2100.org

THE YEAR 2100 AND THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION

Today, I would like to present an analysis of sociological-technological interaction. After a brief historical overview of the question, I propose to consider the next century and to make some pronouncements on our society's capacity to innovate.

Astronauts, thanks to their visit into outer space are among those living human beings who have taken a step back. When they return from space they tell us two things : First of all, life on earth, seen from outer space, appears to be a very fragile (this may explain why many astronauts, upon returning to earth, have been transformed into ecologists). Secondly, they say that frontiers are not visible from space

..except for the great Chinese Wall which is no more a frontier.

We are now going into the third millennium . I invite you to take a look at the second millennium, a period of one thousand years, It is interesting to ask ourselves WHY events occured the way they did?

By year 1000, Western countries were not ahead in technology. At that time, the most creative were the chinese. They invented gunpowder, paper, printing, the rudder and various navigation instruments. They appeared as potential leaders for the coming millenium. Anyhow, the first global change of technology and society occured in Europe.

During the twelfth century, the first companies were created. We tend to think that Capitalism was born in the Renaissance. No, in the twelfth century, the water mills of Toulouse were shareholding companies. There was a market for such a commodity.

Then, we saw the replacement of forests by agriculture. In Brittany (France) for instance, 75% of the forests were replaced by agriculture because of the use or iron for ploughs and other types of agricultural equipment. These instruments were not invented at that time, but some 5 centuries before. They were in fact the application of previous inventions. What happened was that iron was a material dedicated to military uses. When the feudal lords left for the crusades just before 1100, iron began to be used for agricultural purposes. Those responsible for managing the estates in the absence of the feudal lords, had a completely different way of looking at life. They became the "new ruling class" in the absence of the official ruling class.

The remaining part of the ruling class, the Church and the monks, were suddenly placed in great financial difficulty. As a result, were developed autonomous monasteries, using the best technology, with the first rational selection of seeds and animals thanks to capitalization of knowledge. The monasteries at that time had a monopoly on the transmission and conservation of knowledge. Through documents copied by monks, transmission was slow but important enough to capitalise on the resulting crops from which were chosen the best category of seeds to be sown for the next season. This phenomenon was contagious because when monasteries were set up in a location, the peasants working at the monastery, learned about current technology and they reproduced this technology for their own needs.

The result was a complete change in rural know how and a doubling of the population in just two centuries. This was a significant change for that period in time.

Between 1100 and 1300, Europe's population thus increased and became more dense, going from 20 persons per square kilometre to 40 persons per square kilometre. This level was a level of saturation and the population thus became vulnerable. This change generated starvation ; conditions became even more dramatic with the Great Plague of 1348 which killed one third of the European population in just one year. The Plague continued to menace Europe through the 14th century and until the Renaissance. In fact the Renaissance marks the end of population decline in Europe : the population had doubled, reaching a level which was half of that reached in 1300, that is to say the population returned to a level of 20 persons per square kilometre. This is a very important element to consider when observing the link between technological developments and sociological events.

Some periods are open to innovation because of the absence of the ruling class. When saturation occurs, the crystallisation of the institution blocks innovation and there is a decline

that can last, as in this case, two centuries, an enormous period of time. The technical system of the Middle Ages can be described as containing four poles :

During the Renaissance, technology did not change much apart from the fact that Christopher Columbus made his voyage to America. If you look at this map, the "Atlas of Cantino", drawn up in 1502, only 10 years after Columbus' trip, you can see that it provides a means of orientation. Everything has been done to help successors find the routes which maintain the link between the two sides of the Atlantic. As the Arabs held military control of the " silk route " leading to China, the Europeans were in search of another route which would permit them to reach China The purpose of Columbus' trip was, therefore, not to cross the Atlantic but to find another route to China. However, with the discovery of the new Continent, they created a permanent way of passage for exchange and later, as everyone knows, of piracy.