X-Message-Number: 33330
From: 
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:10:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: "Acceleration" rumination

A while back I said I would review Dr. Ronald Havelock's book,  

ACCELERATION: THE FORCES DRIVING HUMAN PROGRESS. I'm not ready for a  
full-fledged 
review, but some thoughts may be in order.
 
The author tries to do many things, with varying degrees of success as I  
see it. 
 
First, he tries to show that, by and large, life has gotten better for most 
 humans in recent millennia and centuries and decades. Well, some would 

point out  that "civilization" (roughly corresponding to agriculture around ten
thousand  years ago) brought more human misery than all previous cultures. 
But of course  if you look at America over a couple of centuries, you see 
wonderful progress.  Life expectancy is much longer and "want" as it was known 
in other times and  places almost non-existent. 
 
A couple of centuries ago the typical American lived on a farm, got water  
with a hand pump  from a well and had an out-house (rain or shine, summer  
or winter) for a toilet. To be poor generally meant to be thin and hungry and 
 lacking comfortable accomodations. Today in America poor people tend to be 
 fatter than rich people, and even the poorest usually have indoor 

plumbing,  central heating, and color television. There are safety nets all 
around. 
Whether  they are happier or complain more is  another story, but by almost 
any  measure in this country or Europe life has become safer and easier.
 
Whether Dr. Havelock's book can be deemed a "success" depends on what you  
demand of it. If you want information and entertainment, there is plenty. If 
you  want some kind of sociological theory that will permit verifiable  

quantitative predictions, I don't see that. But I haven't finished it, and this
 isn't necessarily the last word. 
 
Robert Ettinger 

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