Author, The Roots of Progress (rootsofprogress.org). Part-time tech consultant, Our World in Data. Former software engineering manager and tech startup founder.
jasoncrawford(Jason Crawford)
Karma: 1,276
Yes. You will hear phrases like “X explains Y% of Z”, and that refers to a statistical association. Examples:
“Micro data show that an aging firm distribution fully explains i) the concentration of employment in large firms, ii) and trends in average firm size and exit rates, key determinants of the firm entry rate. An aging firm distribution also explains the decline in labor’s share of GDP.” https://www.nber.org/papers/w25382
“We found that twelve conditions most responsible for changing life expectancy explained 2.9 years of net improvement (85 percent of the total).” https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00284
Now, maybe in one or both of these cases, there actually is an explanation. But you can’t assume that just because the term “explain” is used.
“Prediction” and “explanation” are not causation
Re invention, in the late 1800s it was mostly done by private, individual inventors, not corporations. Companies would buy patents from inventors once a the invention worked, and then commercialize it. Edison’s lab was unusual, a first. The corporate R&D lab got going in the early to mid-1900s. Some more context:
Technology and its side effects
Good points. I sympathize with the concern. A term like this could turn into an insult to shut down conversation, like “denier” is sometimes. I don’t want that.
Also, you don’t have to be exited about battery density. That’s a personal choice. I made a point of saying “can be” exciting, not “must be”. The point was not to degrade people who don’t get excited about a specific thing but to show how a seemingly technical thing can be exciting when you make the right conceptual connections.
I agree that “literacy” should mean a sort of basic education, and that is what I intended here.
I agree that there are related concepts—you suggested “industry positivity”, we could also think of “industrial appreciation” or “industrial pride”—that go beyond literacy.
And so, yes, I think a person can be industrially literate without being industry-positive. I would argue that they are wrong, but if they knew the facts and just interpreted them differently than I do, I wouldn’t accuse them of industrial illiteracy.
Some elements of industrial literacy
On a tangent, I’m curious: do you think “broad sociological modeling” is fundamentally misguided? Or is it “usually wrong” just because it’s really hard, or subject to bias, or something like that?
“Almost entirely driven by decreases in infant mortality” is exaggerated. Infant mortality was ~20% and childhood mortality (under age 5) was ~50%. Yes, a lot of the increase came from childhood mortality, but life expectancy increased at every age.
(Also, I don’t have time to dig into it now, but I am skeptical of the “15 hours” stat for hunter-gatherers.)
Re 2.2, a historical note: We had trains long before we had trucks, and people solved the last-mile problem with horses. Trains didn’t decrease horse usage because they were actually complements, not substitutes. Dependence on horses only decreases with the motor vehicle.
Yes, I’m about a third of the way through Where Is My Flying Car? and it’s amazing. Fascinating and spot-on IMO.
Many people are saying things I consider dangerously close to “Let’s toss industry and technology out of the window!”
Indeed, there is an active “degrowth” movement. cf. Giorgos Kallis: https://greattransition.org/publication/the-degrowth-alternative
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: A summary
The fact that we now see babies as precious is not an arbitrary feature of the modern world with no moral valence. It is an accomplishment.
That’s really not clear to you?
Don’t you think it matters to the parents? And, for that matter, to the older siblings? To the child’s friends—if they live long enough to make friends?
Do you actually think an infant or young child is just… replaceable?
The point I was making is just that child mortality (before age 5) used to be ~50%. Edward is admittedly being pedantic.
Interesting, thanks! Would love to see this going all the way back to ~1900…
If infant mortality was higher that’d be terrible, but I assume people would have more kids to compensate.
Are you saying it’s morally acceptable for children to die, as long as people have more children to replace them?
I like that idea!
Yes, @NeuroStats likes to call it “Granger prediction” for this reason