Whales, Horsesh*t, and Technological Stagnation. By Jimmy Carr interviewed by Joe Rogan.

Whales –> petrochemicals:

Carr: You know what the biggest industry in the world was in 1903?

Rogan: Beavers?

Carr: Very close. I’ll pass you — I’ll give you a C. Whaling was the biggest industry in the world in 1903. And it disappeared almost overnight. In about a year and a half, it was gone. Those towns were just emptied because whale oil wasn’t required anymore. Suddenly, we discovered petrochemicals.

Rogan: Electricity too.

Carr: Petrochemicals was really the thing. Yeah — whale oil, electricity, Edison, all of that, Tesla. It’s really interesting how that industry just fell away.

Horse manure –> cars:

Carr: It’s like the story of horse manure in New York City. You know this?

Rogan: No.

Carr: So, horse manure –do you know why brownstones have steps up to the front door? Ever wondered why the ground floor isn’t actually on the ground floor?

Rogan: Why?

Carr: Horseshit.

Rogan: Really?

Carr: There was horseshit everywhere. They’ve always got those metal scrapers by the side—

Rogan: Yeah, to get the horseshit off.

Carr: Exactly. You know how old movies always talk about smelling salts? There are loads of references to them. The smell was horrific. If a horse died in the street, you had to wait for it to decompose before cutting it up and taking it away. New York was chaos—cobbled streets, metal wheels on carts, horses everywhere. So they made laws: “Right, we’ll tax horses.” Didn’t change anything.

Next year: “We’ll double the taxes.” Then more rules — if you have a horse, you have to do this, do that. They kept trying, over and over.

And what actually stopped it?

Henry Ford. Cars came along — [and then, horses in the streets] gone. Almost instantly. There are, what, five horses left in Central Park? That’s it.

Glenn Reynolds articulated years ago , in 2017, what few notice until it is pointed out:

Despite the rise of computers and the Internet, most of my lifetime has been spent in what has otherwise been a time of technological stagnation, compared to the “golden quarter century” between World War II and the Moon landings. During that era, things were getting better at breakneck pace: Jet planes! Spaceships! The Pill! Antibiotics! Nuclear Power! Computers! The future was coming at us fast, and there was a sense that things would keep improving.

Then it all just … slowed way down. The 45 years since the last moon landing haven’t seen nearly as much visible progress, smartphones notwithstanding. And I think that has sapped the vitality of our culture in a number of ways.

Lest we forget.