length distance, and clearly a massive effort invested in this. But I find myself asking who this is meant for? A lot of unavoidable, but still quite subjective compromises had to be made to project the very high-n space addressed by this infographic into 2 representational dimensions. A lot of stuff got mapped to the zero vector here. On that note, when I drill into the details I see things that are initially puzzling, such as the lineage starting from cartesian geometry seeming to end abruptly at vector calculus, to be resumed (but without guiding connectors) both above as forecasting, and a panel or so rightward as Markov Chains and further on, the somewhat loose cluster of concepts headed by the word "Transformers." And... what's with all the hunched-over shoegazers? Are they here to pay off a debt? Their multiplicity and contextual disjointedness with respect to their surroundings somehow gives off MidJourney vibes. First time I've ever felt a pang of sympathy for clip-art. It looks like the authors were inspired by those mind-bendingly complex biological cycle charts published by Roche, but didn't want to attempt the extremely tedious (and necessary, IMO) bird's nest business of cross-linking causally influenced (but rep-space remote) systems with a spaghetti of directed connectors and data detailing that those charts made famous.
- Animats 2y ago
  > Beautiful from a conceptual arm's-length distance, and clearly a massive effort invested in this. But I find myself asking who this is meant for? Middle school students. It's a nice wall poster. Put it up next to the Periodic Table.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  I feel the same. It's good, but gets worse the longer you look at it. For example the section on military doctrine checks all the right boxes but by the time you get to the present it's just a collection of buzzwords.
Vvector 2y ago
I cannot think of a more annoying way to present this information
- relyks 2y ago
  Considering your username, this should've been an SVG instead of an image
hosh 2y ago
This is a fairly Western-centric view. I don’t really see any entries on innovation outside the Western world.
- SI_Rob 2y ago
  the chart, for all its flaws, doesn't seem to conclude anything interesting about innovation per se, but rather suggests that the development of technology is ultimately motivated by the desire by the few to abstract, concentrate and consolidate the levers of power in order to cultivate the values and actions - the culture - of the many to suit the preservation of their status as elites. Indeed, there are a great many non-western examples of this as well.
  - hosh 2y ago
    My beef with this isn't about whether it concludes anything about innovation, but that it presents itself as a comprehensive and universal map of various technologies, ideas, and innovation when it is anything but. It is mainly concentrated in advances in the Western world. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it were titled as, "Calculating Western Empires: A Genealogy of Technology ... " because that is what it is. Examples from the 1500s and 1600s are definitely European-centric -- meaning that there are little, if any examples drawn from ideas outside of Europe. I look at the category for Education, and it has "Saving Souls with School". Where are the non-Christian examples of innovation in Education? The category for emotions (of which there are rich traditions and thought on this in many cultures). Or "Era of Humors", "Cartesian Dualism", "Embodying Class". Those are all Western-centric ideas. One curious example -- specifically talking about the import of teas and porcelain from the East. The implicit frame here is that it doesn't matter for this set of comparisons until those items became available in the West. What about the history of when tea (and spices!) were cultivated, and porcelain were made? (The porcelain that were exported out of China were mass produced and considered the bottom grade unsuitable for the domestic martket).
    - SI_Rob 2y ago
      I don't see a problem with this mainly because I would argue that innovation, in the early modern european era onward sense of "technologies that tend to direct the cumulative power of the many into the control of a few" captured by the infographic, isn't necessarily a net positive for humanity, and thus leaving non-western influences out of it keeps those cultures in the benefit of the doubt. The next century or two may well see us wipe ourselves out as a species, as the great elliptic of this leverage-amplifying 'innovation' arc comes crashing back on itself.. It may well be that not innovating, in this western-dominated sense, was the right strategy for our species survival all along, and thus clamoring to be included in this narrative is to demand that non-western cultures be given a position of honor alongside the west in the story of humanity's self-destruction.
sergius 2y ago
I wonder how this connects with this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For_Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For...
varenc 2y ago
I’d really like to download the entire chart as a vector graphic and print it out on a huge plotter.
bbor 2y ago
Amazing! If the authors are in here, I'd love to chat ways one might make this architectonically unified, AKA fractal in composition. As-is, this is probably the coolest and most ambitious literary thing I've seen this year, so I'll take that as a win! I wonder if they're using Genealogy in a technical sense re:Foucault's Archaeology, or if they're just generally invoking progress. I will say that there's a lot that could be added before and after Frege that would be helpful, for the programming languages bit. Whitehead, Russell, Peirce, and Chomsky would be nice to see, not to mention Aristotle and Hegel
spacemadness 2y ago
Is this trying to imply there wasn’t computer speech synthesis until 2000?
dgulino 2y ago
Neat! Consider embedding links to source material, like wikipedia?
dgulino 2y ago
Now that this is done, AI can copy the form, automatically generating this type of visualization for anything. Can you spot the hallucinations?

120 points by zazerr 2y ago

Beautiful from a conceptual arm's-length distance, and clearly a massive effort invested in this. But I find myself asking who this is meant for? A lot of unavoidable, but still quite subjective compromises had to be made to project the very high-n space addressed by this infographic into 2 representational dimensions. A lot of stuff got mapped to the zero vector here. On that note, when I drill into the details I see things that are initially puzzling, such as the lineage starting from cartesian geometry seeming to end abruptly at vector calculus, to be resumed (but without guiding connectors) both above as forecasting, and a panel or so rightward as Markov Chains and further on, the somewhat loose cluster of concepts headed by the word "Transformers." And... what's with all the hunched-over shoegazers? Are they here to pay off a debt? Their multiplicity and contextual disjointedness with respect to their surroundings somehow gives off MidJourney vibes. First time I've ever felt a pang of sympathy for clip-art. It looks like the authors were inspired by those mind-bendingly complex biological cycle charts published by Roche, but didn't want to attempt the extremely tedious (and necessary, IMO) bird's nest business of cross-linking causally influenced (but rep-space remote) systems with a spaghetti of directed connectors and data detailing that those charts made famous.

Animats 2y ago
> Beautiful from a conceptual arm's-length distance, and clearly a massive effort invested in this. But I find myself asking who this is meant for? Middle school students. It's a nice wall poster. Put it up next to the Periodic Table.
anigbrowl 2y ago
I feel the same. It's good, but gets worse the longer you look at it. For example the section on military doctrine checks all the right boxes but by the time you get to the present it's just a collection of buzzwords.

Vvector 2y ago

I cannot think of a more annoying way to present this information

relyks 2y ago
Considering your username, this should've been an SVG instead of an image

hosh 2y ago

This is a fairly Western-centric view. I don’t really see any entries on innovation outside the Western world.

SI_Rob 2y ago
the chart, for all its flaws, doesn't seem to conclude anything interesting about innovation per se, but rather suggests that the development of technology is ultimately motivated by the desire by the few to abstract, concentrate and consolidate the levers of power in order to cultivate the values and actions - the culture - of the many to suit the preservation of their status as elites. Indeed, there are a great many non-western examples of this as well.
- hosh 2y ago
  My beef with this isn't about whether it concludes anything about innovation, but that it presents itself as a comprehensive and universal map of various technologies, ideas, and innovation when it is anything but. It is mainly concentrated in advances in the Western world. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it were titled as, "Calculating Western Empires: A Genealogy of Technology ... " because that is what it is. Examples from the 1500s and 1600s are definitely European-centric -- meaning that there are little, if any examples drawn from ideas outside of Europe. I look at the category for Education, and it has "Saving Souls with School". Where are the non-Christian examples of innovation in Education? The category for emotions (of which there are rich traditions and thought on this in many cultures). Or "Era of Humors", "Cartesian Dualism", "Embodying Class". Those are all Western-centric ideas. One curious example -- specifically talking about the import of teas and porcelain from the East. The implicit frame here is that it doesn't matter for this set of comparisons until those items became available in the West. What about the history of when tea (and spices!) were cultivated, and porcelain were made? (The porcelain that were exported out of China were mass produced and considered the bottom grade unsuitable for the domestic martket).
  - SI_Rob 2y ago
    I don't see a problem with this mainly because I would argue that innovation, in the early modern european era onward sense of "technologies that tend to direct the cumulative power of the many into the control of a few" captured by the infographic, isn't necessarily a net positive for humanity, and thus leaving non-western influences out of it keeps those cultures in the benefit of the doubt. The next century or two may well see us wipe ourselves out as a species, as the great elliptic of this leverage-amplifying 'innovation' arc comes crashing back on itself.. It may well be that not innovating, in this western-dominated sense, was the right strategy for our species survival all along, and thus clamoring to be included in this narrative is to demand that non-western cultures be given a position of honor alongside the west in the story of humanity's self-destruction.

sergius 2y ago

I wonder how this connects with this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For_Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For...

varenc 2y ago

I’d really like to download the entire chart as a vector graphic and print it out on a huge plotter.

bbor 2y ago

Amazing! If the authors are in here, I'd love to chat ways one might make this architectonically unified, AKA fractal in composition. As-is, this is probably the coolest and most ambitious literary thing I've seen this year, so I'll take that as a win! I wonder if they're using Genealogy in a technical sense re:Foucault's Archaeology, or if they're just generally invoking progress. I will say that there's a lot that could be added before and after Frege that would be helpful, for the programming languages bit. Whitehead, Russell, Peirce, and Chomsky would be nice to see, not to mention Aristotle and Hegel

spacemadness 2y ago

Is this trying to imply there wasn’t computer speech synthesis until 2000?

dgulino 2y ago

Neat! Consider embedding links to source material, like wikipedia?

dgulino 2y ago

Now that this is done, AI can copy the form, automatically generating this type of visualization for anything. Can you spot the hallucinations?