The technology behind SD development

[Carl-Richard]

When you look at human history and the advent of different SD stages on a collective level, there seems to be a technological component that ignites the transition between the stages. I've found some examples that I think are useful, but I'll need help with some of the stages, especially the later ones (blue and up).

Technology, as it is expressed in society, are collective external tools that serve to increase the effectiveness of the utilization of resources (both external and internal) and are an extension of the collective mind (Wilber: collective mind - "we"; technology - "its").

 

As minds evolve, technology evolves and utilization of resources evolves (and minds require resources). This creates a positive feedback loop (growth causing more growth). Each new technology provides its own contribution to this feedback loop. This is what creates the exponential growth of the human population, cultural sophistication and technology itself. The level of complexity of the technology available and the minds who made it is connected, hence it's relevant to the historical origin of value systems.

So which kinds of technology are associated with the transitional phases of each SD stage? Some of it will hopefully be answered here.

The start and end dates (e.g. "300-150 years ago") signify the period of time between the early phases of each stage (e.g. early-Orange to early-Green). A common feature of each technology is that it helps "maxing out" the previous stage:

 

Beige to Purple (125 000 - 50 000 years ago) – The controlled use of fire:

Quote

Evidence of widespread control of fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans

Contribution: increased access to nutrients (maxing out primal survival, freeing up the mind's capacities to create myths, culture, ritual and more sophisticated survival strategies that get passed down from generation to generation).

 

Purple to Red (50 000 - 10 000 years ago) – Agriculture (the plow and farm animals):

Quote

Agriculture is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep, and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture

Contribution: the plow, plant crops and farm animals (both as food and labor) act as a lever on the food supply, effectively freeing up labor, lending it to territorial expansion and tribal warfare; the rise of male power-Gods and imperialism, decline of female, animal and naturalistic tribal Gods, the origin of various dichotomies like the man against nature, man over animals, man over women etc.

 

Red to Blue (10 000 - 5 000 years ago) – Urban architecture (Temples, churches, political infrastructure), the wheel:

As sedentary settlements grew in size, the need for social cohesion and order also grew.

Contribution: External expression of order and transcendent purpose (religion, law). If you want to unite large populations under a common value system, you need to do it through proportional physical means.

 

Blue to Orange (5000 - 300 years ago) – The printing press (?):

Quote

In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto-nationalism, and accelerated the development of European vernacular languages, to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca. In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press

Contribution: maxes out transcendent purpose (nationalism), increases societal information flow, education and democratization of religion and written knowledge. The monopoly on holy texts and scientific knowledge fell out of the hands of the Church. Martin Luther capitalized on this and initiated the Reformation which lead to the spread of Protestantism and the protestant work ethic, a pre-cursor to capitalism.

 

Orange to Green (300-150 years ago) – The Industrial Revolution, birth control, commercial air travel (?):

Contribution:

- women's rights (fight for workplace equality and reproductive control) and worker rights. The tractor allows women to do previously male-dominated jobs that require upper-body strength (e.g. plowing the fields).

- environmental awareness (depletion of natural resources, increased pollution, damage to ecosystems).

- global connectivity (multiculturalism, pluralism, diversity).

 

Green to Yellow (150 - 50 years ago) – The Internet (?):

Contribution:

Increased global information flow.

 

Like I said, I need some help adding more examples. Appreciate any ideas  

[Rilles]

Love this!

I think cheap airplane travel also contributed alot to Green/Yellow.

[Carl-Richard]

34 minutes ago, Rilles said:

I think cheap airplane travel also contributed alot to Green/Yellow.

Yeah. Seems like Green/Yellow technology has a lot to do with increased information flow or global connectivity. I think Wilber agrees : 

[DocWatts]

Marx was aware of this as well, though his take on modes of production as the driving force behind historical change was more Reductionist than Ken Wilber's holistic model.

It's interesting to notice how different modes of production naturally lend themselves to different types of social and political organization.

Beige and Purple are an outgrowth of hunter gatherer and horticulturalist survival bands, where social organization is face to face and non-depersonalized. Intimate knowledge of one's ecological environment, which plants are edible or useful, can be considered a technology at this stage every bit as much as fire or hand tools.

The agricultural mode of production brought with it changes to social organization which resulted in changes in the collective interior as societies grew too large to operate on an interpersonal, face to face basis. Survival conditions are such that we begin to see the rise of dominator hierarchies and social stratification. This mode of production also necessitates the shift from a spirit haunted world to more distant power gods who are to be pleased with and appeased.

The mercantile system which emerged as agrarian societies grew larger and began to operate on a basis other than pure 'might makes right' dominator hierarchies also brought with it changes to the collective unconscious. Here societies are characterized by a shared mythology (usually religion) which serves the sociological purpose of allowing large societies to operate on something other than raw power Dynamics. The mercantilist mode of production allows for the specialization of labor in to professions on a wide scale basis, setting the stage for the emergence of industrialization.

Will get to the Industrial and  Post Industrial stages later to keep this post from turning in to a giant wall of text

Edited November 13, 2021 by DocWatts

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Will get to the Industrial and  Post Industrial stages later to keep this post from turning in to a giant wall of text

Nooo keep going please!  I initially tried to somewhat make a distinction between technology (as in singular technological gadgets like the plow) and social systems (while excluding examples of the latter), but that seems futile. After all, what is technology without people?  For example, agriculture is what happens when a group of people utilize a collection of gadgets (e.g. the plow) and techniques/behaviors (plowing the field, planting, harvesting), a.k.a systems of behavior in a society, a.k.a social systems. They're both in the same quadrant for a reason

[Rilles]

You forgot the wheel, dude! Most important invention ever made! Seems to located around Purple/Red.

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Rilles

[Carl-Richard]

17 minutes ago, Rilles said:

You forgot the wheel, dude! Most important invention ever made! Seems to located around Purple/Red.

Nice! Good for a developing empire.

[DocWatts]

7 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Nooo keep going please!  I initially tried to somewhat make a distinction between technology (as in singular technological gadgets like the plow) and social systems (while excluding examples of the latter), but that seems futile. After all, what is technology without people?  For example, agriculture is what happens when a group of people utilize a collection of gadgets (e.g. the plow) and techniques/behaviors (plowing the field, planting, harvesting), a.k.a systems of behavior in a society, a.k.a social systems. They're both in the same quadrant for a reason

Yeah in my mind modes of production and thier relation to social systems, which then give rise to shifts in value systems, is a more useful application of the four quadrants model. Technologies don't rise in a vacuum after all, they're always going to be situated in a survival context.

Something like the widespread adoption of agriculture and the associated gestalt shift that it brought wasn't an conscious decision to switch lifestyles; rather it was a response to shifting survival needs and adopted out of necessity rather than as a deliberate choice. (Indeed, an agriculturalist's day to day life is much more laborious than that of a hunter gatherer).

As for SD-Orange, the seeds of Industrialization were sown by the scientific method which was developed by an Aristocratic elite freed from day to day Survival concerns thanks to the stability of a State. The competitive advantage to be gained by applying the scientific method to modes of production is of obvious utility for syndicates and nation states in competition with one another. As the first world-centric Stage, it's no surprise that it emerges amongst a background of commerce and trade (though military conflict and imperialism are also used as part of this competition).

Of course Industrialization is a double edged sword, unleashing both the productive capacity of mankind as well as a charnel house of horrors (both of which are emphasized in Marx's critiques of capitalism, Marxism itself being a thoroughly Orange ideology).

The 'Post-Industrial' economies that characterize SD-Green societies (or the Social Democracies which are the closest to having a Green center of gravity) are only post-industrial in the sense that they rely on less developed countries for raw materials and basic consumer goods, in a sense 'exporting' things like sweatshops and child labor from thier own populations to poorer countries.

While a portion of thier population has transitioned to a knowledge and information based economy, the material basis of these societies is still reliant on the modes of production pionered from Orange, even if the worst aspects of Orange have been exported off-shore.

As far as Green modes of production, one would expect them to be non- exploitative and grounded in ecological sustainability. While these sorts of businesses do of course exist in the form of things like worker co-ops and Fair Trade syndicates, they're far from the majority in any society on Earth.

Edited November 14, 2021 by DocWatts

[supremeyingyang]

One can find categories of technologies on a higher order thus reducing complexity.

1. Vehicles of transportation: wheels, horses, trains, cars, plains (don't forget about routes)

2. Information: sign & spoken language, written language, books, printing press, telegraph, radio, computer, tv, internet

3. Spezialization: from little division of labor to large divison of labor

...