Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 12:23 pm I'll use references to previous posts to illustrate this using the example of one social technology that industrial civilization is reliant on - the public education system in the United States. A previous post made reference to the printing press which came on the scene in 1455 before the advent of the industrial revolution. In less than 500 years, the printing press and other things, but the printing press being key, eventually enabled the mass production of school textbooks that were low cost, standardized and uniform. These textbooks appeared in nearly every or essentially every public school classroom in the United States.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 11:28 pm That system (the US public school system as it existed from approximately the years 1900 to 1970) is part of what designed and built the Boeing 747 right here in America without any reliance on any other education system. No H1-Bs needed. It was a social technology tailored specifically to the industrial revolution. It developed over centuries.

Is the public school system as it existed in 1950 a social technology?

AI Overview

Yes, the public school system as it existed in 1950 is a social technology.

While people often associate "technology" exclusively with physical tools like computers or machinery, a social technology refers to any structured system, institution, or method designed to organize human behavior, scale cooperation, and achieve specific societal goals.

By 1950, the American public school system operated as a highly sophisticated, standardized social technology tailored to the needs of a mid-century industrial society.

Why the 1950 School System Fits the Definition

1. Standardized Inputs and Outputs

Just like a factory assembly line, the 1950s school system was engineered for predictability and mass production.

Age-grading: Children were grouped strictly by age rather than ability, creating uniform "batches" moving through the system.
Bell schedules: Standardized periods and ringing bells conditioned students to respond to external cues, preparing them for factory and office shifts.

2. Civic and Cultural Homogenization

A primary goal of the mid-century school system was to assimilate a diverse population into a unified national identity.

The "Melting Pot" directive: Schools explicitly engineered social cohesion by teaching a standardized curriculum of American history, civics, and English.
Behavioral modification: The system taught a specific set of social norms—punctuality, obedience to authority, and deference to hierarchy—which were vital for the post-WWII corporate and industrial workforce.

3. Bureaucratic and Scalable Infrastructure

A defining feature of any technology is its ability to scale.

Administrative hierarchy: By 1950, public education had fully adopted bureaucratic management principles (often called the "factory model" of education).
Systematized tracking: Schools implemented widespread standardized testing and tracking systems (e.g., vocational vs. college-prep tracks). This was a deliberate sorting mechanism to efficiently allocate human capital to the economy.

The Evolution of the Technology

Like any technology, the 1950s educational model was optimized for its specific era. It excelled at producing a disciplined, literate, and compliant workforce for a booming industrial and corporate economy.

However, because it was designed as a rigid, top-down social technology, it also inherited severe systemic limitations. It was highly resistant to individual learning styles and was explicitly designed within a segregated, unequal social framework that excluded or marginalized minority communities.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 1:39 pm Industrialization made use of the social innovations that preceded it and paved its way, meaning that the social innovations that preceded it as we came out of the dark age were acted upon to the extent that an Industrial Revolution could then take hold. Examples of some of the most important social innovations have been given - the Magna Carta (1215), gunpowder revolution (starting approximately 1300), and the printing press (1455).

The social innovations that will be necessary to transform society into an information age as we come out of the new dark age can't be anticipated or imagined at this time.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:38 am The Romans had a crude industrial society coming into form, having developed a steam engine that might be characterized as more of a museum piece and water wheels throughout Europe. The mainstream answer to why this didn't continue in straight line fashion would probably be that the Roman Empire collapsed and therefore the industrial age had to wait. My answer, and I've never seen it offered anywhere else, is that the industrial age had to wait for the necessary social and political development to happen before it could be successful. This would be some version of the "invisible hand" operating in human affairs. Some of the necessary developments were the Magna Carta, gunpowder, and the printing press. The information age is in a similar place to where the industrial age was in late Roman times. To be successful, similar social and political developments will need to take place. We can only imagine what those might be.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 12:54 pm It's similar to when the Romans had an industrial age coming into form but the primary civilizational mode and its structures and underpinnings were all set up for an agricultural age. Those underpinnings and structures had to be transformed over the coming centuries to make way for the industrial age.

How and to what extent were the Magna Carta, the gunpowder revolution, and the printing press social technologies that helped bring about the industrial revolution?

AI Mode

AI Overview

The Magna Carta, the gunpowder revolution, and the printing press acted as foundational social technologies—systems of human organization, laws, and communication—that fundamentally reshaped European society. By altering power structures, increasing literacy, and securing property rights, they created the institutional and intellectual scaffolding necessary for the Industrial Revolution to emerge centuries later.

Here is how and to what extent each technology drove this transition.

1. The Magna Carta (1215): Institutional Stability and Property Rights

The Magna Carta was a legal and political social technology that shifted England away from arbitrary royal rule toward institutional governance.

How it helped: It established the principle that the King was not above the law. Over centuries, this evolved into the protection of private property rights and the rise of Parliament. Because the Crown could no longer arbitrarily seize wealth or levy taxes without consent, merchants and early industrialists had the financial security to invest long-term capital into risky enterprises, factories, and machinery.
To what extent: High structural impact. While it did not directly spark innovation, it created the unique legal and political stability that made England the safest place in the world to accumulate and invest capital.

2. The Gunpowder Revolution (14th–17th Century): State Centralization and Fiscal Infrastructure

The introduction of gunpowder transformed warfare from a decentralized system of knights and castles into a highly expensive endeavor requiring standing armies, fortresses, and navies.

How it helped: To afford firearms and artillery, European states had to develop advanced fiscal-military infrastructures. This forced governments to create efficient nationwide tax systems, central banks (like the Bank of England), and national debts. Additionally, the demand for thousands of cannons stimulated early metallurgy, standardized manufacturing processes, and deep-shaft mining for iron and coal.
To what extent: Moderate indirect impact. It did not intentionally target industry, but it forced the creation of modern financial systems (capital markets) and advanced heavy metallurgy, both of which were direct prerequisites for building steam engines and railroads.

3. The Printing Press (1440): The Democratization of Knowledge

Johannes Gutenberg’s movable-type printing press was an information social technology that drastically lowered the cost of reproducing text.

How it helped: Before the press, knowledge was siloed and easily lost. Printing allowed for the mass dissemination of technical manuals, scientific papers, and mathematical texts. It enabled the "Scientific Revolution" and the "Industrial Enlightenment"—a culture where mechanics, artisans, and scientists exchanged ideas. It also incentivized mass literacy, creating a workforce capable of reading blueprints, operating complex machinery, and managing supply chains.
To what extent: Massive intellectual impact. It transformed knowledge from a luxury good into a public utility. Without the printing press, the rapid, compounding spread of mechanical and thermodynamic innovations in the 18th century would have stalled.

Direct Comparison of Influences

Social Technology Primary Mechanism Direct Contribution to Industrialization
Magna Carta Rules-based governance Secured the capital and property needed for long-term investments.
Gunpowder Revolution Fiscal and military scaling Accelerated metallurgy and created modern banking/credit systems.
Printing Press Information decentralization Created a literate workforce and spread technical innovations.

Together, these three technologies formed a chain reaction: the Magna Carta protected wealth, the gunpowder revolution forced the creation of financial networks to move that wealth, and the printing press distributed the technical knowledge required to turn that wealth into industrial machinery.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 11:28 pm Practically any male high school graduate could go to the employment office at the front gates of a factory, be employed that day, and work on that same factory floor until retirement, supporting a wife and children. Some could go onto college and do the same. No BS, no list of job requirements, no online application, no ridiculous multi-week interview process, just a diploma and a willingness to show up and be trained, which was enough to be factory floor ready.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, could a high school graduate easily get hired by going to the employment office at a factory and inquiring about a job on the factory floor?

AI Overview

Yes, during the 1950s and early 1960s, an 18-year-old high school graduate could often walk into a factory's employment office, fill out an application on the spot, and secure a well-paying blue-collar job on the assembly line within days, provided local industrial labor demand was strong.

How Hiring Worked

In-Person Applications: Factories maintained active plant-gate employment or personnel offices where applicants filled out physical paper forms immediately.
Immediate Screening: Hiring managers or foremen frequently conducted brief, same-day interviews if entry-level openings were available.
Direct Walk-Ins: "Help Wanted" signs or chalkboards outside plant gates or local union halls signaled immediate needs for manual labor.

Economic and Demographic Realities

Booming Industrial Sector: Post-WWII American manufacturing was at its peak, creating massive, steady demand for line workers.
Low Unemployment Waves: Periods like the mid-1960s saw national unemployment drop significantly, prompting heavy recruitment directly from local communities.
Privileged Access: These streamlined, walk-in opportunities overwhelmingly favored young white male applicants, as minorities and women faced systemic hiring restrictions or were relegated to segregated, lower-paying departments.

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2026 3:01 pm Before reading this, I had thought about doing a long discussion about "marginalized minority communities" during the years 1900 to 1970 but decided to take a pass.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 11:28 pm Once the job was secured, your rent would be roughly one week's gross pay. That was the rule of thumb.

In the 1950s and 1960s was rent roughly one week's gross pay as a rule of thumb? For how many decades did this rule of thumb hold?

AI Overview

Yes, in the 1950s and 1960s, spending roughly one week’s gross pay on a month’s rent was a standard rule of thumb. Historically referred to as the "week's wages for a month's rent" guideline, it dates back to late 19th-century studies of working-class family budgets. Because a week's pay represents about 23% to 25% of a monthly income, this formula eventually evolved into the modern personal finance staple known as the 30% rule.

This rule of thumb effectively held true for roughly six decades, remaining a mathematically accurate reflection of real-world housing costs from the 1920s through the late 1970s.

In the 1950s and 1960s how many days of work did it take for a recent college graduate to pay their monthly mortgage payment?

AI Overview

In the 1950s and 1960s, it took a recent college graduate an average of 3 to 4 days of work to pay their entire monthly mortgage payment. During this post-war era, entry-level salaries for individuals with a bachelor's degree were exceptionally strong relative to the cost of real estate, with median home prices hovering at just 2 to 2.5 times the average annual income.

In addition to the Magna Carta, gunpowder revolution and printing press, list the pre year 1500 foundational social technologies that made the industrial revolution possible

AI Overview

The Industrial Revolution was built on deep changes in how humans organized information, money, and labor. Beyond the technologies you mentioned, several pre-1500 social technologies—the systems, laws, and organizational frameworks of society—laid the groundwork for industrialization:

Financial & Commercial Infrastructure

Double-entry bookkeeping: Developed in 14th-century Italy and formalized by Luca Pacioli in 1494, this system allowed businesses to accurately track profits, debts, and capital, forming the bedrock of modern corporate accounting.
Fractional-reserve banking and bills of exchange: Medieval Italian and Dutch merchants created credit networks and paper bills to transfer money without moving heavy physical gold. This vastly increased the fluidity of global capital.
Marine insurance: Standardized in 14th-century Genoa, the ability to pool and distribute maritime trade risk encouraged high-stakes, long-distance investments that funded early global supply chains.

Legal & Institutional Frameworks

The corporate legal form: Evolving from medieval monasteries, guilds, and towns, the concept of a "corporation" as a legal entity separate from the individuals running it allowed for perpetual existence and aggregated capital.
Patent and intellectual property concepts: The Venetian Patent Statute of 1474 was the first formal system to legally protect inventors' ideas, creating an economic incentive for technological innovation.
Property rights and common law: The gradual erosion of absolute feudal power in England established clearer private property rights, giving individuals the confidence to invest in land and capital improvements.

Labor & Knowledge Systems

The craft guild system: While sometimes restrictive, medieval guilds standardized technical training through apprenticeships, preserving and refining high-level engineering and metallurgical skills over generations.
The university system: Established in Europe during the 11th to 13th centuries, universities created an institutional framework for systemic learning, debate, and the preservation of scientific knowledge separate from religious oversight.

Time & Spatial Management

The mechanical clock and standard time: Invented in the late 13th century, public clock towers shifted society away from natural "sun time" to abstract, measured time. This synchronized human labor, which was essential for future factory shifts.

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 12:09 pm In dark age theory, I've said many times that late 2011 represented a cut point where the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bankers established the certainty of a new dark age by their actions.

Fractional-reserve banking and bills of exchange: Medieval Italian and Dutch merchants created credit networks and paper bills to transfer money without moving heavy physical gold. This vastly increased the fluidity of global capital.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:49 am

And he was talking about the appearance on the world stage of individuals, and he was speaking to the growth of the population and the appearance of new individuals coming into the mass of humanity, and these individuals evidently are barbarians. They came too suddenly to be educated and for the knowledge of how to keep the Western way of life alive. And so these people have increased and now they have taken over power and so now we're in the hands of barbarians. They have no idea of how our society came to be and what is necessary to keep it going. And they're fiddling with the controls. You might think of a monkey flying a 747. They have no idea what they are doing and this is not going to end well with the barbarians at the controls.

We don't have people with a true background of education in history and economics and politics. They're all working on the spur of the moment. They're experimenting to see if this works and see if that works and I really have very serious doubts about the survival of our civilization under such people. I rather expect that a great crisis is coming when the grain will be sifted from the chaff. We're going to see a great separation. Some people are just not going to make it and the old truths are going to come back into fashion because of the need for survival.

--Hugo Salinas Price (transcribed from the link above)

"In 1987 Ricardo succeeded his father Hugo Salinas Price as CEO of Grupo Elektra. He is the fourth richest person in Mexico behind Carlos Slim Helu and the 34th richest person in the world with a wealth of around US $17.4 billion in 2012."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Salinas_Pliego

aedens wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2026 10:46 pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMNJ9IGlNo&t=438s
Its been over.

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:02 am

Barbara Tuchman wrote:
If the sixty years seemed full of brilliance and adventure to a few at the top, to most they were a succession of wayward dangers; of the three galloping evils, pillage, plague, and taxes; of fierce and tragic conflicts, bizarre fates, capricious money, sorcery, betrayals, insurrections, murder, madness, and the downfall of princes; of dwindling labor for the fields, of cleared land reverting to waste; and always the recurring black shadow of pestilence carrying its message of guilt and sin and the hostility of God.

Mankind was not improved by the message. Consciousness of wickedness made behavior worse. Violence threw off restraints. It was a time of default. Rules crumbled, institutions failed in their functions. Knighthood did not protect; the Church, more worldly than spiritual, did not guide the way to God; the towns, once agents of progress and the commonweal, were absorbed in mutual hostilities and divided by class war; the population, depleted by the Black Death, did not recover. The war of England and France and the brigandage it spawned revealed the emptiness of chivalry's military pretensions and the falsity of its moral ones. The schism shook the foundations of the central institution, spreading a deep and pervasive uneasiness. People felt subject to events beyond their control, swept like flotsam at sea, hither and yon in a universe without reason or purpose. They lived through a period which suffered and struggled without visible advance. They longed for remedy, for a revival of faith, for stability and order that never came.

The times were not static. Loss of confidence in the guarantors of order opened the way to demands for change, and miseria gave force to the impulse. The oppressed were no longer enduring but rebelling, although, like the bourgeois who tried to compel reform, they were inadequate, unready, and unequipped for the task. Marcel could not impose good government, neither could the Good Parliament. The Jacques could not overthrow the nobles, the popolo minuto of Florence could not advance their status, the English peasants were betrayed by their King; every working-class insurrection was crushed.

Yet change, as always, was taking place. Wyclif and the protestant movement were the natural consequence of default by the church. Monarchy, centralized government, the national state gained in strength, whether for good or bad. Seaborne enterprise, liberated by the compass, was reaching toward the voyages of discovery that were to burst the confines of Europe and find the New World. Literature from Dante to Chaucer was expressing itself in national languages, ready for the great leap forward in print. In the year Enguerrand de Coucy died, Johan Gutenberg was born, although that in itself marked no turn of the tide. The ills and disorders of the 14th Centruy could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years, until at some imperceptible moment, by some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
1978

Higgenbotham wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 12:29 am

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2026 5:47 pm As for what I am doing in the stock market. I have been in the S&P double inverse fund, SDS, for 4 years (approximately). With interest rates up, an SDS account with reinvested dividends has gained a little when the market is steady, about 4%. That's based on the volatility that has actually been experienced; due to volatility it doesn't gain as much as the advertised dividend.

When the market was going down or sometimes even when it dipped hard, I would take profits and withdraw them. That hasn't happened much since late 2023. Since late 2023, I've been almost 100% in SDS and only traded it a little last year. In that time since late 2023, my account has lost about half.

Now for the reason I am talking about this today. In the past day, I have added to my account for the first time in 4 years. Tomorrow morning I will be adding again. In all, I will be adding about 25% to my account this week and all of it will go into SDS. If the market stays steady or rises, I will continue adding, but less than this week. 5-10% per month, something like that.

The S&P has risen about 400 points since this was posted. I've been adding to my account on the way up and used up all my spare cash as of last week. The SDS is a double inverse fund. Today I started converting my account from double inverse to triple inverse. I will do this in 5-7 pieces over the next few days provided the market doesn't collapse.