Golden Ages

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Jordan Fermanis, Chris Wragg, and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing golden ages.

Speaker B: 00:00:26

the Crimson King. Um, I think: 1969

Speaker A: 00:00:36

If it's not: 1969

Speaker B: 00:00:40

nd harmony of the of the late: 1950

Speaker A: 00:03:51

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:03:52

What's our question here? Well, I'll get to that. So when we looked at dead art forms, we're like, OK, well, what is that kind of you get that? When does an art form reach a kind of dead end? And we talked a little bit at the end about the opposite, which is golden ages. I think we want to talk about that in detail now. Which is what where do you get? How do you get a golden age? How do you foster one and get one going? Because, you know, I'd like another one. I'd like to get another golden age going in popular music.

Speaker A: 00:04:24

OK, so look, two things. First of all, I think just to write one bit off famously, well, not famously, but often people say, you know, there was a lot of crap music around in the 60s and there was. However, just, you know, if we if we do if we measure if we take a parameter of, hey, what was the top ones which you've done, then straight away that kind of does that sort of sweeps that away, I feel. And still allows there to be crap music in the 60s, first of all. Second, what I like here is many times in our podcast we say, oh, that's another podcast topic itself. Boom, we've done it. Three. It's only taken five years away. And three, I think is an interesting question. How do you make a golden age happen is what can you write? Can you create those conditions or do they just happen? Yeah. So and I'd be interested to know if we if we take this as a premise, yeah, the 60s was a golden age of popular music. How did that happen and what were the conditions? Do we want to delve into that? Do we want to talk about that or do we just want to go straight to the question of how does one create it if one can? Either Chris or Jordan pick this up.

Speaker C: 00:05:30

So for me, I mean, I'll come back to the question of can you make it happen? Because I think that's where we're hopefully hopefully going. But I think if you look at conditions for for golden ages and what what actually you know, how do you define a golden age?

Speaker A: 00:05:51

We need to talk about other golden ages outside of music as well, by the way. But sorry, Chris, go on.

Speaker C: 00:05:54

Yeah. So I was going to say, I think there's a there's an aspect of a golden age, which is about cultural productivity. Right. In in some or many fields. But, you know, the the classic historical idea being the Renaissance. Right. I mean, actually, it was relatively well spread over time and and space. It was very long, really high quality golden age. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And but I dare say there were probably some terrible frescoes painted during that period as well. But yeah. But so so, yes, this this idea of sort of cultural productivity. And when you think about the conditions underpinning it, certainly when you think about the sort of historic examples, things like turn of the century, Vienna or the Weimar Republic or Enlightenment, England, you know, there is an element where you've basically got a geographical and temporal concentration of something going on, whether it's science, whether it's, you know, arts, whether it's, you know, literature, whatever, whatever it might be. And often it's actually multidisciplinary. Right. It's across a load of things. So the question, I suppose, to pose would be did loads of other stuff in the 60s. Yeah. But so so when I started thinking about this, I thought, well, look, is is is this simply the analogy I kind of came up with was, you know, the stars and planets exist. Right. And they exist because of their of the the co-location of matter in a in a in a space and time. And but but it was it was born from the random distribution of those things. So there's a randomness of it. Right. But once you get some concentration, you then get more constitute, you know, due to the effects of gravity, it pulls things in. And eventually you've got, you know, stars creating. Yeah. Matter. Right. And so that analogy, I think, is one was my initial thought explaining how this happens, that you effectively get a bunch of you get something happening just down to chance, like, you know, lots of people gathered in New York for some reason. And then before you know it, people are going to that place because it's known for something, adding their talents into into the mix in a particular field, exchanging ideas, creating more things. And before you know it, you have a golden age located in a place. But I think it's probably more complicated than that for reasons that we can come on to. But I posit that as a as a as a theory that it's simply there is no particular reason for it other than you get an initial concentration due to randomness. And then that draws more and more feeds on it feeds on itself.

Speaker D: 00:09:06

Jordan, what are your thoughts on this? On the idea of conditions for golden age, I was thinking that it may have something to do with innovation and newness, I think, as well. I think there's something about something appearing for the first time that means we think of it as a golden age, because I guess everything that happens subsequent of that is will always be viewed in relation to when it first happened. So, yeah, whether it's pop music in the 60s or I guess the Renaissance is the the golden age. That's the golden age of golden age. Yeah, that's the one that is the reference point for all other golden ages. But yeah, I think there's something about it occurring while it's in its very nascent stages. I think that's a that's a key. What do you mean? The thing, the cultural event or the scientific discovery, whatever it is, I think has to be it has to be new. I think it has to be it has to be maybe not. It doesn't have to be brand new, but has to be in its early stages of development, I think is a kind of key.

Speaker B: 00:10:17

s. Go on. Spanish golden age,: 1492

Speaker A: 00:12:29

Yeah, exactly. That's where I got my data from.

Speaker B: 00:12:31

And it was the first hit, sort of top 10 golden ages.

Speaker A: 00:12:34

Wikipedia, actually. Yeah, it was.

Speaker B: 00:12:35

Spain really only started in: 1479

Speaker A: 00:14:03

ge of Hollywood ending in the: 1960

Speaker B: 00:14:12

Yeah, you know, all those Hollywood stars, the black and white.

Speaker A: 00:14:15

ut not. I wouldn't start from: 1910

Speaker B: 00:14:26

I'm just telling you what people say. I'm not signing up to it. But the point is not really when they don't. You could argue about the end. We could we could talk about how you know it's coming to an end. And I've got some theories on those. But just to say that it not only are golden ages at the beginning of a thing, they're really almost coterminous with the beginning of the thing. Like the beginning of the thing, it will kick off a golden age.

Speaker A: 00:14:51

o the beginning, which if the: 1960

Speaker B: 00:15:02

And I think what we're saying pop music is is something enabled. I mean, vinyl and stereo were invented in the 30s, but they didn't become readily available. So I think what we're talking about is the is radio and and people owning record players. Sure. I would say that's probably, you know, the two things we could say. That's the new technology. Yeah. And and this is people diving into that new technology and discovering how to do it properly. Definitely.

Speaker A: 00:15:28

tributed to the golden age in: 1960

Speaker B: 00:16:03

So you've got the sort of enabler, the supply, if you like, of which is the technology and the newness of the technology. And then you have the availability of people who are going to sort of produce, who are interested in innovating in that space.

Speaker C: 00:16:21

Right. And I think the milieu in which they exist, it has also its own qualities, right? So I think there is an element of it where you need challenge, right? You need interconnected minds. If you look at some of those examples I was talking about in Weimar, Germany or Vienna, there were, you know, diverse minds, diverse opinions and sort of competitiveness, but not so culturally diverse that they are or not oppositional. So I think like if you look at something like, you know, Weimar, Germany, there's a reason why all of the, you know, in popular culture, why all scientists, designers, you know, avant-garde artists have German accents, right? Because they came, you know, that's our sort of archetype of it. But the point is they were unified by this sort of loose, you know, sense of Germanic culture, but they brought all these different ideas from within it. So there's a sort of requirement for, whereas if you look at something like the culture wars in the US at the moment and the Western world in general, you've got people at loggerheads, like in complete resistance, entrenched in positions, not combining their ideas. So there needs to be like challenge and competitiveness where different artists say in the 60s, you know, the Beatles and the Stones or whatever are challenging one another, sharing ideas, stealing ideas from each other. But they're not in complete unity of purpose in the movement, I think.

Speaker A: 00:18:13

Yeah, I would say it was more the Stones stealing from the Beatles. But anyway, look, where are we all this? I've kind of lost track of this. We've maybe moved beyond our own little golden age within this individual podcast. And we're on the sort of hump on going down on the other side. Jordan, bring us back into it. We need a renaissance. Yeah, we need a renaissance.

Speaker D: 00:18:32

One of the things that I found interesting thinking about this was when do we ascribe a golden age? Is it during the age itself or is it sort of something you do retrospectively? And I think I don't know that people living through the 60s thought they were living in a golden age. Probably they didn't. Probably they themselves were looking back to a golden age as artists. I don't think they were, but keep going. Well, why I think that is because if we take the idea that there's some kind of correlation between when something starts and when it becomes a golden age, that, for me, kind of links into how we think about nostalgia in a way that we're nostalgic for things that occurred in our childhood at a very young age. And so I think a golden age, I guess, is sort of like a reflection of the childhood of the cultural product or the adolescence of something.

Speaker B: 00:19:40

? I mean, look, I was born in: 1977

Speaker C: 00:20:32

Yeah. I mean, I have to make the case. I think for a true golden age, and you mentioned the sort of the classical use of the term golden age and indeed in sort of, you know, classical art and so on, it was it was very much used as a hearkening back to a time, you know, of of excellence before sort of living memory. You know, you look at the Renaissance, the Renaissance is actually a recreation of or a reintroduction of many classical ideas. A rebirth. A rebirth. Yeah, exactly. And you look at, you know, there are there are lots of there are lots of sort of areas where people do hark back to an era potentially beyond their their own experience as a as a sort of untouchable period. So the question is, are some are some golden ages actually, you know, just rose tinted glasses looking at the past? But I don't buy this. No, I agree. Fundamentally, there are clearly some periods in history where it's like, yeah, look, that stuff was much better than the stuff that came after it and the stuff that came before it. And I think so. So looking at the lifecycle side of things, I think it's only when you get back to things being shit that you realise that there was a golden age. The normal, the normal, the normal. Yeah, the normal.

Speaker B: 00:21:52

So I've got a little model, which is actually a kind of version of the one I think I've kind of made up when we were talking about dead art form.

Speaker A: 00:22:01

Is this to create a new golden age of something?

Speaker B: 00:22:03

And of course, that really is: 1960

Speaker A: 00:26:02

And also famously, not as much money around anymore in it as well. Right. So that rent seeking thing can. Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:26:10

And it's not dissimilar to processes like, you know, gentrification or the Venkatesh Rao, Gervais principle idea of how companies, you know, start because someone starts, someone has an idea and it turns into this thing that is there just to make money and stops being about the reason you set the business up. So, yeah. Anyway, that's my model. I think I think it sort of works, works for golden ages.

Speaker A: 00:26:34

OK. Yes. Now, Chris, you look like you want to say something.

Speaker C: 00:26:39

Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I think I think there's a couple of things about golden ages that I wanted to touch on. One is how how might you know you're in one? And and I think I don't know. Anecdotally, when I was thinking about this, I think there is an element of perceived decadence about about a golden age, the lifestyle of those around that golden age. You look at, you know, Weimar, Germany, you look at the 60s. They were seen as, you know, a period when you get the breakdown of social norms around drugs and sexual sexuality and, you know, all those kind of things that normally glue society together. And I don't know whether that is cause or effect, whether it's a byproduct or a, you know, a reason for it. But I suspect I suspect cause. Yeah, well, perhaps. But I certainly think the idea of innovation, right, is not going to just keep adhere to whatever art form you're involved in at the time that it stretches into the rest of, you know, the people involved in it, their lives. So I, you know, yeah. Whether it's cause or effect.

Speaker B: 00:27:52

One minute you're going, can we, you know, can we see if we can get two music tracks running in parallel? And the next thing you're at an orgy. You're at an orgy and taking loads of drugs. One thing leads inevitably to the other.

Speaker C: 00:28:09

No, but I actually do think it does. I also think there's an element of decay about it. If you look at sort of, you know, Fond du Siècle, Paris, again, the Weimar Republic, maybe even, you know, what happened to the post-Golden Age US and the emergence of pop music and other sort of popular culture things. I think there's this sense of something else coming to an end and something new starting up and a sense of decay in some way. So, yeah, I think those are a couple of, you know, if you feel like something's coming to an end, you might be about to start a golden age. Yeah. And if lots of things are changing socially, that might mean you're in a golden age. The other thing I was going to say is you talked about whether you can. Create one. Create a content. And I believe that there are good examples of where it's been confected. So like the Manhattan Project or the space race, you know, were effectively golden ages of particular technologies, you know, that were constructed largely by the US government. But where where they created these conditions, where they got a load of people who knew about stuff, who had a common purpose and had different ideas on it. And, you know, molded them very successfully, very quickly into generating incredibly effective cultural, in this case, scientific output. So I think, you know, you could potentially say, right, OK, the government might say we're going to create a new a new pop golden age. Let's get all our world's best magicians, magicians. No, the magicians will be handy as well. They'd keep the musicians entertained. Yeah. And and bring them together. And, you know, but you have to have that impetus to do that.

Speaker B: 00:30:06

Well, I mean, the Renaissance was heavily sponsored, wasn't it? By, you know, by exactly status seeking rich families. So, yeah. Yeah. Why not? So basically, we need piles of we need we need piles of cash.

Speaker C: 00:30:19

Yeah. We need Elon Musk and we need an existential threat to his cash. Well, tick and tick. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:30:26

OK.

Speaker B: 00:30:27

Great. A society falling apart. Great. I know Elon listens to this. Yeah, yeah. If you're out there, do do start a golden age. Do drop a few billion. Yes, we'll get one going. We'll get straight to it. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:30:39

OK, nice. To finish off, I've got a question. I think it's an obvious question. Favourite golden age?

Speaker B: 00:30:46

No, I think we've done that one before. No, but we've only done. I think we should do what golden age are we going to have? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be more fun. Well, you can answer that. I'm going to answer what I want to answer. All right. But it'll just be the same answer as the one you gave to our previous podcast.

Speaker A: 00:30:57

I think that was just a purely historic right. God, I wish I had. I wish I could remember stuff like you. I mean, I'm on these podcasts. I know that because I hear my voice. I'm here now. Yeah. And I sometimes listen to them all. But if I didn't listen, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't remember any of what we do. The only reason you do them is to remember stuff, isn't it?

Speaker B: 00:31:15

So there's a digital record of things you've said.

Speaker A: 00:31:17

Yeah. So I can't remember what the question is going to be. What golden age do you want?

Speaker B: 00:31:21

What are we about to go into? What's the next golden age? We'll do you last. Who wants to go?

Speaker D: 00:31:29

I think we're living through potentially a golden age of social media before rules and laws and stuff prevent them from doing what they want to do. So I think we're potentially living through one of those.

Speaker C: 00:31:44

I'm going to back Jordan up on that because I think there's an element of these technologies having removed the need for people to be geographically located to have a golden age. You don't need it to be Berlin or Chicago. There's now a global community that can interact. And yeah, I think the short form video could be something which there's a huge community now of people posting stuff in whether that's dance stunts on bicycles, whatever it might be. I don't know. You need a professional video producer. Fair enough. But yeah, I do get YouTube's attempt at TikTok, which is shorts. They're called shorts. And they pop up on my YouTube profile. And they're like people doing the most like unbelievably ridiculously dangerous but talented things out there. And you sort of think, oh, that's quite impressive.

Speaker A: 00:32:53

But OK, none of this inspires me.

Speaker C: 00:32:55

Yeah. So I think my inkling is that there could be a Korean golden age on the horizon. Nice. I remember watching the Winter Olympics that were a few years ago now and just getting this sense of there's something going on here in this place. And obviously, there's more sort of culture percolating into the West from Korea. But I think the catalyst will be the fall of North Korea and you get the sudden blending of those two cultures that are united by linguistic and historical traditions. But suddenly, you've got these two different, very different experiences. And I think you could have that unity of purpose that you talked about. Exactly. Because it is a reunion. So that's my tip.

Speaker A: 00:33:45

Yeah, that sounds good. Nice. And also fame. Yeah, I mean, for a long time, I have been singing the praises, not on this podcast, of Korean filmmaking. Of course, they won the previous Oscar for best film or won before, whatever it was.

Speaker B: 00:33:58

I like that. I like that. They keep churning out big... Yeah, there's Parasite, obviously. Parasite. I watched the Squid Game. I thought it was really good. Yeah, I watched it all. So basically, Korean listeners out there, get going on this Golden Age. Come on. Stop listening to this podcast and get out there and start creating stuff.

Speaker A: 00:34:18

I don't have an answer because I can't think of anything for the future. And now I just feel inhibited talking about the past.

Speaker C: 00:34:27

But that is where all Golden Ages are in the past. They're never a Golden Age at the time.

Speaker A: 00:34:31

Well, so I've got my Golden Age. Well, actually, so I'll use my allotted time just to say, I think it's interesting. Something you talked about briefly is if we know we're in a Golden Age. And if you are in that Golden Age, is everyone in it, right? Because in the 60s, I think it definitely was a Golden Age. And also, I think some of the people living through that definitely felt it was a Golden Age or certainly a time of change and wonderful things happening. But a huge proportion of the population, even in countries where it was definitely happening, probably just thought it was all a load of old rubbish.

Speaker B: 00:35:00

You know, Nick, here's my proposed Golden Age, which I've been desperate to see since I was a kid. Actual space again. Right. So I think we might be, you know, as Carl Sagan said, you know, dipping our toe in the cosmic ocean. And I feel like we've got the same conditions we had in sort of before the Spanish Golden Age. We've got some lots of, you know, people who see there's, you know, lots of exciting stuff up there. We've got people still motivated by it's not yet corporations trying to make money, not entirely. It's people who do want to get and actually go and find out cool stuff in space and have a moon base and that kind of base on Mars. So it's got the right motivation. We've got we've got some heft behind it because, you know, actually it's people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who can buy space races. So I'm looking forward to actually going to the moon before I die. Yes. So, yeah. And if not, when you do die, you know, I'm sure they can, you know, resurrect me. Yeah. Yeah. Using AI, my avatar can go to the moon.

Speaker C: 00:36:11

Or they can sprinkle your ashes.

Speaker A: 00:36:13

Yeah. I was thinking more of what Chris said, but yeah, I like both. Cool. Well, that prospect of your. Of your lunar demise. It's rather inspiring. No, but that was nice, Nick. I like that. I think that's a nice point. I think it's a nice way to finish it all off. So thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Chris Wragg and Jordan Fermanis of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.