Daily Times

A country that may or may not be facing a double jeopardy in the form of foreign and economic policy crises — depending on whether or not you agree with government’s assessments of the current situation — apparently has enough time for debating a self-created crisis on uncivil behaviour in parliament, arguably one of the most august bodies of the country. It is utterly remarkable. We either are unaware that except for China — which is stretching the definition of the word “friend” to its outer limits and then some — we, today, seem to be surrounded by hostilities. Or maybe we have a brilliant plan to deal with the situation, except that the plan is so secret that nobody knows about it. Meanwhile, our American ex-buddies continue drone striking us, while at the same time batting eyelashes at our “worst” enemy. On the financial front, we perhaps are convinced that debt stands for don’t-ever-bother-terminating, because there appears to be no other reason for the binge. But then again there might be a secret plan.

Or perhaps because of Ramazan, sensibilities are not at their peak nowadays, and those at the helm of affairs will get into the groove right after the holy month. And that was not unintentional sarcasm. On the other hand, depleted disposition is also the reason to take a break from hard-core economic writing today, and switching to something that hopefully everyone finds entertaining, especially the editor!

Thanks to Steven Johnson, via his book How We Got to Now — Six Innovations That Made the Modern World we came to see the world in a fresh perspective. And for those already assuming that the six include the wheel, the printing press, the World Wide Web and McDonald’s, nope, the answer is Diet Coke! On a more serious note, Johnson talks about innovations, not inventions. “In its purest sense, ‘invention’ can be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. ‘Innovation,’ on the other hand, occurs if someone improves on or makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service,” Tim Grasty wrote. The Internet has made life easy; many a time it is simpler to borrow from the web compared with struggling to articulate your thoughts.

Anyway, the six innovations selected by the author are glass, cold, sound, clean, time and light. Reading through the book, I was reminded of Frederic Bastiat’s essay, “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen”. The different ways that these six innovations may have impacted mankind, as suggested by the author, are not only unique but appear to be indeed unsurpassable, and his arguments do seem reasonable. All observations hereunder regarding the six innovations are courtesy Mr Johnson.

Who would think that glass beyond drinking glasses had any role in the evolution of quality of human life? Well, it is a valid argument that glass is what spectacles are made of, not sunglasses but the reading type, without which Gutenberg’s printing press may not have had the impact that it had. Whether or not the mirror was the enabling tool that allowed the Renaissance to happen, minus glass, and hence, the microscope, and consequently, the knowledge of viruses, bacteria and cells, we would still have shorter life spans. And one never realised that the backbone of the World Wide Web — hold on to your hats –is fibreglass.

Seriously, by the time I came to the chapter on cold, it was quite clear that the cold meant air-conditioning and refrigeration; fasting in this heat I could not agree more, arguably the best innovation of modern times. However, what was new and fascinating was that around the middle of 19th century, blocks of ice were being shipped from New England Lake all the way to Rio de Janeiro, and that the fastest growing megacities in tropical climates owe a lot to cold innovations.

Sound technology encompasses the recording and playing of sound, telephony, and perhaps, the entire entertainment industry; one can only wonder how people lived just a few decades ago without a cell phone. The downside of sound amplification is the political jalsas (rallies), on the benefits, if any, of which the jury is still out. Imagine how peaceful life would be without talk shows on news channels and political gatherings if only innovations in sound had somehow sidestepped these breakthroughs.

Clean technology is perhaps the most unappreciated innovation of our times, except when you have an overflowing gutter at home. The story of underground sewerage system, which we all take for granted, was an eye opener indeed. Perhaps even more thought provoking was the history of adding chlorine to drinking water; the rapid rise in world population owes a lot to clean water. On a lighter note, Mr Johnson points out that without chlorination there might not have been swimming pools, and the swimsuit industry might not have taken off.

Today’s generation can perhaps not even contemplate a world without accurate time. Apparently — and I am not tech-savvy — without the microsecond accuracy of a quartz clock modern computer would be useless. Carbon dating, perfected around 1940, is all about accurate time. Imagine, just 150 years ago, there were multiple times within a city depending on who you asked.

And let’s not forget light and good old Thomas Edison; perhaps the singular inventor that most of us can remember from our school days. I wonder what our ancestors did after the sunset, and the only source of light was candles. If someone had invented the light bulb earlier a lot of sperm whales would have been spared; however, on the flip side literature would not have been enriched by Moby Dick. Seriously, we take our quality of life today for granted, but if there ever was a time travelling machine, most of us would simply pass.

All in all, Mr Johnson’s selection of the six innovations that made the modern world are rather appropriate, except that perhaps there is a seventh, which arguably has had the most impact on where mankind is today, or as he puts it, now. The ability of governments around the globe to create money out of thin air, at will, generally referred to as fiat money. This singular innovation, without the frustrating limitations of a gold standard, is what enables the ruling elite to spend apparently perfidiously. Without fiat money, it would have been impossible to build the enormous fortunes that you read about in Forbes. Democracy itself might have been a nonstarter if governments could not have spent what was not there in the first place. Perhaps, the allure of unchecked wealth fuelled further progress in the six innovations in the information age; but there was a steep price: income inequality.

Dear readers, if the last paragraph smelled of sarcasm, it was intentional.

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad, and can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com