10 Reasons We May Be Entering a Dark Age of Technology

when it comes to technology we are living in an amazing time we have practically instant communication with people all over the globe we can record almost anything with a device that's in our pocket and player back later we have a wealth of high-tech entertainment options transportation is a breeze compared to the days of horses and companies are now looking toward increasingly complex nanotechnology however the truth is that we may soon be reaching the end of this amazing technological age before it could really even get started the environment is getting worse the migrant crisis is a problem all over the world and the way we produce much of our advanced technology is simply unsustainable before long we might just end up taking several drastic steps backward number 10 we are running out of a lot of important metals for making smart phones smart phones were in the early 2000s a novelty that most people didn't have and were just starting to explode onto the scene the battle between Apple and Android had reached a fevered pitch and everyone had an opinion on the matter at the time it was considered the most amazing thing ever and people were enamored with it it was at least one sci-fi dream that was finally fulfilled PDA combined with a phone that could do almost everything you needed and it could fit in your pocket and even act as an entertainment device the world was in love and our relationship with smartphones has been going strong ever since however we have become a bit possessive and a bit obsessive with our love and our desire to constantly upgrade to new and better phones this is causing some environmental consequences now this isn't something about mining destroying the earth but rather the problem is that many of the more advanced bits of your device require rare metals like chromium tungsten and molybdenum these are generally only available to be mined as byproducts according to a study by Yale scientists led by Professor Thomas Gradle of the industrial ecological division of that University we are simply running out of these metals and there really aren't any good alternatives to what they do at this point the only real solution is recycling but the problem is that the industry has dug itself into a hole on that account nearly all the rarer metals we are talking about are used in tiny amounts in already tiny devices and the devices are really not built with the idea of there'd ever be recycled before long smartphones may start becoming more primitive unless someone can make an incredible invention that quickly and efficiently strips away all of the rare materials from an old smartphone and automates the process without any serious environmental impact number 9 technology is becoming increasingly complex and increasingly layered technology has advanced at an incredibly fast pace it wasn't too long ago that Edison and Tesla were stunning everyone at the World's Fair and now we have worldwide internet access smartphones in everyone's pocket and companies racing to make the first fully functioning self-driving car however we may be backing ourselves into a corner from which it will be very hard to get out of the problem is that a lot of technology is now so complex that it requires other advanced technology to make us and that technology has the same problem like an increasingly problematic Russian nesting doll until you reach the end and find one single engineer who only understands one tiny piece of the puzzle as we start to explore nanotechnology the problem only increases the technology requires us to make increasingly complex machines which make increasingly complex machines and our house of cards it becomes increasingly fragile if anything were to majorly disrupt the system such as natural disasters or global unrest it could take decades if ever to get the system back to where it was before the reason is because many of our technologies simply cannot be built from scratch they take layers of complex machines that must first be designed and built to even get to that level in the first place in the ends this could put us in a very tricky position number 8 the amount of people who can make an entire piece of technology is dwindling back in the day you had watchmakers blacksmiths tailors bakers and other tradesmen making up the world's people tended to specialize they could do one thing very well and they could do it comprehensively on their own it actually paid off to specialize and the world functioned just fine with people often bartering their skills if needed instead of just straight-up trading money however today people who specialize in one stand alone profession especially in the fields of anything where something is made or designed are dwindling greatly now there are people who are engineers or workers designers accompanies that these people are only working on a small piece of a puzzle and don't have the authority or the capability and resources to do one entire thing on their own the reason why you won't see a single inventor listed on a modern piece of technology is because it usually takes a team of hundreds of people to make such technology and of course each of these people only understands a very smaller part of the overall invention this could be a serious problem if any kind of global disruption or disruption of infrastructure and stored knowledge occurred without all of our stored data and all of our current infrastructure we could assemble huge teams of people try to fill gaps in knowledge and still take decades if ever to rebuild and relearn how to make things like smartphones our technology can simply no longer be constructed by a single person number seven some arts are already mostly lost to time and could be lost entirely there are some old analog arts that are slowly vanishing from the face of the earth and this could be to our great detriment later one of the most important ones is the art of making and repairing analog watches digital watches seemed like a pretty great idea but it hasn't really made life particularly better for anyone to be able to read the time a little bit faster in fact it has increased our dependence on electronics and likely on the other metals that we are slowly running out of the reality is it's just another convenience of the modern age that is simply there to make us feel more advanced when really we're not doing anything that hasn't been done before regardless due to people's desire to shave a fraction of a second off their busy schedule by removing the need to wear a proper watch the art is slowly dying from the face of the earth this could be very unfortunate as if the world faces natural disasters and other calamities and does face resource crises we are likely going to find ourselves in need of analog devices once again at this point losing the knowledge of watchmaking which was built up over centuries and is a very precise and complex art would be a big blow to humanity am I not sound as important as it is as it is something we take for granted every day but being able to keep people mostly in sync in terms of time made the world move and expand and we would all have no chance of such feats without that ability number six data is stored in ways that may one day be entirely irretrievable one of the greatest losses in history still grieved by many today was the loss of the Library of Alexandria this event still resonates with many people who are not only saddened by the loss but fear the possibility that one day all on most of the knowledge we have worked so hard to build up could be destroyed and we could lose an incredible amounts of our progress books and Scrolls stone tablets and other ways that knowledge has been passed down through the ages or can fairly easily degrade and much knowledge has been lost permanently for that reason much of the world's knowledge is now stored in some digital format or another not only can these formats also degrade over a long time like any storage method the bigger worry is that accessing them is going to be a problem in the future if some kind of natural disaster were to render us incapable of producing more computers for whatever reason we could lose the ability to access all the flash storage and servers and other physical hard media that now contains the bulk of the world's knowledge ironically to make matters worse all the knowledge and steps needed to make computers or devices that could access the information would be stored on the very computers that we're trying to access number five if the environment continues to worsen a lot of infrastructure will be destroyed the environment has gotten a lot worse recently whether you believe this was caused by irresponsible actions by human beings as part of a natural cycle or some combination of the two at this point it's really hard to ignore the fact that the weather is getting worse hurricane seasons especially have been horrific and have already knocked out a lot of power infrastructure now some places are able to get it back quickly but for others it's more of a challenge Puerto Rico lost power four months after they were hit by a hurricane four places that are near an island or a coast they may seem find themselves dealing with this issue year after year and finding it difficult to maintain advanced technology on any regular basis constantly repairing electrical infrastructure may become too expensive and those who decide to stay on islands or areas too near the coastlines may be forced to come up with other solutions for taking care of their daily needs or provide themselves with their own primitive solar power as the environment worsens all around the globe self-contained power systems may become much more popular and much more important it is much easier when extreme weather keeps it in your region to keep your ownself contains primitive power system than it is to rely on a widespread now serving countless people that can easily be disrupted number four we may have to rediscover more primitive technologies from the recent past as the climate continues to threaten us all resources are becoming more restricted and we have to focus our energy more on survival we may have to scale back entirely from devices like smartphones and rediscover technologies of the past the Telegraph as well as analog watches would once again be extremely important Radio would be way more important than those too and likely would be the primary means of home entertainment ham radio enthusiasts and people just looking to communicate could use the devices to contact each other from a distance and make plans or share and communicate information in an emergency now in terms of transportation it is unlikely we would start to use horses again many post-apocalyptic movies depict people using horses but it's pretty impractical in our modern age we have bicycles and that's an analogue technology we could easily reproduce if needed there are also countless old bikes and bike parts that could be repurposed animals they're costly especially when resources are scarce but bikes require little to no maintenance and especially multi gear bikes can take you a long distance rather quickly and with relatively little effort number three global trade could be very easily and very quickly disrupted by environmental disaster as of right now the countries of the world are already at one of the most divided places they have been since the world wars in fact in some ways it may even be worse many allies are even showing great tension with each other and global cooperation is low the United States has backed out of several international agreements the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union and there is little comity currently between the EU and the current United States leadership with the migrant crisis ongoing around the globe and the environment worsening many countries are becoming increasingly insular and forgetting their once proud commitment to helping others in need many simply feel too taxed already by the ongoing crises to make matters worse the world is already becoming embroiled in a trade war which is somehow even affecting our own allies and is already showing the beginnings of deep disruptions in global trade stability if such a trade war is protracted along with the climate wiping out various crops or industries one year or another an era of unprecedented cooperation could come to a halt far faster than many expects the increasingly worsening weather also makes it harder for quick and speedy shipping of any goods which only makes the situation more of a quagmire right now countries around the globe are looking at things from more of every-man-for-himself perspective which is the perfect way to quickly put an end to International Cooperation number two satellite damage could further weaken our ability to communicate and learn today we rely on satellites for an incredible amount of our communications infrastructure and this may put us all in a very dangerous position well it does allow us to have global positioning that navigating our cars or airplanes and it allows for easy communication around the globe it is a very fragile technology back in 1978 a scientist who worked for NASA named Donald J Kessler came up with a theory sometimes called the Kessler syndrome and sometimes the Kessler effect the theory is that as we continually put more and more satellites and other objects into space and their orbits decay they will start to smack into each other as they do they will break up into smaller pieces and then do the same thing over and over again these pieces will be incredibly damaging do anything they hits even at small size and if enough of a chain reaction where to start we could lose a huge amount of our satellite infrastructure in a relatively short span of time if this were to happen we could lose an incredible amount of communication overnight and we may need to start learning to read directions and street signs to properly move around again to make matters worse while there is a backup to communicate with the internet across the pond it involves huge cables under the ocean if sabotage of some kind were to occur or an environmental disaster happened countries could find themselves completely cut off from each other if we weren't able to repair this in time we might find ourselves having to go back to old fashions methods of communication number one people could be more concerned with resources in the near future than technology as we mentioned the world is already entering into an ugly trade war that has no real end in sight and could cause incredible damage to countless lives and businesses before it is over this trade war is partly a result of the ongoing crisis around the world's due to the climate changing resource issues and people trying to migrate to a better part of the world in a way these people bar all humans and we all sort of belong here on this one earth many of these countries are actually not cruelly rejecting these immigrants anyway and have put together systems to help migrants but simply feel they are struggling to keep helping new people that you've led to their borders as countries become increasingly focused on simply staying afloat and taking care of those they do feel they can afford to allow into their borders there will be less and less focused on the more luxurious and fancy technology having something displayed on the shiniest screen is not the most important detail in the world when you are worrying about your next meal the truth is that our technological expansion may be at an end soon one way or another even if we have the capability to continue our focus may soon be going to a different direction and we will find innovation of the high-tech variety stalled at the very least so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and don't forget to subscribe brand new videos just like this every day of the week also if you leave with something else to watch right now why not check out some other videos linked to on the screen now and as always thank you for watching

Channel: TopTenz

Views: 577,485

Rating: 4.4742975 out of 5

Keywords: top 10, toptenz, top10, top ten, top 10 list, Dark Age of Technology, Running Out Of A Lot Of Important Metals, Technology, The Environment Continues To Worsen, Primitive Technology, Global Trade, Satellite Damage, nanotechnology

Id: uihwQRmBOvg

Length: 14min 2sec (842 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 07 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/CyFus]

All this computer crap has created a time deficit. Its all designed to rob you of your attention right now in the moment and isn't well suited to the long game of actually compiling useful information to teach us of our past and future. I'm sure there are some wild expensive systems out there that can give near perfect accurate knowledge on the fly for decision making but everything we interface with is locked out and gamed to rob us of our attention spans and not actually teach us what we need to know.

[u/bobqjones]

and we can thank the God Emperor of Mankind for guiding us to this point. however, we must prepare for the coming Age of Strife by gathering this tech into an STC database so the knowledge will not be lost when the warp storms come.

[u/txstoploss]

There's another item for the list, besides the resource and skill limitations: The Galileo Purges.

Thoughtcrime is becoming real, and people are losing their livelihoods over opinions. This 'phenomenon' is concentrated in the technical sector. Witness the fate of that Mozilla CEO, and the recent hysteria about the Linux kernel.

The meritocratic, technical and creative "center of gravity" could eventually shift clear off the North American continent, and maybe even out of the Western Hemisphere. And all at a time where, as the video says, creative, skilled people will have to:

Rediscover More “Primitive” Technologies From The Recent Past

Even if the resource problems could somehow be solved, the world could indeed enter a new 'tech' Dark Age, with the intellect forced into hiding by religion just like the first one.

"Religion? But they're all atheists!". Not so fast. A deity isn't required. Religion is a method of population control. Just look at the markers:

1. Revealed 'truths' ("Listen and Believe!")
   
2. A Catechism (the "narrative")
   
3. 'Sins'
   
4. Unbelievers or Heretics aren't just wrong, they're evil.

[u/Jerry_McManus]

Wow! Fantastic no-bullshit presentation of just how fragile our dependence on technology really is. Thanks for posting.

• Climate change and resource depletion are already triggering trade wars and mass migration, with the worst of it yet to come.
• The bulk of the worlds knowledge lost as the computers start to crash for good, ironically taking with them the knowledge to build more computers.
• A forced return to "analog" technologies. Think: radios and bicycles.

The list goes on.

Personally, I love being at the apex of industrial civilization.

With a $200 tablet and a high speed internet connection I can explore the world in VR and it literally feels like I am standing there. The combination of Google Earth, Wikipedia, and Google Street View as seen through the "cardboard VR" experience has got to be the best example, to my mind, of living the high technology dream in the 21st century.

All of the worlds art, history, and culture. Literally right at your fingertips.

Soon, as the world's lights blink out one by one, it will all be gone.

Enjoy it while you can!

[u/[deleted]]

Dead Age of Technology

[u/Hubertus_Hauger]

Well done!

Taking an all round tour at the cracks in the dam of civilisation, where it all can burst. And burst it will ...

[u/txstoploss]

Text version for those who prefer reading to watching.