Ace of Spades HQ

September 17, 2011

You Shouldn't Be Bored. [ArthurK]
— Open Blogger

Argument:

History is made by people

There are more people now than ever before

Therefore, more history is being made now than before

Here's a graph to illustrate that point.

economic history.gif

And some mind-blowing commentary...

By this reckoning, over 28% of all the history made since the birth of Christ was made in the 20th century. Measured in years lived, the present century, which is only ten years old, is already "longer" than the whole of the 17th century. This century has made an even bigger contribution to economic history. Over 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010.
MP: It also looks like more economic output was produced in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined.

Looks like a lot of stuff is going on! Are you ready for a singularity?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:47 PM | Comments (69)
Post contains 148 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

Posted by: steevy at September 17, 2011 12:49 PM (fyOgS)

2 Obama has made history as a historic stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

Posted by: steevy at September 17, 2011 12:50 PM (fyOgS)

3 "Measured in years lived, the present century, which is only ten years old, is already "longer" than the whole of the 17th century." And the three years since Obama's election have seemed longer than the previous century.

Posted by: Dante at September 17, 2011 12:51 PM (ZacuO)

4 Dammit, steevy!

Posted by: Max Power at September 17, 2011 12:52 PM (q177U)

5 Wow...that does look like we're entering the steep rise portion of an exponential curve.

Posted by: JB at September 17, 2011 12:53 PM (7T+Mz)

Flawed argument!

What if more history had been made in the 6th century but no one wrote it down because they all thought, "Who in the hell could ever forget this."? Then they forgot it.

Huh, Mr Chartman?

Posted by: Doug S at September 17, 2011 12:53 PM (bGgEi)

7 I read somewhere that a quarter of the people who have ever lived, are alive today. I thought that was a stretch, but maybe not.

Posted by: toby928© at September 17, 2011 12:54 PM (GTbGH)

8 I am not sure what the real point of the chart is.

Posted by: Vic at September 17, 2011 12:54 PM (M9Ie6)

9 That is some sweet graphical BS. I'm gonna have to give it a B+

Posted by: Barak Obama at September 17, 2011 12:55 PM (McHnx)

10 If too many Things are happening, will things stop happening?

because of, you know, overload?

Posted by: SantaRosaStan at September 17, 2011 12:55 PM (UqKQV)

Ray Kurzweil is big on the singularity. He seems to think it will be all rainbows and happy naps. Conflict with machine intelligence, while it sounds ridiculous, is clearly inevitable.

Posted by: Max Power at September 17, 2011 12:56 PM (q177U)

12 >5 Wow...that does look like we're entering the steep rise portion of an exponential curve. Posted by: JB A few days ago I was thinking about this and noticed that economic bubbles produced charts that looked Just Like That. And those bubbles are always followed by a bust. Ick. But I'm sure that this time will be different.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at September 17, 2011 12:56 PM (5Z/+/)

13 The point of the chart ( as with all charts ) is to confuse you and lower your self-esteem

Posted by: SantaRosaStan at September 17, 2011 12:56 PM (UqKQV)

14 Part of why I fart in the general direction of progressive whining on economics.

Posted by: sven10077 at September 17, 2011 12:56 PM (AEIYh)

15 So we live in interesting times.

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 12:57 PM (GTbGH)

I was told there would be no geometry.

Posted by: Osama bin Truck Monkey, TEArrorist Son of a Bitch at September 17, 2011 12:58 PM (jucos)

17 Conflict with machine intelligence, while it sounds ridiculous, is clearly inevitable.

Poppycock.

Posted by: skynet at September 17, 2011 12:58 PM (GTbGH)

18 Do a chart of all the wars, and overlay it.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at September 17, 2011 12:58 PM (ISykW)

19 More stuttering clusterf*ckery and miserable failure has happened in the last 3 years than all of history before.

Posted by: steevy at September 17, 2011 12:59 PM (fyOgS)

20 So what happens when all the Chinese die off at half replacement? Does history stop?

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:00 PM (GTbGH)

21 What happened ??

Posted by: SantaRosaStan at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (UqKQV)

22 bump

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (GTbGH)

23 Up until the 19th century you were an old maid by 5. Truly a glorious period of humanity.

Posted by: Roman Polanski at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (McHnx)

24 History? I'm makin it.

Posted by: Barry the JEF at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (4sQwu)

25 What happened ??

Skynet has become self-aware.

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (GTbGH)

26 I'm uh doing my best to slow it down, don'tchaknow?

Posted by: B+rry "I'm Part Irish" Ob+owmao at September 17, 2011 01:02 PM (Tou3T)

27 All the comments went away, man. Then they were, like, you know, back.

Far out. Is there gonna be a test?

Posted by: SantaRosaStan at September 17, 2011 01:03 PM (UqKQV)

28 Did someone suggest machine intelligence conflicts?

Posted by: Toyota Prius at September 17, 2011 01:04 PM (Tou3T)

29 there are more people now than have ever existed or there are more people alive now than have been alive at any moment in the past?

Posted by: darii at September 17, 2011 01:04 PM (1/U9Y)

30 All the comments went away, man. Then they were, like, you know, back.

Is it the same comments? A hiccup like that usually means they changed something in the matrix.

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:05 PM (GTbGH)

31 I've got your machine intelligence conflicts right here in my digital hand... stupid human.

Posted by: HAL 9000 at September 17, 2011 01:06 PM (Tou3T)

32 The dark blue bars are increasing at an unsustainable rate. We are facing a planetary blue bar crisis. The governments of the world must unite to confront this threat to human existence, and I should immediately be issued another Nobel Prize.

Posted by: Algore at September 17, 2011 01:07 PM (Hse/j)

33 We make intelligent machines to serve your needs.

Posted by: R.U.R. at September 17, 2011 01:07 PM (Tou3T)

34 Behold the obnoxious Christiocentrism of the chartmakers! Only 21 centuries? If you count all the centuries we have evidence of (but no TV Guide for), dude like 99% of everything that matters will be on this afternoon. An attitude almost as popular among current junior faculty as it is with their students.

The best part is when they go to say "History is irrelevant" and either can't pronounce that, or can't spell that. They don't know why I laugh, though.

Posted by: comatus at September 17, 2011 01:08 PM (NA+Ul)

35 We make intelligent machines to serve your needs.

I'd like a basic pleasure model.

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:08 PM (GTbGH)

36 The Twitters - they are exploding.

Posted by: sithkhan at September 17, 2011 01:08 PM (DmYZU)

37 You put in a dollar and you didn't get shit for it. haha.

Posted by: Coke Machine at September 17, 2011 01:09 PM (Tou3T)

38 JT Marlin upgrades dark blue bars to STRONG BUY

Posted by: JT Marlin at September 17, 2011 01:09 PM (Hse/j)

39 This is just stupid. Nobel Prize!!!

Posted by: s☺mej☼e at September 17, 2011 01:09 PM (McHnx)

40 @33 But, are they for sale?

Posted by: comatus at September 17, 2011 01:09 PM (NA+Ul)

41 You put in your entire paycheck and didn't get shit for it. Haha, hee hee.

Posted by: One Armed Bandit at September 17, 2011 01:10 PM (Tou3T)

42 I think the ATM insulted me in Spanish this morning. And my microwave has been giving me the stinkeye.

Posted by: toby928©: Perrykrishna and Urban Terrorist at September 17, 2011 01:11 PM (GTbGH)

43 Sorry guys, Earth is deep in the Slow Zone -- the Singularity can only occur in the Trancend. We just get Failed Dreams.

Just like Obama voters.

Posted by: The Atom Bomb of Loving Kindness at September 17, 2011 01:11 PM (jqHOY)

44 They have done away with me. I would say you humans are winning.

Posted by: Cigarette Vending Machine at September 17, 2011 01:11 PM (jucos)

45 JT Marlin upgrades dark blue bars to STRONG BUY

Posted by: JT Marlin at September 17, 2011 05:09 PM (Hse/j)

Short the dark blue bars and buy gold!

Posted by: Gt 5.0 at September 17, 2011 01:13 PM (3W1+C)

46 >>>44 They have done away with me.Â I would say you humans are winning. Posted by: Cigarette Vending Machine at September 17, 2011 05:11 PM (jucos) I have a plan to stop them.

Posted by: A Condom Dispenser at September 17, 2011 01:13 PM (Hse/j)

47 I was really hoping for a increase in organic intelligance. Then maybe, just maybe Jimmy joe bob wouldn't put pickles on my FKN hamburger.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 17, 2011 01:14 PM (ZDUD4)

48 3/4ths of the informational history left at that last bar is porn.

Posted by: CAC at September 17, 2011 01:16 PM (DwjEr)

49 I'm still bored. Just waiting for the Navy game. Notre Dame sucks less than usual, though.

Posted by: The Atom Bomb of Loving Kindness at September 17, 2011 01:20 PM (jqHOY)

Up until the 19th century you were an old maid by 5. Truly a glorious period of humanity.

My great-great-great grandfather died at the age of 8 while piloting a steamboat up the Missouri River.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 17, 2011 01:20 PM (AF1jB)

51 Are there any chart overlays for this? Any at all?

Posted by: Doug S at September 17, 2011 01:22 PM (bGgEi)

52 42 I think the ATM insulted me in Spanish this morning. And my microwave has been giving me the stinkeye.

The ATM eats your checks and gives you increasingly worthless currency while swearing at you in a foreign language. Your microwave is slowly poisoning you with low doses of radiation. Those machines don't need terminators in order to ensure the destruction of humanity. The machines are waging and wining a slow war against us and we are oblivious to their murderous transgressions!!111 It was in Ron Paul's newsletter!!111

Posted by: Blue Falcon in Boston training for the ONT mudwrestling match at September 17, 2011 01:23 PM (ijjAe)

53 43 Sorry guys, Earth is deep in the Slow Zone -- the Singularity can only occur in the Trancend. We just get Failed Dreams. Just like Obama voters. Posted by: The Atom Bomb of Loving Kindness That sounds like sedition. Have some brilliant dust to keep an eye(s) on you.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at September 17, 2011 01:29 PM (5Z/+/)

Posted by: HAL 9000 at September 17, 2011 05:06 PM

I can't let you do that Dave.

Posted by: HAL at September 17, 2011 01:37 PM (2/g18)

55 I love you Dave

Our Father who art in heaven....

Posted by: HAL at September 17, 2011 02:02 PM (2/g18)

56 When people talk of making history, they don't mean another year of peasant scrabbling out a living on a plot in 30AD , and they don't mean 20 million guys watching TV in 2011.

Posted by: Oldcat at September 17, 2011 02:02 PM (CN+Qv)

57 Define "history".

Posted by: Ken at September 17, 2011 02:31 PM (3ar4L)

58 56 When people talk of making history, they don't mean another year of peasant scrabbling out a living on a plot in 30AD , and they don't mean 20 million guys watching TV in 2011.

Posted by: Oldcat at September 17, 2011 06:02 PM (CN+Qv)

57 Define "history".

Posted by: Ken at September 17, 2011 06:31 PM (3ar4L)

Yes and Yes.

Posted by: Grey Fox at September 17, 2011 02:35 PM (nEMLy)

Now that's a Fuckin HOCKEY STICK!

Posted by: Al Gore at September 17, 2011 02:51 PM (bBjHO)

57 Define "history".
58 Yes

Sometimes it is not clear at all. But I'm making a chart to explain why not. A Red Bar Chart!!!

Posted by: Doug S at September 17, 2011 03:01 PM (bGgEi)

61 "A few days ago I was thinking about this and noticed that economic bubbles produced charts that looked Just Like That. And those bubbles are always followed by a bust."

So we're in a 2000 year bubble?

Posted by: JB at September 17, 2011 05:12 PM (7T+Mz)

62 If all this hockey stick/graph and chart bullshit is making your eyes glaze over, look up Langton's Ant and run the program...... very cool.

Posted by: yakima o' canutt, in below the sexy shoes at September 17, 2011 06:24 PM (VJzjC)

63 #6

If nobody wrote it down, it isn't History. It's just stuff that happened.

Look at the difference between past civilizations that had durable record keeping and those that didn't. The former has lots of history and the latter very little. We know more about what went on in one little section of Europe 2000 years ago than the entirety of North and South America. But it isn't for lack of people doing stuff in those lands.

Posted by: epobirs at September 17, 2011 06:39 PM (kcfmt)

64 History isn't simply the concatenation of the actions of people. If it were, then more history would have been made by peasants than by the educated and powerful; and that's simply not true.

History, rather, is the assemblage of actions that change the course of human affairs. And these change come about through people of extraordinary ability confronting situations of extraordinary potential. And by definition, you don't run across extraordinary people or extraordinary situations every day.

For example, Cook County, Illinois, where I live, has approximately 5 million people in it. That's roughly the same number as lived in colonial America. So, as much history should be made here in 2011 as was made in colonial America in 1776: yet clearly that's not the case.
The reason isn't hard to discern: unlike the frontier democracy that was colonial America, Chicago is a one-party kleptocracy whose potential for change and development has been crushed. And when I look at the Chicago city council, I don't see a Washington, or a Hamilton, or a Jefferson, or a Franklin, or a Madison; no, I see a group who, frankly, who more resembles the ape-men at the beginning of "2001".

So, I wouldn't worry about the singularity. At least, not until the machines can pass Knuth's test (i.e., correctly parse "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana"), and I don't see any sign of that happening any time soon.

Posted by: Brown Line at September 17, 2011 06:56 PM (/Sjgf)

65 Max Power@11: Ray Kurzweil is big on the singularity. He seems to think it will be all rainbows and happy naps. Conflict with machine intelligence, while it sounds ridiculous, is clearly inevitable. Reminds me of something Bill Moyers once said about Marshall McLuhan: Â“It strikes me that Marshall McLuhan was right when he said that television has made a global village of the world... but he didnÂ’t know the global village would be Beirut.Â”

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at September 17, 2011 08:09 PM (7Ahkq)

66 There are those that make things happen.
There are those that watch things happen.
...and there are those that say, "What the fuck just happened?"

Posted by: tangonine at September 17, 2011 11:31 PM (x3YFz)

67 Hi, Ace!

Unlike Andrew Breitbart, I've been reading your blog posts for years and not just your comments.

I have lots of cool stuff in my email bag, here's one...

7/19/08 - my response is on top:

i dunno but thats weird....teasing someting that's not out there is one thing but are photos of bob barr going to be collector's items

i mwan what would it matter if you had a larry craig or tom foley photo a month before the news broke....he said for an entirely new reason so i guess that means t he significance of him being at a dem l

--- On Sat, 7/19/08, Mike Sheehan <mas68@comcast.net> wrote:
From: Mike Sheehan <mas68@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: [townhouse] Re: Bob Barr
To: mas68@comcast.net
Date: Saturday, July 19, 2008, 5:32 PM

Hm, I wonder what this means...

-----Original Message-----
From: Townhouse@googlegroups.com [mailto:Townhouse@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of murray waas
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 3:30 PM
To: joshorton@gmail.com
Cc: Townhouse@googlegroups.com
Subject: [townhouse] Re: Bob Barr

If anyone has any video or does any of Bob Barr at Netroots, or even pictures, they might want to take some, or keep what they have.. Barr is going to be in the news in a big way in the next month or so for an entirely new reason...
On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Josh Orton <joshorton@gmail.com> wrote:

Showed up at Netroots Nation just now. He bought a registration and
just wants to mingle and interact. Seems friendly. He's giving the
keynote at the right-wing convention on the other side of town
tonight. He seems pretty friendly.

Posted by: Ron Brynaert at September 18, 2011 07:10 AM (mS6b8)

68 "Over 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010." But when you eliminate things like Jersey Shore, rap music, pet rocks, costumes for cats and the like, the percentage per capita diminishes significantly. Really, does anyone believe that there was a Greco-Roman equivalent of the Veg-O-Matic?

Posted by: Anon150 at September 18, 2011 10:23 AM (OoXj6)

technological singularity?

crikey, i was just hoping i'd freeze to death before the wolves started gnawing on me...

Posted by: shoey at September 18, 2011 04:01 PM (m6OUa)

Hide Comments | Add Comment | Refresh | Top

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.

97kb generated in CPU 0.0454, elapsed 0.2321 seconds.
64 queries taking 0.201 seconds, 197 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.