A theory of the global demographic process

Подлазов, А В

doi:10.1134/s1019331617030054

Cited by 24 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…But what processes are responsible for the spread and cumulative adoption of military technology? Following this logic, we might expect to find a positive feedback between technological innovation and population growth at the global scale (2,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32) see also (33)(34)(35)(36). Indeed, a wellknown and much discussed theory proposed by economist Michael Kremer and expanded by others suggests exactly this causal link (2) .…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 85%

Rise of the War Machines: Charting the Evolution of Military Technologies from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution

Turchin¹,

Hoyer²,

Korotayev³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The causes and consequences of technological evolution in world history have been much debated. Of particular importance in many of the theoretical and empirical studies on this topic is innovation in military technologies, details of which are comparatively well preserved in the archaeology and historical record and which are often seen as drivers of broad socio-cultural processes. Here we analyze data on the evolution of key military technologies in a stratified sample of the world’s political systems from the Neolithic to the industrial revolution using Seshat: Global History Databank. Empirically testing a series of previously speculative theories reveals that world population size (as proxy for the potential numbers of innovators), the connectivity between areas of innovation and adoption, and major past innovations such as iron metallurgy and horse riding, all serve as strong predictors of change in military technology. We discuss how the approach showcased here could be extended not only to explain more of the causes and consequences of military innovation but of technological change more generally, with important ramifications for our understanding of the drivers of world history and of the evolution of social complexity.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 85%

Rise of the War Machines: Charting the Evolution of Military Technologies from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution

Turchin¹,

Hoyer²,

Korotayev³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…In some respect, it may be said that von Foerster did discover the singularity of the human demographic history; it may be said that he detected that the human World System was approaching the singular period in its history when the hyperbolic accelerating trend that it had been following for a few millennia (and even a few millions of years according to some) would be replaced with an opposite decelerating trend. The process of this trend reversal has been studied very thoroughly by now (see, e.g., Vishnevsky 1976Vishnevsky , 2005Chesnais 1992;Caldwell et al 2006;Khaltorina et al 2006;Korotayev, Malkov, Khaltourina 2006a, 2006bKorotayev 2009;Gould 2009;Dyson 2010;Reher 2011;Livi-Bacci 2012;Choi 2016;Podlazov 2017) and is known as the "global demographic transition" (Kapitza 1999(Kapitza , 2003(Kapitza , 2006(Kapitza , 2010Podlazov 2017). Note that in case of global demographic evolution the transition from the hyperbolic acceleration to logistic deceleration started a few decades before the singularity point mathematically detected by von Foerster.…”

Section: Toward the Singularity Interpretation The Place Of The Singmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 21st Century Singularity and its Big History Implications: A re-analysis

Korotayev

2018

JBH

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The idea that in the near future we should expect "the Singularity" has become quite popular recently, primarily thanks to the activities of Google technical director in the field of machine training Raymond Kurzweil and his book The Singularity Is Near (2005). It is shown that the mathematical analysis of the series of events (described by Kurzweil in his famous book), which starts with the emergence of our Galaxy and ends with the decoding of the DNA code, is indeed ideally described by an extremely simple mathematical function (not known to Kurzweil himself) with a singularity in the region of 2029. It is also shown that, a similar time series (beginning with the onset of life on Earth and ending with the information revolution-composed by the Russian physicist Alexander Panov completely independently of Kurzweil) is also practically perfectly described by a mathematical function (very similar to the above and not used by Panov) with a singularity in the region of 2027. It is shown that this function is also extremely similar to the equation discovered in 1960 by Heinz von Foerster and published in his famous article in the journal "Science"-this function almost perfectly describes the dynamics of the world population and is characterized by a mathematical singularity in the region of 2027. All this indicates the existence of sufficiently rigorous global macroevolutionary regularities (describing the evolution of complexity on our planet for a few billion of years), which can be surprisingly accurately described by extremely simple mathematical functions. At the same time it is demonstrated that in the region of the singularity point there is no reason, after Kurzweil, to expect an unprecedented (many orders of magnitude) acceleration of the rates of technological development. There are more grounds for interpreting this point as an indication of an inflection point, after which the pace of global evolution will begin to slow down systematically in the long term.

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“…Именно через этот сингулярный период мы сейчас и проходим. Процессы и механизмы данного разворота трендов к настоящему времени очень тщательно изучены 36 и известны как «глобальный демографический переход» (Капица 1999Подлазов 2001Романчук, Медведева 2009;Коротаев 2015;Kapitza 2003Kapitza , 2006Kapitza , 2010Korotayev, Goldstone, Zinkina 2015;Podlazov 2017 (6) Таким образом, если численность населения Земли растет по закону N = C 2 /t*-t (14), то темпы роста его числнности будут меняться по совсем другому закону: Как мы видим, численность населения Земли (N) росла (до начала 1970-х гг.) по простому гиперболическому закону (N t = C/t* -t), а планетарная сложность увеличивалась по логарифмически-гиперболическому закону (n t = const -C•ln(t*-t)).…”

Section: к интерпретации сингулярности место сингулярности в большойunclassified

Сингулярность XXI Века В Контексте Большой Истории: Математический Анализ

Коротаев¹,

системного²

2018

JBH

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A theory of the global demographic process

Cited by 24 publications

References 2 publications

Rise of the War Machines: Charting the Evolution of Military Technologies from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution

Rise of the War Machines: Charting the Evolution of Military Technologies from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution

The 21st Century Singularity and its Big History Implications: A re-analysis

Сингулярность XXI Века В Контексте Большой Истории: Математический Анализ

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