The subject intrigues me and sends me in a lot of different directions.

The James Burke series “Connections” and it’s spawn resonated with me because that has always been the way I think. The whole of human behavior, and the progress of man through the ages, is a constant pattern of behavior- of reaction to forces, of utilization of resources. A non-vicious infinite regression.

If we look at a map of the united states, you can see that the oldest cities are on water. Newport News. New York. Hampton VA. St Augustine. Quincy. Civilization began to spread from those places in North America. The next oldest cities follow inland rivers and lakes. After that, railroads. A great deal- if not all- of the west was settled a whistlestop at a time. Finally, the automobile allowed us to have jobs more than an hours walk or horse ride from our homes, and allowed manufacturers to establish facilities away from water and rail, but by the new highways that sprang up all across the land.

At each change in the path of civilization there has been a pressure that caused the change. The raw materials to make clothing existed in some pretty specific places, and at first the manufacturing was small and centered in cotton rich areas. Then riverboats started shipping cotton from fields in the south to large manufacturing favcilities in the north. The raw materials to make iron and steel existed in some pretty specific places all around the nation, and at first, manufacturing centered on those places- but soon enough, the rails brought raw materials to centralized manufacturing facilities in Pittsburgh and Gary.

People can see those forces and react to them. A guy named Bugsy Siegel took a whistlestop in the desert for servicemen and turned it into a huge machine for separating people from their cash, and it is the most efficient machine of it’s type on earth.

The actions of individuals is difficult to predict (well, some individuals are easier) but the actions of people en masse are remarkably quantifiable. hell, Wal-Mart is based on the concept of carefully recording consumer activity and using past data to predict future activity, and they’re remarkably accurate in their predictions. That business model has been followed by convenience stores, auto parts stores, stockbrokers, TV executives, and truck farmers for the whole of human history, in one form or another. You look at what people seem to want to by, and you figure out a way to get/make/grow more of it. If you’re smart you’ll make yours bigger/better/nicer/cheaper than anyone elses.

The more sophisticated civilization becomes, the more sophisticated this process becomes.

Technology is often the engine that drives the patterns of human behavior. Like the stern wheeler, the steam engine, the automobile. Sometimes, though, it’s communication (which is, of course, a technology all it’s own.)

If you were to look at fashion, for instance, in the mid 1800’s, you’d find that certain things happened on the east coast, and as people- and newspapers- travelled west, the people out west wanted the new, fashionable things from New York. So the fashions appeared, their existence was communicated, the people out west wanted to emulate the noo-yawkers, and they ordered clothes, drapes, furniture.

Someone saw a need for this and started printing catalogs. Richard Sears started by selling watches but discovered he could make a pretty good living bringing the same fashions and consumer goods to the whole country at once. Certainly there were still people who sought the latest and greatest from New York or Paris, but the arrival of the Sears catalog in the home meant that everyone could have the latest and greatest (at least as seen by Sears) at the same time. And wipe their butts, too. None of this is possible without cheap pulpwood paper, and fast cheap printing, and the mail runs that deliver mail by train, car, boat.

This is just a little snapshot. The big picture, is of course a whole lot bigger. Think of the changes that have been made in the business of communication, for instance, just in the last twenty years. And all of those technology driven changes have had their effect on politics, on science, on literature, on agriculture, on the way people live their lives.

The technology has become so pervasive that people have utterly ignored it’s existence- The designer using his computer to flesh out the new line of sofas or the newest home designs thinks he alone is responsible for his work, but the technology that allows him to do his job has changed the process from weeks to hours. before that, the invention and development of mechanical drafting had the same effect.

The technology that allows me to type this post is almost invisible to me. The tech that allows thousands of people to read it (were I that lucky) is utterly invisible to me. it has become so invisible that people forget it even exists (until it breaks, god forbid)

This is true not just of computers and cars and trains but of the science it took to develop the blood pressure medicine I take every day, the education of the surgeon required to pull the samaged cartilage from my knee, the pills I give my cat to correct his slightly overactive thyroid.

Again, this is a snapshot- but try to think of a human activity that is possible without science, without engineering, without the work of people who show up and get oil or dirt or ink or blood on their hands.

Procreation is about it, I think. Death.

So I look at human behavior, see the patterns it takes, and I understand that the engine of that behavior is human ambition, or greed, or whatever– but that the patterns themselves are shaped by the availability of the technology, or science, required to make the changes the individuals- or societies- desire. Without the technology of the computer, or the printing press before it, it is impossible to effectively communicate an idea to more than one person at a time, and tha’ts just the communication of the idea. Without science, the implementation of any idea is impossible.

The sciences, the disciplines, those are responsible for the differences between humans and apes. We can look at that as an evolutionary trait, or as the Divine Gift. One way or another, it’s what brought us out of the caves and trees and made us human.