Dwarkesh Patel

tech revolutions as if we've just had 10 tech revolutions in a row.

But really, they are all deeper penetration of one tech revolution, the computer revolution, the development of the computer.

These are all applications of computers.

And so in the same way, the printing press comes in in 1450, and it isn't done shaping the world instantly.

The printing press comes in in 1450.

It takes 40 years to even be economically sustainable.

It's not until the 1490s that printers are making money.

And then in the 1510s, it's time for pamphlets.

And pamphlet distribution.

And now there's news.

And news is suddenly done by print.

And that's a revolution on the same scale as the difference between computers and cell phones.

And we get the Arab Spring.

Or rather, we get the Reformation, which is enabled by pamphlets in exactly the same way that the Arab Spring is enabled by cell phones.

Then we get the newspaper, another new application of the same technology that follows like social media.

So it's one information revolution having multiple successive revolutionary applications as it disseminates and eventually saturates.

And it moves on a timescale quite similar to the timescale in which the digital one is happening as well.

So that print keeps hitting Europe with successive revolutions for 150 years.

And every couple decades there will be a new bang or sometimes every decade there will be a new – suddenly it's possible to get a printed pamphlet from Wittenberg to London in 17 days.

Oh, my God.