A Real Hockey-Stick Graph
[Posted by Karl]
From The Economist (via AoSHQ and Dr. Mark J. Perry), a population-weighted history of the past two millennia:
Measured in years lived, the present century, which is only ten years old, is already “longer” than the whole of the 17th century. This century has made an even bigger contribution to economic history. Over 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010 ***.
For century after century, the human race remained mired in poverty. Life was nasty, brutish and short. Then an incredible explosion of prosperity. How did it happen?
In Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning around 1500, the West came to dominate the rest of the world because it adopted a system including: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. Yet the explosion comes centuries later. In Bourgeois Dignity, Deirdre N. McCloskey argues the explosion was ignited by a new attitude toward wealth and its creation — one that respected innovation and entrepreneurial drive.
In his column on McCloskey’s book, Rich Lowry notes:
Unfortunately, we have a president of the United States who has been a member his entire adult life of what McCloskey — borrowing from Samuel Taylor Coleridge — calls “the clerisy.” These are the intellectualoids who never lost their instinctual scorn for commercial activity. Can you imagine Barack or Michelle Obama routinely urging college students to contribute to hope and change by entering the innovative economy’s great swirl of creative destruction?
Unfortunately, special interests will always pursue anti-innovation trade and regulatory policies to protect their fiefdoms.
Unfortunately, it’s easier to prop up what’s old than foster what’s new. A few years ago, the Federal Reserve handed out billions upon billions of dollars to practically every large, established firm in America.
The problem may be larger than the clerisy’s antipathy to competition. They want to stifle scientific debate when it suits their politics. They have little regard for property rights. They will stifle medical innovation. They indiscriminately bemoan materialism. They never wanted welfare reform and have been busying themselves rolling it back. All of it done in the name of “progress,” of course.
–Karl
I would suggest that much of the beginnings of the improvement were due to the printing press.
Once you have the free(er) dissemination of ideas, one thing builds on another and before you know it you’ve changed the world.
scrubone (dbb35d) — 9/18/2011 @ 2:58 amGeeze, exactly how difficult would it have been to normalize the 21st century to 100 years, so it could be directly compared to the rest? Interesting subject, bad graph design.
Brett Bellmore (6652c2) — 9/18/2011 @ 6:53 amEverything salient about Obama’s character/worldview/political and racial outlook could be inferred by his actions as a, um, “community organizer” in Chicago housing projects.
Note to Bammy: a housing project is not *supposed* to turn into a “community.” Public housing is supposed to be a temporary aid to people in poor circumstances, until they are secure enough to move on and establish themselves in a *real* community; like rent control, it isn’t supposed to be a stagnant, generations-long, permanent settlement. More than two generations in a housing project and U R DOIN IT RONG.
The fact that Bammy spent his time trying to improve buildings for his permanently-settled “community” instead of encouraging/advising them to (Sam Kinison voice) MOOOVE!!! is the fundamental wrong turn informing his outlook.
d. in c. (6d8a47) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:24 amI can’t make heads or tails of the graph. What information is being displayed and what is the significance of years lived?
ropelight (30a542) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:01 amI think the explanations from Ferguson et al about the West are a little florid, and have a bit of the smell of a just-so story about them. For instance Rome and Byzantium, China, and the medieval Islamic world all had steadily improving science, medicine, advanced trade etc. What did they all have in common that held them back? Ah yes, that’s right, we’d all nearly forgotten about it…
From 1683 until now, the West did not have neighboring swarms of vicious stupid invading barbarians to constantly fight off and/or swamp them and/or ruin them. The Romans had the Goths, the Greeks had the Bulgars, Turks and Arabs, the Arabs in turn had the Mongols, the Chinese had the Mongols and the Manchus. All those civilizations were doing pretty good until someone showed up to wreck everything.
But after the second siege of Vienna the West had pretty much put the Turks to bed, the Russians to the east were onside, and for a few blessed centuries there were no new hordes swarming out of Asia. Oh, and plus the windfall of the New World. That was a nice bonus.
That little party is now over, and the West is fully on schedule to have its bones picked clean by Third World pauper factories and sharp-elbowed Asiatics. The weird thing is that this time an entire prosperous civilization will be wrecked without a shot being fired. Huh.
d. in c. (6d8a47) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:02 amReported to Attackwatch.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:38 amIt wasn’t the printing press so much as the Scientific Method that used cheap printing to disseminate ideas. By the end of the 17th century, science was in full swing. It is no coincidence that the first intellectual property laws (Queen Anne) came into existence at that time.
Allowing innovation to build upon itself via open communication while protecting inventor’s rights to make money on their invention started the ball rolling. The steam era wasn’t far behind.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:07 amAnd it is China’s lack of IP protection that may be the beginning of the end. If things get driven back to trade secrets and innovation is hidden, all the multiplier effects fail. If there is one trade task for the next president, it is to get China to accept intellectual property as being as inviolate as, say, Treasury bonds.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:11 amEducators used to teach this in every high school and college in America, often in history classes like Western Civilization. Too bad they don’t do that anymore.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:22 am#1 and #7:
The real change was the toleration of the printing press. Gutenberg would have been stoned to death in the Middle East and that would have put a stop to the innovation that brought down the Catholic Church.
AZ Bob (aa856e) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:23 amDRJ
I look at that graph and women beginning to gain equal access to the workforce also seems to be a major factor
EricPWJohnson (8a4ca7) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:25 amDon’t buy the graph but whatever.
Point is the Elites have always hated free enterprise b/c it is the very threat to their status.
Always has, always has been.
Bob Turner (8d652e) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:39 amalways will be, sorry.
Bob Turner (8d652e) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:40 amNice graphic of a genepool rotting in situ.
How apropos that the antiChrist is a fool.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:47 amI think at least one commenter has mistaken the 21st century graph for a total, rather than in-progress. Think of it as a decade up against the previous CENTURIES.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 10:02 amKevin,
Yep, but with the massive influx of women into the workforce worldwide in the last 20 years that has to be a major contributor, that and the fall of communism
EricPWJohnson (8a4ca7) — 9/18/2011 @ 10:06 amI don’t really ‘get’ the graph, either. Is “years lived” the method by which it accounts for population growth? And if the overall point is that there was an industrial revolution in the 19th century that led to mass production in the 20th . . . well, duh!
Icy Texan (066874) — 9/18/2011 @ 10:12 amYears lived on the graph represents the total man-years lived in that century, as a percentage of all the man-years lived in history.
As such, it represents both the growth in population and the lengthening of average life span.
Chuck Bartowski (4c6c0c) — 9/18/2011 @ 11:01 amI think it is all due to the womynz. Oh, and the communisms. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And Reagan.
JD (318f81) — 9/18/2011 @ 11:04 am“Years Lived“…
I beieve that it represents a percentage of the total man-years lived in each century since the start of the graft, which accounts for the increases in longevity in the last 200 years that have dramatically improved the wealth of society, since everyone is able to live longer and attain more.
Comment by d. in c. — 9/18/2011 @ 7:24 am
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 11:11 amSince when did the Plantation Owners freely educated and release their hands?
NAZI ISLAMOPHOBE!
/Sarcasm off
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 11:20 amIt’s interesting to compare the comments here with the comments at the same post at Hot Air.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 9/18/2011 @ 11:57 amJust imagine how much more economic output we would have in a world without borders and world without fossil fuels. The mind boggles!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:05 pmAlso, it seems to me that the graph illustrates how an explosion of ideas occurred — including things like the printing press and the Scientific method — but I submit they occurred because of the advent of “competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.” Thus, rather than which invention came first, it was the synergy of values that made advances possible at that historical moment. (This website chronicling the timeline of inventions and advances is also fun.)
DRJ (a83b8b) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:08 pmComment by daleyrocks — 9/18/2011 @ 12:05 pm
See graph results for Century 7!
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:24 pmComment by DRJ — 9/18/2011 @ 11:57 am
Isn’t it amazing how powerful and compelling HotAir commenters are on the actions of political candidates?
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:29 pmI dunno what’s going on in comment #20 but those are not my words, the quote has naught to do with me. I’m not even sure what it means, frankly.
#22 DRJ — Exactly how and why is it interesting? What are you getting at? (asked in all honesty, I really can’t tell…)
d. in c. (ac417f) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:30 pm“…The fact that Bammy spent his time trying to improve buildings for his permanently-settled “community” instead of encouraging/advising them to (Sam Kinison voice) MOOOVE!!! is the fundamental wrong turn informing his outlook.”
d.in c. @ 12:30 pm, that is what I was responding to.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:38 pmIt was all about keeping a dependent class “on the plantation”, and not empowering anyone;
which would neccessarily imply that you were trying to improve their lives so that they could ultimately leave the “plantation”;
ie, public housing.
d. in c.,
It’s just interesting to me to compare the same essay posted at 2 fairly similar websites. Both sets of commenters (myself included) were initially unclear how the graph was generated and what it portrays but, after that, the discussions seemed to veer off in very different directions. I think that’s interesting since I had assumed there were many similarities between Hot Air commenters and Patterico commenters. Now I’m curious whether the comments to Karl’s posts always vary like that.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:39 pmI find it discouraging that, except for what seemed like a very brief period at the beginning, HotAir does not allow the registration of new commenters.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 12:41 pmThey must be very comfortable with the captured audience that they have.
I believe the legend title “When history was made” ascribing equal weight to each year of life to all rather silly.
All of the ancients we can name lived into their 70’s and later, deaths in childbirth and during the first year’s of life simply skew the life-span measures.
Beside pasteurization and antibiotics, sterile surgery we now prolong lives with no evident contribution to “history”.
Take Steven Hawking, best known for the theory that black holes evaporate by means of virtual particle tunneling. His only test of the theory’s soundness has failed.
String theorists, the successor to QCD, have yet to produce a single testable prediction in a half-century of work.
In a less wealthy period of human existence, Hawking would have died unremarked, string theorists would have been tradesmen, mercantilists or clergymen–utterly redundant.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 9/18/2011 @ 1:03 pmAnaxagoras is noted in history as one of the citizens Athenians banished from their number for proposing the Sun was a hot rock in the sky, about the size of the Peloponnesus.
I’d say all the string theorists rolled together deserve no more mention.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 9/18/2011 @ 1:22 pmgulrud is correct. String theorists take a smidgen of empirical data and extrapolate it into that scientific Holy Grail: the theory that explains everything. Wish-fulfillment fantasies is a big part of what they do.
Icy Texan (066874) — 9/18/2011 @ 2:06 pmI find it discouraging that, except for what seemed like a very brief period at the beginning, HotAir does not allow the registration of new commenters.
They must be very comfortable with the captured audience that they have.
That would seem to explain the in-bred behavior of many of those who comment.
ColonelHaiku (601b0d) — 9/18/2011 @ 2:13 pm“…All of the ancients we can name lived into their 70′s and later…”
Mostly, we know them because they were known to have “beat the odds” in living so long, and were learned enough to write things down that someone wanted to preserve.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 2:27 pmWhat we don’t know about, at least by name, are the untold millions who led those “nasty, brutal, and short” lives, and died before, during, and briefly after, puberty (adolescence).
We do know that famines, plagues, and seemingly continuous warfare were not the conditions to generate great longevity.
A question for “string theorists”:
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 2:29 pmShould you wind a ball towards, or away, from you?
It depends. Which way do you unroll toilet paper?
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 3:17 pmBTW, this goes well with Hans Rosling’s video on lifespan and wealth.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 3:19 pmThe leftys lie about this just like how they lie and insist the KKK is far-right when they are far-left.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 3:25 pmComment by Kevin M — 9/18/2011 @ 3:17 pm
Well, it depends on which side of the Equator you’re on.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 3:56 pmDems are uncomfortable remembering their para-military/terrorist past.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 3:57 pmAgree that the chart is not explained.
koam @wittier (9730e4) — 9/18/2011 @ 4:31 pmIt is 100% directly related to the King James Bible of 1611. Anywhere God’s Book has been taught, preached and lived in any real capacity (England, Germany and US) it produces real fruit and anywhere the Dark Age text of the Roman Catholic church has been taught like South/Central America,etc.. these places produce the most rotten corrupt fruit anywhere and most of them dont even count as a 3rd world country. Then, England Germany and US in the last 150 years deciceded to dump God’s Book for 250+ Bible versions which ALL come from the Dark Age text and look what happened. Evolution, sodomy, crime rate explosion and more war in the last 150 years than the preceeding 1850 years. This isn’t anyone’s opinion this is scientific observable fact. Jesus Christ died for your sins according to scripture, was buried and rose again the third day according to scripture. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Back to the Bible or back to the jungle and I mean african jungle!
jtb1611 (675d32) — 9/18/2011 @ 5:52 pmWhat do you have against catholics you twat?
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 6:11 pmAll the communist dictators we have now especially their islamic versions are secretly salivating over that bigots remarks.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 6:21 pmThe KKK is neither right nor left, but it is and always has been comprised of registered Democrats.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 6:38 pmDRJ,
The comments often vary between here and HotAir. My expectation was that would be the case, which is why I agreed to cross-post there.
Another Drew – Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks,
HotAir has opened registration from time to time, but it has been a while since the last time.
While I haven’t spoken to Allahpundit about it directly, I would not be surprised to learn that this is related to the fact that it becomes more difficult to moderate comments — especially at times of high emotion like elections — as the commenter pool expands. Again, I don’t know this for a fact, but I have been asked to moderate comments for such occasions,which suggests to me that Ed and AP have a hard time moderating and keeping the site current under those conditions.
Karl (37b303) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:11 pmAh but the good Dr. forgets one major factor in longer life, and that is cleanliness. We no longer have animal excrement in our streets that draws flys. Flys that carry disease. people wash almost daily with the advent of the shower, also the indoor flushable toilets.
Medicine is the biggest improvement, but don’t discount how clean we have made things cutting down on disease. Drinking water thats not harmful, simple things when you think about it.
jainphx (1adca1) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:12 pmBTW, the chart is further explained at The Economist, but the post there is relatively short and did not want to run afoul of fair-use rules.
Also, the source of most of the data is the late Angus Maddison, perhaps the most respected economic historian ever.
Karl (37b303) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:16 pmCertainly, indoor plumbing is the single greatest extender of life expectancy. Well, probably a tie between that and having obstetricians/midwifes wash their hands.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:41 pmI wonder if “death by violence” and/or “death by warfare” (as a percentage of all deaths during a period) isn’t at an all time low.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:47 pmKevin M:
Just for the record, I misread your comments on another thread and I owe you an apology.
Sorry.
Ag80 (9a213d) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:56 pmAw.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 7:58 pmThe left hates big business for the economy going down the toilet but gives Maobama a pass for making the economy worse.
Corporations don’t deserve their wealths.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:08 pmThat is what I get from those namby-pamby protesters.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:09 pm“Certainly, indoor plumbing is the single greatest extender of life expectancy.”
SPQR – Living surrounded by liberals, I try to avoid indoor plumbing whenever possible. I figure the ecotards don’t mind me going green unless they catch, the NIMBY hypocrites.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:47 pmcatch me
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:48 pmDaleyrocks can you believe the lefturds saying abortion critics hate women?
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 8:50 pmA man should own enough land so that he can go outside and piss anywhere he wants.
AZ Bob (aa856e) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:08 pmno problem ag80.
Kevin M (563f77) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:10 pm_______________________________________________
The KKK is neither right nor left, but it is and always has been comprised of registered Democrats.
Even as a conservative — and admitting that rightist biases can sometimes lead to overly pro-conformist sentiments (eg, an overly sensitive reaction to racial differences within a group of people) — I would have once nodded my head in agreement at your remark in a rather sheepish way, sensing that it perhaps also was a bit of Pollyanna spin. But now I realize your comment is more on target than even I was aware of not long ago…
Mark (411533) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:39 pm🙄 thanks
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/18/2011 @ 9:47 pmI suspect that the proprietors of hotair.com might review, and seriously entertain, any polite and well-written email asking that its sender be added to their rolls of authorized commenters. The sender might improve the odds by including links to some of his or her previous comments here or elsewhere.
Beldar (297c12) — 9/18/2011 @ 10:22 pmI used to communicate with Ed at Captain’s Table; but, if PowerLine would have some registration system other than Yahoo, or Facebook, I’d rather comment there.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (393ab8) — 9/18/2011 @ 10:42 pmAnyway, I would have no way to write to anyone at HotAir as my old address book crashed (thank you Bill Jr.).
As I have commented here and elsewhere… The postmodernist liberal left has targeted ALL of the ideas, concepts, and systems which The West has inherited from the Greeks.
All of these things represent the underlying basis for everything that has made the West uniquely successful in the history of mankind. While The West has failed to live up to its ideals many times, and has even committed awful mistakes in its slow progress to improve the quality of humanity, it has steadfastly moved in that direction for the last three centuries and more.
The Postmodernists have repeatedly, even endlessly, attempted to undermine those ideas which has made all of this progress possible, even to the point of denying that any progress has been made, which only a madman could lay claim to and not be blatantly lying.
The Postmodernists are a cancer eating away at our society, an acid corroding the very foundation of our civil state.
The “clerisy” is but one aspect of this group.
Smock Puppet, Corrector of Fallacious Propositions (c9dcd8) — 9/19/2011 @ 12:22 amLOL, most people don’t even VAGUELY REALIZE how much cleaner we are:
Sootikin
Note: the above is, well, distasteful. Legitimate, real, and not in any way obscene… it’s just something that will likely make anyone in modern civil society go, “Ewwww! Really?”.
Smock Puppet, Corrector of Fallacious Propositions (c9dcd8) — 9/19/2011 @ 12:32 amRe: the above comment regarding the KJV Bible.
The printing press allowed the fast dissemination of Luther’s works, which allowed the protestant reformation.
By reducing the influence of the Roman church, the reformation allowed science and other knowledge to begin flourishing.
While we might argue as to whether the protestants were right, there is no doubt that breaking the power of the Roman church allowed many new ideas to flourish, and the protest work ethic didn’t hurt either.
scrubone (dbb35d) — 9/19/2011 @ 2:25 amprotestant work ethic. The protest one came later 🙂
scrubone (dbb35d) — 9/19/2011 @ 2:47 amThat would be the one The Great Big 0, aka “President Downgrade” is spearheading, right?
Smock Puppet, Corrector of Fallacious Propositions (c9dcd8) — 9/19/2011 @ 5:07 am“the chart is further explained at The Economist”
I had a subscription to the Economist the last couple of decades of the last millenium. Their quality of research and argumentation went in the crapper:
History is driven by the powerful. Until recent times the powerless, the infirm and the stupid were ruthlessly eliminated by natural and human selection.
Sparta had a pile where unwanted infants were discarded. The Romans opposed Christianity in part due to its opposition to infanticide.
The advantages of wealth are responsible for population growth, yet the pendulum has reached its limit.
gary gulrud (790d43) — 9/19/2011 @ 6:35 am#67 is overly simplistic. Some of these remarks sound like they were cut ‘n paste straight out of a mediocre high school history textbook.
btw, am I supposed to take it that people actually read the comments at Hot Air?
d. in c. (ac417f) — 9/19/2011 @ 6:54 amIf only we praised the high priest of the eco-thuggee movement.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/19/2011 @ 7:20 amLook! A graph!
Look! Some opinions!
Science!
Leviticus (b85154) — 9/19/2011 @ 7:37 amYa mean the gorebots?
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/19/2011 @ 7:42 amHuh?
Leviticus (b85154) — 9/19/2011 @ 7:53 amAl gore.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/19/2011 @ 8:29 amWhat?
Leviticus (180ca0) — 9/19/2011 @ 9:28 amLeviticus, your point would be? Other than to demonstrate proof positive of what was already suspected, which is that you’re utterly clueless, I mean?
Since you ARE so clueless, I’ll take the time to spell it out for ya:
DohBiden’s point would be that your little ditty, there, was a definite description of Al and his Gorettes and their little sing-song minstrel tap-and-dance magical shows with zero content, negative truth value, and lots — LOTS!! — of pretty pictures and graphs… all of them in COLOR even!!
Another point for you — Attempting to make light of something in complete lieu of actual argument on points is generally the first sign of someone who has no argument in the first place. Perhaps there is one somewhere between your ears, but I’m putting my money on the negatory. This would follow directly from your blatantly evident overall lack of a clue….
Smock Puppet, Corrector of Idiotic Propositions (c9dcd8) — 9/19/2011 @ 9:46 pmThe purity cultists will consider Palin too far left because Nader praised her but if Nader praises Perry they act as if nothing happened.
DohBiden (d54602) — 9/19/2011 @ 9:48 pm
Smock Puppet, Corrector of Idiotic Propositions (c9dcd8) — 9/19/2011 @ 9:50 pmHell, his neighbor should own enough land that he can go outside and piss almost anywhere that he wants…
😀