Historical Lessons from Technological Disruptions: Will the Storm Always Pass?

摘要

The most important lesson from 50, 000 years of technological disruptions is that the storm has always passed. The disruptions have always settled down. There are no cases in which any technological disruption has been permanent and has continued to upset humankind. You have to take a hundred to a thousand year perspective to appreciate that. Do you know what a farrier is or what a wainwright is? The farrier is the horseshoer, The wainwright is the wagon maker. Not one person in a thousand gives a hoot or a Holler about the status of farriers or wainwrights, yet a hundred years ago they were Among the people severely displaced by the invention of the automobile and by the Earlier invention and development of the railroad.