The mother of necessity

If you open any book by American scientist and historian Jared Diamond to any page, you will find something fascinating, like this from page 291 of Guns, Germs and Steel:

In 1905, motor vehicles were still expensive, unreliable toys for the rich. Pubic contentment with horses and railroads remained high until World War I, when the military concluded that it really did need trucks. Intensive postwar lobbying by truck manufacuteres and armies finally convinced the public of its own needs and enabled trucks to begin to supplant horse-drawn wagons in industrialized countries. Even in the largest American cities, the changeover took 50 years.

This passage should be a revelation to anyone born since World War II. No one alive today remembers a time when the public did not believe itself to be drawn to a culture of cars and trucks, noise and pollution, injury, death and speed for its own sake. No one remembers it because the memories have been aggressively erased by various forms of media and propaganda, such as advertising and movies.

In World War II, Diamond further discusses, the US spent $20 billion developing the atomic bomb- possibly the worst idea in human history- because of a perceived necessity of beating Hitler to it.

Diamond calls these modern practices a reversal of the idea that "necessity is the mother of invention;" rather they show that "invention can be the mother of necessity."

Diamond's examples also highlight the role that war plays in creating necessity. The process is something we should ponder now as rumblings of war increase. How might coming conflagrations enable introduction of new technologies? At first glance, it does not seem that the likely interested parties need to use war to create a necessity for their products. The general citizenry are already enamored with computers, internet, cell phones, social media, AI and robots- already feeling that they need these things. But here's something they might not feel they need: To be displaced by machines from anything you could call "employment." AI, even in its early stages, appears potentially able to perform any human job. Many people would prefer to keep their jobs and be purchasers of AI's products, using currency earned by having jobs. A war could overrule that preference. For instance, let's say war created a shortage of doctors. People who would not go to a robotic doctor now would go to one if that were the only option. A generation later no one will remember a need for human doctors.

I watched President Biden's State of the Union address last night. I was particularly attuned to the concern about Biden's age, since I am only three years younger than him. As millions of people mercilessly scrutinized him, looking for slips of the tongue or body, Biden seemed in reasonable control. I don't know how many people could stand up there at any age and give such a performance. On the other hand, Biden and the entire governmental apparatus he represents seem utterly disconnected from the evolutionary atom bomb- millions of years of evolution compressed into one or two generations- that will write our future. As the public comes to recognize that disconnect, we will have an electorate that votes only to keep the other side from winning, but has nothing to vote for.
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If we want to affect our fates, we'll need a new political force, whether we call it a "party" or something else. Otherwise our species as we've known it will believe it necessary to exit the scene.