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I was asking myself this question the other day: Who is a Revolutionary? Now to answer it, I suppose one must ask "What is a revolution?" I define revolution to be a break with prior continuity. Thus, the invention of the car is a revolution, but Ford's ability to sell many, cheaply is not.
My favorite example (for the moment!) of a Revolutionary is Karlheinz Brandenburg. And who was he, you might ask? He is responsible for the greatest revolutionary change in music in the past 20 years. Yes, he was the driving force behind the MP3 compression format. This format is the reason that many of us listen to music on computers, not CDs (which were not much of a revolution), gave Napster something to do, and made the iPod a useful idea, etc.
Wikipedia is another example, for its impact on the way we understand and share knowledge.
What do you think? Who is your favorite Revolutionary? Why?
Saturday, June 2, 2007
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5 comments:
I can think of quite a number of individuals who have revolutionized their individual fields.
Whether it's Charles Darwin with the concept of evolution, Babe Ruth with the homerun, or Duke Ellington and the big band era of jazz.
However, very few individuals have made such revolutionary contributions to *multiple* fields.
That's why my 'revolutionary' of choice (at least this evening) is Leonardo da Vinci.
(though I'm very thankful for the ipod as well). ;)
Personally, I tend to make a distinction between social revolutions and technological ones. Social revolutions such as a change in the form of government, or a new "school" of art/music, or even a new paradigm of thought may often be attributable to one (or more) persons, but technological revolutions seem to be more amorphous to me. Very often the inventor of a technology will not be the one who finds the 'popular' or 'revolutionary' use of it. We only know that there was a revolution in retrospect!
I read an interesting book a while back called "Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth, from the Compass to the Internet" by Deborah Spar. She describes how 'revolutionary technologies' tend to follow four basic phases: innovation, commercialization, creative anarchy and rules. Fascinating stuff.
Personally, I think that my favourite 'revolutionary' technology is electricity. We've only had this form of energy for +/- one hundred years, but try to imagine our lives without it!
It seems that the word revolution can refer to a variety of things at a variety of levels of significance and impact. Zvi hinted at social change, while this thread began with ideas of technological change. My own experiences and interests define revolutions as social changes that matter at such a deep level as to change fundamentally how we look at the world, each other, and in effect - change the very meaning of life and what it is to be a human being. The revolutions which entailed the transition from fuedalism to capitalism involved an entire restructuring of how one looked at the world, property, development, and human relations. One could now own, sell, exploit, something or someone in ways unimaginable before. Many are waiting for the next revolution from capitalism to something else - with again, very different ways of looking at things, people, the environment, the future. These social changes I would call real revolutions. In this context, the invention of the MP3 might have been revolutionary for the digital storage of information, but did not really change the way most music is made and distributed commercially for profit, how most people merely listen passively to recorded music rather than make their own, and how much great music is swept over by the monolithic music industry because it might be slightly off of the market demands and is deemed a risk for investment. If the MP3 can revolutionize not just how music is stored, but how it is made and enjoyed (which it seems it has!) - then it would really pass, in my view, from a technological adjustment of a certain dominant process (music for profit) to something revolutionary - people making music and distributing it and enjoying it for the pure joy of it. I mean to say it is not the technology which is revolutionary, but it is how it is used. Perhaps the same goes for electricity. Sorry I can't think of any particular person to correspond to this, but there are now many on-line radio blogs and music sharing systems which offer amazing non-commercial enjoyment of real grassroots created music. (myindiradio.com is one) But, how long will they last?
I think that the 'digitization' of media (print, music, film, etc.) will eventually bring about a revolution in these media and how they are distributed and consumed. Distribution costs are being forced down to zero, and presumably this will eventually have a major impact on what/how/where we "consume" our various entertainment media. All of the transaction costs associated with printing, packaging, etc. are superfluous. It is not clear how marketing will evolve, but it does seem that the mass-market is not going to disappear anytime soon.
Aaron, the proliferation of the various file sharing services, and other 'non-traditional' distribution methods would certainly correspond to the 'creative anarchy' phase of this 'digital distribution' revolution. The innovation has been proven and commercialization is taking off. Obviously the established media corporations have strongly vested interests in limiting the various 'encroachments' on their territory, but I think that it is just a question of time before a new distribution model evolves.
As for electricity, I think that a better nomination would be any 'concentrated form of energy'. Electricity does have many unique characteristics, but what was truly revolutionary was the 'ability' to concentrate energy and to distribute it. Not so long ago, all mechanical work was done by manual labour, and our most concentrated form of energy was whale blubber!
Well written article.
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