Our society is not so affluent that, if what you are genuinely excited about is medieval German poetry, you can reasonably expect to be supported with that passion unless you win a very specific academic track lottery (or have other sources of income).
You are right in that a decision has to be made in what areas we consider important enough to allow a sustainable career from it. In your example, I would certainly not fund a person for studying Medieval German poetry only; but more funding for research into history? Sure thing.
I had a few friends who had some ideas but their professors weren't too happy with those. They found a way to incorporate some of the buzzwords for a giant grant our university had, pitched it to the professor, who submitted a grant application, and got them funded on the idea. Professor was happy (he had money), students were happy, but at the end of the day, the process was idiotic.
Yes, but this stops happening when economic growth is non-existent.
The Western economy (developed countries generally), outside of Silicon Valley and a small number of bright spots, is not really growing.
First let us dispense with certain lies that nearly everybody believes.
The statistics about growth you always hear in the news or from politicians are fraudulent. All economic growth ultimately derives from technology - more output for less input or doing more with less. In the 1930s the growth statistics looked very bad but were actually better than they appeared because a host of new technologies were invented - artificial rubber, secondary oil recovery. Measuring this sort of thing is meaningless because every new invention is only discovered once. How the invention of the steam engine and vulcanized rubber impacts on the price network is unknown until it actually happens and the two inventions contribution to economic growth cannot be compared until they enter the price network egro...
The growth stats were always at best a guess at the underlying reality.
The real economy has not grown significantly since the early 70s. People who correctly point to the massive increase in computational power as marvelous should contrast that with with real energy prices in the same period. That is what the hoi polloi feel, and they are more correct about that than a supertanker packed with econometricians and politicians. This is why the hated Trump is so beloved, notice how the campaign slogan isn't 'Make America Greater', it is 'Make American Great Again'. This admission of a failure is fascinating (for a politician) and utterly ignored by the press.
I don't believe it is 'the end of the world' (there was some growth after all) but people really need to pull their heads out of the asses, academics in particular. Unless we realize there is a problem we cannot adjust our positions in order to fix it.
The fact is that the ideas in your head need to pay rent somehow.
If the net affect is that they do not, then society fragments, which is an appropriate strategy to deal with failure through complexity. I note that the Roman Empire had a very high basic literacy rate. Normal people could read and most often poor children went to a kind of elementary school.
That all got fucked when the Empire fell. It didn't happen immediately but we ultimately went 5 centuries in which only a tiny tiny elite, sometimes in the low hundreds or thousands had the ability to read and write. There is a small island off the coast of my country that held the only copies of most old Greek and Roman texts, but for that 'seedbank' saved by the monks and a passionate illiterate king (Carogolian Empire), you would know nothing of Seneca, Cicero, all the myths and legends of the Ancient World and much more besides.
Kenneth Clark did an excellent documentary on the subject if you're interested.
The episode is: Civilisation (1969) Episode 1 "The Skin of Our Teeth", from 13:35.
Things can and do go backwards.
The pre-modern world required the presence of a class of cheap laborers as there were so many tasks that could not be automated. Productivity was low and there was no way that the basic needs of society could be met without everyone pitching in.
In today's day and age, we have highly automated agriculture and are doing more of it. Productivity has skyrocketed. And yet, we burden our population with arbitrary schedules (e.g. 40 hour weeks, limited vacation time), making most of society incapable of enjoying the real fruit of modern life: the ability to survive without working a dumb job all the time.
You state that ideas need to pay for rent somehow. I agree completely: they do need to. But what if we provide a certain basic income to everyone so that its not something one has to worry about? We have not seen the results of this kind of experiment.
Your comparison to the Roman empire is also interesting. I didn't think that most Romans were literate or familiar with the classics! However, as I noted earlier, productivity of labor in Roman times was still not as high as today, so maybe its not an apt comparison.
Economic growth is real, just partially measurable at best.
The affluence of a society is contingent on two things. Generating wealth and the transmission of said wealth.
Did you know that Singapore's founding father forbade the gathering of most statistics when they were getting started? There's an interesting story there. He didn't trust modern economists and Singapore turned out alright.
> The pre-modern world required the presence of a class of cheap laborers as there were so many tasks that could not be automated. Productivity was low and there was no way that the basic needs of society could be met without everyone pitching in.
Yes, with the exception of the aristocrats or ruling class and the freedoms afforded to them by slavery. For most of human history a necessary evil in order to coordinate a more complex society and only recently has invention and innovation been separated from the patronage of the ruling class (with mixed results).
> In today's day and age, we have highly automated agriculture and are doing more of it. Productivity has skyrocketed. And yet, we burden our population with arbitrary schedules (e.g. 40 hour weeks, limited vacation time), making most of society incapable of enjoying the real fruit of modern life: the ability to survive without working a dumb job all the time.
I agree that is a problem, both individually and collectively. Right now we have a bunch of crude heuristics being used because we don't know or aren't willing to trust in a better way. I can only say we should experiment more.
On an individual level I'm invested in creating a Tiny House with zero rent/bills. Then in generating an inflation adjusting passive income stream from another project of mine. This shall, coupled together, allow me to live as I please for the rest of my life if I choose. I call this a zero marginal lifestyle, where any efforts on my part are 100% profit for me. This is what the aristocrats used to give their inventor friends in patronage, the security of having resources and no concerns about continuing to exist. That enables you, hypothetically, to give your full brain to something. I estimate it takes 150k - 250k to accomplish such a thing.
> You state that ideas need to pay for rent somehow. I agree completely: they do need to. But what if we provide a certain basic income to everyone so that its not something one has to worry about? We have not seen the results of this kind of experiment.
I think it very much depends on the mental models of the those people you give the basic income to.
For example giving basic income to ISIS members is not about to make the world a better place.
I think basic income should be unconditional on 'what' you spend it on, but that it should be conditional on 'general purpose'. How to achieve that I don't know.
Perhaps take inspiration from Heinlein's Starship Troopers. All citizens receive basic income but becoming a citizen requires some duty, work or deed that benefits the collective.
Recognition of good work is important in a society where money matters less. Google had this problem a while ago when it was trying to convince their millionaire engineers to keep working. By and large they appear to have succeeded by being flexible and offering meaning in the spot in Maslow's Pyramid that used to be occupied by accumulating income. If any Googlers have any comments on this that would be great.
I do know most rich people who stay rich are motivated by purpose and not by gathering of resources or at least not directly.
What you do not want is the Roman problem of Bread & Circuses. You never want your society to go down that rabbit hole. You shall require some stern measures to prevent that from happening. If a society descends into miasma you fix it without worrying about violating general principals.
> Your comparison to the Roman empire is also interesting. I didn't think that most Romans were literate or familiar with the classics! However, as I noted earlier, productivity of labor in Roman times was still not as high as today, so maybe its not an apt comparison.
Familiar with the classics, not quite. Through oral tradition and theatre yes, not usually by reading their equivalent in books.
There is a distinction between 'educated' and 'literate'.
Few were educated unless they belonged to a House. Most people were literate. This is fairly new information so it is not surprising most people are not aware of this, it doesn't fit with the existing mental model of Roman society.
Literate here is a relative judgment. They weren't literate the way you and I are, after all the printing press had not been invented. They were mostly taught by pedagogues (if belonging to a House) or by some street/hedge school or by their parents. Usually using wax tablets and stylus and oriented around a job.
This shouldn't be so surprising if you think about it. I know I became literate at a young age by absorbing books. I also know secondary or high school graduates who cannot read. So it was never about the number of years in education (so-called modern schooling is horrifically wasteful), which due to the wealth levels would necessarily be lower. I expect the intense use of oral tradition made learning to read and write much quicker than the painfully slow 'modern' approach.
As you probably know Roman graffiti is ubiquitous in archeological digs. It wouldn't exist if only an elite could read it. Obviously many people could not read, especially in the rural areas, but it was still a literate society.