[HN Gopher] Cheap light transformed civilization
___________________________________________________________________
Cheap light transformed civilization
Author : Thevet
Score : 94 points
Date : 2024-10-23 04:21 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bigthink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bigthink.com)
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| >We have forgotten how unrelentingly dark the pre-industrial
| world was.
|
| It's amusing how often these sorts of exposes start off with this
| "the transformation that the world forgot" meme. There are enough
| writers out there who are making ends meet writing boring
| articles for publications like BT instead that, in all honesty,
| not enough time passes from one article to another on the same
| subject that gives enough time to forget. We constantly have to
| be reminded of some absolutely astonishing fact. Perpetually. I
| suppose this defines the 24-hour news cycle as applied to the
| internet.
|
| The actual article itself is empty on juicy content and shills a
| book instead. Skip. Maybe the author forgot what good article
| writing is like, but that fact certainly won't be lost on
| civilization as a whole.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| >There are enough writers out there who are making ends meet
| writing boring articles for publications like BT
|
| There's too many people doing bullshit jobs like this, creating
| useless content, when they should be doing something more
| productive instead, like cleaning public bathrooms or picking
| crops.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes.
|
| It's a poor history of lighting. They missed the incandescent
| lamp mantle, the limelight, and the arc light. That's when
| light output finally got serious. Gas lamps were dim, and
| generated more heat than light. You need more than just a
| flame. You need to get up to incandescence temperature.
|
| The arc light changed cities from dark to bright.[1] Suddenly,
| for the first time in history, major city streets were
| brilliantly lit. If someone had been able to see the earth from
| space, for the first time there would be lights at night.
|
| Arc street lights worked fine. Way too much light for your
| house, of course. Arc lights remain a thing, but today the arc
| is run in xenon or sodium vapor rather than air.
|
| Incandescent lamps came later.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcpS_Vz0BiA
| AdamN wrote:
| Arc lights also enabled fascism in the early 20th century. A
| spectacle like the Cathedral of Light and the new
| technologies used by the Nazi party were transformative in
| terms of mass rallying:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Light
| sriacha wrote:
| Interesting.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| By this logic, cars and industrialization also enabled
| fascism.
| kragen wrote:
| I don't think that's a controversial thesis at all.
|
| The Manifesto of the Futurist Painters specifically cited
| cars and industrialization among its main inspirations,
| and both Mussolini and Hitler largely garnered public
| support from their opposition to Communism. Communism was
| profoundly a response to industrialization. Moreover, the
| kind of state regimentation that was central to
| authoritarianism of all kinds, including Fascism, would
| have been impossible without cars and impossible without
| industrialization.
|
| Fascism without cars or industrialization would have had
| nothing in common with the Fascism we actually got.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| There are many historians that would agree with this.
| Technology availability and adoption is definitely an
| input into the equation determining the types of social
| organization that are possible.
|
| One accessible example is that Federal power in the US
| really took off post-Civil War. Part of this story is
| that the war had greatly expanded the size and power of
| the Federal government, as well as weakening the old
| slaveocracy, but another is that centralized control of a
| territory as vast as the US basically requires telegraphs
| and railroads. Even if there were a political appetite
| for centralization in 1810s America, it just wasn't
| possible except where existing lines of communication
| were already adequate (coastal cities and those on major
| navigable waterways or canals).
| jeltz wrote:
| I think that is less farfetched and something I would
| agree on. I can't really imagine fascism without
| industrialization.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| You can still see arc lights in Austin's "moonlight towers" h
| ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_towers_(Austin%2C_Te..
| .
| 1attice wrote:
| I misread this headline as 'Cheap, Light, Transformed
| Civilization'
| shiroiushi wrote:
| It would be nice if English had a way to distinguish verbs from
| adjectives (and nouns), especially for titles/headlines like
| this.
| Affric wrote:
| It used to be fully inflected (what you want).
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's easier to inflect everything before your lexicon grows
| to 500,000 words. Just saying. In the time that we spent
| writing these comments, English stole-or-invented 15 more
| words, none of them regular enough that their inflection
| could be rule-derived.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Spoken English does by differing where the stress is placed
| in the word. That doesn't make it into written English,
| however.
| myself248 wrote:
| How about we include or omit the commas as a way of
| distinguishing?
| mikestew wrote:
| "Pick two"?
| karlkloss wrote:
| This is something that most movies set in past eras get wrong.
| They always show a bunch of candles in the houses, even in poor
| ones, and a lot of torches outside. No, just no. No poor
| household could afford candles, they used pinewood chips, if they
| could even afford them. And torches were also expensive, and
| lasted only a short time. Even firewood was expensive.
|
| Many movies also show kerosene lamps in eras where they weren't
| even invented. The worst thing I've seen is a korean movie, set
| in the 16th century, showing an Aladdin mantle lamp (without the
| mantle, and grossly misadjusted). Those things were invented in
| the 1920s, and became popular in the 1930s.
|
| Come on, guys. You have internet. Getting it right just consts
| you one Google search.
| jajko wrote:
| Re lamps - whale oil was used, at least in Europe and US, way
| before any kerosene was ever invented. That's why they were
| hunted almost to extinction.
|
| All 18th and 19th novels I recall were mentioning them. Before
| that, honestly don't know and you are probably right. But yes
| poorer went to sleep with sun going down, unless there was
| active fire going on for warmth. Not something poor londoner
| can pay for regularly, but where I come from forests and
| mountains were endless sources of fuel.
| arethuza wrote:
| Whale oil lamps - I suspect those didn't smell too good....
| kragen wrote:
| The article explains this at length.
| mrob wrote:
| Other non-obvious things about historical candles:
|
| Self-trimming candle wicks were invented in 1825. Before that
| people had to regularly trim the wicks of candles (there were
| special scissors made for this) or the candle would produce
| huge quantities of smoke when the exposed wick got too long.
|
| Paraffin wax was invented in 1830. Before that candles were
| made of tallow, which smelled bad and made a lot of smoke, or
| bee's wax, which was very expensive.
| kragen wrote:
| How do self-trimming candle wicks work?
| alnwlsn wrote:
| The wick is wound in such a way so that as more of it is
| exposed, it curls over and burns up, thus stopping it from
| getting too long.
| kragen wrote:
| How do you wind it that way? Are there patents or
| textbooks that explain how to do it? How did you find out
| yourself? Have you been able to do it?
| WaltPurvis wrote:
| Perhaps historical accuracy takes a backseat to the need for
| illumination -- nobody wants to watch a movie with people
| sitting around in a room so dark you can't see what the actors
| are doing or their facial expressions.
| carapace wrote:
| On movie sets the candles and whatnot are props not lighting,
| there are other lights in use to illuminate the set and
| actors.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| It wouldn't be that terribly dark. Lighting technology may
| have been primitive prior to the last 200 years or so, but
| people, being people, don't like sitting around in dark
| places if they can improvise alternatives. I think we get a
| bit fetishistic these days about painting the past as overly
| dark (both metaphorically and, in this case, literally)
|
| Curiously the 2015 horror movie "The Witch", which takes
| place on and around a 17th century New England farming
| community, was supposedly filmed entirely using natural light
| and lighting appropriate to what was available at the time.
| You can see everyone's face and gestures.
| grecy wrote:
| >We have forgotten how unrelentingly dark the pre-industrial
| world was
|
| For anyone that wants to remember, spend time in remote African
| villages. You go to bed when the sun does, and you get up when it
| does. It's really nice, I was better rested after 3 years there
| than ever in my life.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Isn't that around 12 hours of sleeping time that close to the
| equator?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, and I think that's about what people need. The 8 hour
| standard became a thing to support industrial work. 8 hours
| sleep, 12 hours at the factory, 4 hours to eat and get to and
| from work.
| grecy wrote:
| 12 glorious hours, yes
| fudged71 wrote:
| The other thing that I was amazed by in Africa was watching
| hundreds of people walking beside highways in the pitch dark.
| perihelions wrote:
| I don't fully buy the thesis. Human vision is logarithmic; the
| article's central metric of "cost per lumen-hour" isn't a well-
| founded one--it has linear utility implicit in it.
| ndileas wrote:
| You're right about the linearity being flawed, but I think
| there's an important and rescuable construct there. Humans do
| have ranges of illumination where we can easily accomplish
| certain classes of tasks - very few want to tat lace or operate
| heavy machinery by starlight, for example.
| bozhark wrote:
| Also dismissing the 24 hour availability of labor
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| We aren't talking about installing a single light that we pump
| all of the world's energy into, making it ever brighter as we
| drive the cost/benefit further and further into the realm of
| diminishing returns. We are talking about scaling a few common
| "good enough for X activity" lighting setups across billions of
| installations, and that process is very linear.
| hammock wrote:
| So PS40,000 per million-lumen hours = PS0.40 per lux, no?
|
| Today that metric might look 10x better, around 4 cents per lux
| xanderlewis wrote:
| I don't like this automatic editing out of 'how' in titles. It
| just makes it slightly more confusing, especially with the
| unnecessary capitalisation not present in the original.
|
| Cheap Light Transformed Civilisation
|
| How cheap light transformed civilisation
|
| The second sounds like an article; the first sounds like a chant
| you might hear shouted at some kind of protest.
| airstrike wrote:
| FWIW, I disagree, and the poster always has the ability to edit
| the title for a while after submitting, so nothing is lost.
| Also this comes up so often and the feature hasn't been
| modified, which suggests it likely never will, which also makes
| it off topic for this post. A better approach is to write an
| article titled "How HN Editing Titles Makes Them Confusing",
| for example.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| True, but not every poster knows they can edit it, or even
| notices it happening. It just seems like an arbitrary rule
| imposed simply because the word 'how' occurs frequently.
|
| However, I think it's actually more the capitalisation in
| this example that somehow offends me. It took my brain an
| extra few seconds to parse it.
| vundercind wrote:
| The first is a title any time before the explosion of
| clickbait, when everyone started prepending "how" or "why" for
| some reason.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| It's definitely fashion, but how is it 'clickbait'? Adding
| 'how' or 'why' doesn't seem to make one any more likely to
| click.
|
| I'm not sure you're right in thinking that such titles are so
| new; there've been standard wordings for titles since the
| dawn of books. Just think of the number of old treatises
| starting with 'on...' or 'concerning...', for example. Are
| they 'clickbait'?
| vundercind wrote:
| Clickbait is the tradition that made the "how" and "why" so
| standard that we're having a discussion prompted by its
| _feeling_ necessary when it isn't, because that's the
| pattern headlines must have now... popularized by
| clickbait.
|
| The clickbaitiest application of the pattern prepends a
| "how" or "why" and accompanies and article that doesn't
| actually address the how or why, which is why they're
| clickbait titles. This one at least arguably does address
| it, sort-of, even if that's not quite its main focus.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| An opportunity to speak about a resource most people take for
| granted in their daily lives.
|
| This reliance on electrical power leaves us vulnerable to solar
| events, particularly coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These massive
| bursts from the sun can disrupt electrical grids, satellite
| communications, and even the internet, yet many remain unaware of
| the potential consequences of a grid collapse.
|
| The Carrington Event of 1859 serves as a historical warning; it
| caused significant disruptions to telegraph systems, highlighting
| our susceptibility to solar storms. Today, as our technology
| becomes increasingly dependent on electricity, the risks
| associated with a large-scale CME grow. Experts suggest that
| significant solar events occur every 100 years or so, making the
| possibility of another Carrington-like incident a real and
| pressing concern.
|
| Despite this knowledge, many remain oblivious to the implications
| of a potential grid failure. Such an event could lead to
| widespread blackouts, crippling essential services and throwing
| modern society into disarray. Our ability to predict and mitigate
| these solar threats is limited, and the sun's unpredictable
| behavior adds layers of uncertainty.
|
| In an era where attention is scarce, it is critical to focus on
| the serious risks posed by our electrical dependence. The stakes
| are incredibly high--food and water supplies, emergency services,
| and national security could all be compromised by a severe CME.
| Acknowledging our vulnerability to these solar events is
| essential for developing resilience strategies and investing in
| infrastructure that can withstand such threats. Our
| civilization's fate may very well rest in the hands of the sun,
| and we must prepare for that possibility.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Keep in mind that telegraphs were uniquely sensitive to that
| kind of event. Our power distribution lines are the most
| sensitive thing we have today, and yet are much more robust.
|
| Also, distributed generation, like we get with photovoltaics
| only improves the situation.
|
| Anyway, we could still have large scale blackouts and localized
| equipment loss due to those. That's true. We should be able to
| protect ourselves, we know how and it's something perfectly
| practical; besides, we will have about a half-year of warning.
| But it's unclear if we will.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Also, we know how to protect power grids by grounding the
| equipment. My understanding is that grounding is harder than
| just running ground rod, but that it is doable. It is the
| kind of thing that government mandate and some money could
| solve.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| On this case, you protect power lines by insulating them.
| Grounding is exactly what you don't want.
|
| Modern lines are almost insulated enough for it not to be a
| problem. But there's some extra work needed.
| throw0101a wrote:
| No mention of William Nordhaus, who famously did a study/survey
| of this in the 1990s?
|
| * https://lucept.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/william-nordha...
|
| * https://econlife.com/2018/10/the-light-side-of-economic-grow...
|
| * https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38650976
|
| He also co-authored the influential textbook _Economics_ with
| Samuelson, and did important work on the economics of climate
| change:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nordhaus
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_(textbook)
| wazoox wrote:
| Notice that his work on climate change is a terrible bunch of
| crap. Basically, the guy does the basic mistake of confusing
| weather and climate, and his conclusion goes along "most
| productive work in modern economies is done in offices and
| factories not exposed to weather, therefore are impervious to
| climate change". This is beyond belief really. Generally, the
| way mainstream economics treats climate change is just
| shameful.
|
| If you want to learn more check Steve Keen's substack.
| kragen wrote:
| William Kamkwamba's autobiography explains how cheap light from
| his windmill transformed his rural family's life when he built it
| about 20 years ago. This stuff is not strictly a question of
| centuries-ago history.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Essentially giving up on artificial light has been life changing
| for me and my family... all of us used to take melatonin and have
| an awful time falling and staying asleep. Now we let the house go
| dark at sunset, and we all just fall asleep easily.
|
| I think individuals sensitivity to artificial light varies a lot,
| but for many people - including me- it can basically destroy your
| ability to sleep, and as a result your overall health and quality
| of life.
| sriacha wrote:
| How do you do things after dark with no artificial light?
| Especially in winter?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-28 23:02 UTC)