another query

[rm]

More shit I'm thinking about:

Do you believe a society that either lacks, or shuns, mass mechanical production can be technologically advanced?

N.B. -- steampunk is not an answer

Comments

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

That's tough to answer. I mean, I can _imagine_ a society that, after enjoying the technological advancements that mass production encourages, decides to bag that whole process in favor of singular, artisan creation. Maybe they've perfected nanotechnology and _every_ object is equally easy to manufacture. They would be "technologically advanced," and they'd shun mass production.

But if you're asking whether humankind could have become technologically advanced _without_ mass production, the answer is a simple _no_. Without mass production of some sort-- like the entire application of agriculture, to mass produce food-- large scale human societies could not exist. And you need those societies in order to develop higher technologies-- how much metallurgy could a single guy develop when there aren't miners out there somewherem, bringing him metals to work?

[delchi.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I didn't think ' large-scale' when I wrote my reply.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That pretty much mirrors my thinking, which leads to the next question -- does human nature require that the advent of mass production means most things for most people (as in our society) becomes mass produced. Or could a society use mass production only as regards large scale things (say food, public transit and mutions) -- or does that not make any sense? I'm trying to figure out if a consumer pop-culture is a necessary outgrowth of mass production.

worldbuilding gives me such a headache.

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

It's not so much "human nature" as it is simple logistics. If you have to make an object, it requires acquiring the materials, forming and using the tools, and the actual work. If you do this only once, it costs X. But, if you do it 10 times, then the cost becomes less than X. You might find it easier to get larger amounts of the materials. You don't have to create a new set of tools each time. And you may find a way to make the work go efficiently after a while. If there's any human nature here, it's our desire and skill to do things efficiently and more easily.

As for consumer culture and mass production, they are intertwined and interrelated. And that's fine because it enables more people to acquire things they need and want. It means that more people can enjoy a great film, or obtain attractive or durable clothing, or enjoy exotic foods, or acquire the means by which they can create their own objects. I mean, I do woodworking, and it certainly helps that I don't have to make my own saws and planes.

It's not something we can "triage," i.e., decide that _these_ things will be mass produced on a large scale, and these _other_ things will be available only as artisan, one-of-a-kind things. What would be the criteria for this decision? Look how many things we can get that were once the province of specialists, hobbyists, and the wealthy: we can own movies, automobiles, dialysis systems, books, designer clothing, etc. Take sex toys: a hundred years ago, you _could_ buy a vibrator if you could find an engineer to make one for you in secrecy away from Anthony Comstock. Nowadays, thanks to mass production, millions of people can buy happy little plastic friends.

Sure, having things made by artisans is really nice. And happily, there will always be artisans whose works we can enjoy. But if we gave up mass production, then we'd be penalizing a LOT of less-than-affluent people, by making a lot of things nearly impossible for them to afford.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Of course, I'm not talking about the economics of our world, which is as it is and your assessment on that front is perfectly right. I'm trying to figure out rules for a world I'm writing and I want to see how other people bang into this topic as I'm sitting here doing so night after night.

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

Hm. Offhand, it seems to me that what I outlined is kind of unavoidable. Economics is a symbolic representation of certain flows in our society, like effort, materials, needs, etc. It'd depend on what you want to do with the story.

But as I said in another post, one could _imagine_ a society that has consciously decided to _not_ follow certain dictates. For example, one may have a religion, or culture, that demands that things be made by an artisan; "One must not repeat a task unless it has been completed," or something like that. So, the principle of mass production would be prohibited. So, if a shoemaker had to make thirty shoes, he couldn't just cut thirty soles, thirty side parts, and thirty sets of laces; he'd have to make each one individually. (Okay, so Henry Ford'd be a religious heretic...)

Or, one could imagine a society where making artisan stuff and mass-producing things costs about the same-- it's just as easy to make one as it is to make a thousand. Which means that people might _want_ to make their own stuff on an individual, one-of-a-kind basis.