How we got to now

"How we got to now" is a book by Steven Johnson, published in 2014. 

In this book Johnson told fascinating stories of innovations in six areas that shaped the modern world - glass, ice, sound, clean, time and light. He had a unique view angle on technology innovation and its ramification, which might be indicated from the six groups he selected. 

How we got to now is not only about technology itself, but also the impact and ramifications of the technology. For example, in the section on Glass, he told stories on how glass was discovered in the wilderness, and later manufactured in shops, how glass mirror was invented, and same about lens, telescope, microscope. Mirror improves human's self awareness, lens (spectacles, eyeglasses) enabled us to see better, telescope expanded our sights not only to distance on earth but also to outer space which fundamentally changed our world view, microscope allowed to see tiny things we could not see in our naked eyes - which led to breakthroughs in medical fields. A diversion from "seeing", from glass to fiber glasses, a strong ductile material was made from fragile, brittle material, and eventually led to fiber optics - which is the backbone of modern communications.  No wonder he claimed glass was the most important material invented.

What strikes me the most is that we consider all these for granted, rarely or never think of how we got to now. On the other hand, our foresight is very limited - making conclusions on technology impact based on very short term analysis.

The one clear example is about clean - we went from dirty to clean, reduced diseases, improved life expectance, then from clean to super clean, we introduced wide spread allergy in modern societies! 

The other good example is about ice (refrigeration, air condition). Air condition allowed us to live comfortably in hot summer, and then in the desert, where previously few people lived. Now there is a mega city in the desert, Abu Dubai. This seems like a human triumph over nature initially. But in the long run, living against nature has its cost, we need to consume more energy, which in turn make the life style not sustainable in long run. 

The history of plastics, is written about in many books, and plastics is the worst example of long term negative technological impact on the earth and human society. 

How can we as a society, have a historical perspective on technology, and a long foresight on its potential impact? The best way is to study and learn technology history, like we do for human history.

How we got to now made me think, it was a good read.

Notes

1. I actually listened to the audio book

2. LONG NOW is an organization which "encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years"

3. Another important theme of the book is that innovation is typically a process, an outcome of  the advance in knowledge base, and there are many people who have similar ideas around the same time, not that only one single genius had a eureka moment.