Infinity Inklings #14
The accelerating speed of technological change
This past week, millions in India and around the world celebrated Diwali, the festival of light and a celebration of good over evil. National Geographic’s Amy McKeever encapsulates the essence of the festival when she says that “the spirit of Diwali is universal — the belief that, eventually, light will triumph over darkness.”
In this spirit, I wish you a happy (belated) Diwali! May this year be filled with love, laughter, and prosperity, and, as I write from a rainy, gloomy London, may it bring a much-needed burst of light into our lives.
Handpicked Reads
The tiny nation of Guyana has struck black gold, becoming the world’s fastest-growing economy, and propelling it to the forefront of an international oil ‘arms race’. With the discovery of the Stabroek block by ExxonMobil in 2015, the nation has witnessed an economic transformation, with supermarkets boasting prime Texas rib-eyes, and Exxon’s presence becoming ubiquitous — they are sponsoring the national cricket team and building a new stadium, for example. Yet, this rush for riches is not without tension; a longstanding territorial dispute with Venezuela looms over the oil-rich waters, and the population grapples with the paradox of Exxon’s economic injection versus sovereignty concerns. While global demands for greener energy rises, it’ll be interesting to see how the nation balances between seizing an unprecedented opportunity and tackling climate change. For now, Guyana’s vice-president Bharrat Jagdeo remains steadfast, telling The Wall Street Journal that the country “needs money from the oil and gas sector to climate-proof our country and adapt to climate change,” and “I’m at peace with my philosophy and conscience.”
In the Financial Times, Ramachandra Guha offers an insightful analysis of India’s leadership in the cricketing world. Being the only unbeaten side in the ongoing World Cup, Guha notes, “my country is now the sole superpower of world cricket, exercising a hegemonic influence over how the sport is played across the globe.” The article traces India’s journey from an enthusiastic adopter to a dominant force in the game, surpassing traditional powerhouses of England and Australia. But, notes Guha, there’s been a significant shift in cricket’s governance under Prime Minister Modi, where the sport has become a symbol for national pride and a tool to hold political sway, with the sport’s administrative leaders often being political appointees from Modi’s party. It’s no secret that a World Cup win on Sunday will play to Modi’s advantage in next year’s elections.
To end on the theme of Diwali, read chef and food journalist Romy Gill’s memories of the festival in Condé Nast Traveller — apart from other things, she highlights how food, as with any other Indian festival, is central to the celebrations. Another plug is a piece I wrote last year on how the festival is deeply rooted in ancient gratitude for nature and how it should teach us to reimagine our relationship with the environment. This return to the anthropocosmic perspective, recognizing the sacredness of the natural world is a sharp contrast to the exploitative anthropocentric mindset fostered by the modern quest for unabashed scientific progress. As the climate crisis escalates, origins of festivals like Diwali remind us that there’s an argument for a spiritual revolution to complement technological solutions, rekindling a reverence for Earth to ensure a sustainable future.
(Not-So) In-Depth Reflections
In 2001, futurist Ray Kurzweil wrote an article arguing that humans found it hard to understand the accelerating speed of change. History showed that “contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view,” he said, “we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).” It’s this very concept that Max Roser has captured with stunning clarity in his visualization for Our World in Data (see below), unspooling the timeline of technology to illustrate this accelerating change.
In the distant past, technological change occurred over such vast swathes of time that generations of humans lived and died without witnessing much change in their tools or ways of living. The wheel, fire, the invention of agriculture, and the printing press — these were groundbreaking advancements that set humanity on a new course, yet they were spaced thousands of years apart.
Contrast this with the last two centuries, where change has been anything but gradual. The pace has been so swift that technologies once confined to the realms of science fiction during one’s childhood have become everyday commodities by adulthood. The mobile phone, the touch screen, a computer that could access and retrieve information (sounds familiar to Google?) — were all fantasy visions on ‘Star Trek’ mere years before they became a reality.
This change is mirrored in my own family’s journey — the shared mobile phone my parents got in 2005, a classic Nokia 3310, has now transformed into the latest iPhone and a lifeline for our cross-border connectivity, a simplicity and privilege unheard of when my father was a postgrad sending letters and telegrams from New York in the early 1990s.
I still recall the era of dial-up internet, a fixture until my high school days with its peculiar beep boop (for those who remember and want a kick of nostalgia, check this video; for those who have no idea what I’m talking about — hello, Gen Z! — well, you prove the point that tech advancement is accelerating at an unprecedented rate).
For my grandparents in India to be able to speak to us in the Middle East, they’d have to trek a couple of blocks to a public payphone. Now, I can effortlessly make video calls and share my thoughts worldwide, for free, through this newsletter. Oh, and India is the country with the third cheapest mobile internet in the world, with 1 gigabyte of data costing a fifth of what it does here in the UK.
What’s even more shocking is that my grandparents were born just a couple decades after the Wright Brothers’ inaugural flight, and in the 1960s, when my parents were born, India was just beginning to get an electricity grid on a regional, state-based level. And here I am, merely a generation or two later, taking the luxury of electricity, smartphones, and air travel as a given — a staggering testament to the rapidity of technological evolution.
The transformation from payphones to smartphones isn’t just about convenience; it’s about the shrinking of our world into a global village (or ‘one family’ as the G20 theme of ‘वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्’ affirms). Technological change has without doubt brought progress — it has democratized access to knowledge, fostered innovation and bridged educational divides. The affordability of mobile internet in India, for example, represents an unprecedented opportunity for millions and a chance for the most populous country to benefit from its demographic dividend. But all this isn’t without its challenges, for there’s another trend to consider: “Technology has become increasingly powerful.”
What this rapid pace shows is that we’re at an inflection point in ensuring we can navigate this acceleration responsibly. Roser’s timeline not only highlights the brilliance of human innovation, but it also underscores the need for foresight and wisdom in steering the course of our future.
In this vein, he advocates for a collective effort to understand the political implications of technological control, asserting, “which technologies are controlled by whom is one of the most important political questions of our time.” I couldn’t agree more — we collectively need to realize that we are the architects of the technological advancements our children and grandchildren will inherit; we can’t do so responsibly if we don’t grasp the pace of change or aren’t part of the conversation.
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Beautifully penned .
You are my inspiration to write ✍.
Love ❤