One thing I enjoy about (some, especially older) Science Fiction is this long, epic so to speak, perception of time; of planetary and societal development and demise. It’s usually not so different from taking historical patterns and putting them into modern contexts so that we may glimpse what the futures may hold. Of course, intertwined with new technologies, these kinds of stories have brought numerous imaginations to the point of actually inventing the future and changing what seemed to be inevitable conclusions of what we knew at the time.

In this video, Geoffrey West tries to convey this idea and research he’s been leading on finding causalities and laws, so to speak, to social development within cities and companies. He shows data that prove, to some extent, that there are general rules that have developed on their own, he says through the evolution of our civilization, and that apply to any city across the world and every company that has ever existed and has and will ultimately perished, just like humans do.

It’s a very long video and there’s a shorter version on YouTube that draws attention to one aspect of this theory that relates to the hypothesis on the technological singularity, but is really taken very much out of context, especially concerning the stupid bacteria.

This video sort of shows how my focus is recently drawn away from the arts, but the title of the blog still stands: new sciences really do often give new and unexpected points of view on any number of human activities, arts included.

(Source: fora.tv)