In my 17 November blog on the TV series Mindhunter, I made a casual remark that kept me thinking afterwards: “the background music already suggests an accelerating society.” The relationship between technology, music and society is a difficult but intriguing one, especially because they are characterized by waves.
The Technological Revolution of 1800-2100 is characterised by three major waves:
- 1800-1900: Mechanization which includes the Industrial Revolution (1760-1820/40);
- 1900-2000: Automation: computer (1938 onwards), personal computer (1946 onwards);
- 2000-2100: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for care, domestic, industry, sex, warfare.
The history of music has seen three major waves so far:
- the classic composers of the 19th century, like Beethoven (1770-1827);
- introduction of electromechanical instruments, like electric guitars (1931);
- introduction of “instruments that artificially produce sound using analog or digital circuits and microchips”, like the Moog synthesizer (late 1960s). This 3rd wave is being renewed right now: AI-composed pop songs (eg, Futurism-2017, Quartz-2016, Verge-2016).
Main events in societies often relate to the 7 Belief systems, and its Love, Knowledge & Power domains. Wars or military conflicts are the main struggles in the Power domain: French invasion of Russia (1812), WW1 (1914-1918) and WW2 (1939-1945) and many, many others.
An overview of the main events in the Power domain since 1800:
- events related to Money: Great Depression (1929-1941);
- events related to Politics: rise and fall of communism in Soviet Union (1922-1991);
- events related to Religion: Islamic terrorism (late 1960s – onwards).
An overview of the main events in the Knowledge domain since 1800:
- events related to Philosophy: scientific racism, white people, White Supremacy;
- events related to Science: atomic bombings (1945), medicine (eg, Pasteur, Fleming);
- events related to the Truth: global use of fake news / disinformation (21st century).
Love, the 3rd domain and 7th Belief system, also had an impact on societies through declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, disintegrating family life (eg, urbanisation), single households, nursing home-care for elderly people, dating by technology (eg, Tinder app), same-sex marriage.
Society at large also had several major waves:
- Urbanisation (ever since at least 1st millennium BCE);
- Technological Revolution of 1800-2100, my 2015 blog;
- Globalization (19th century onwards);
- Secularization (20th century onwards).
“Everything goes in waves. Evolution goes in waves. The ocean goes in waves. Energy goes in waves. Sound travels in waves.”
A quote by Edgar Ramirez (b. 1977)
Waves (2013) by Mr. Probz
artist, IMDb, lyrics, video, Wiki-artist, Wiki-song
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless in quotes or stated otherwise.
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