What do Jan van Riebeeck, lemon juice and the Sicilian mafia have in common?

Two lessons about technological innovation and adoption

There is good reason to feel that technological change is speeding along rapidly. Only last month, I wrote a post about ChatGPT and similar AI platforms and called it, in the Afrikaans version, ‘a revolution under our fingertips’. That post wasn’t three days old before ChatGPT released their latest update, showcasing remarkable performance. A month earlier, I wrote about the speed of innovation in solar technology and how it will transform energy generation and, consequently, the entire economy.

And these are just two examples. Look elsewhere, and the pace of technological innovation is impressive: from 3D printers and advanced materials in manufacturing, gene editing in biotech, blockchains and quantum computing in finance, electric and autonomous vehicles in transport to precision farming and vertical farms in agriculture.

But two lessons from history mute my enthusiasm somewhat about just how much these new technologies will change our world. The first lesson is that humans typically do not like change, and certainly not such rapid change. We have deep-rooted beliefs about the world and our place in it; our ‘culture’ (ways of doing things) are usually shaped over decades or, most likely, generations. Sometimes we can adjust easily to new technologies when they promote certain cultural traits; other times, when they run against certain cultural traits or practices, they are delayed or, perhaps, never even adopted. This is even more true for our ancestors, for whom science was a rather strange idea. The discovery of the cure for scurvy is a good example.

By the end of the 15th century, Europeans were eager to find a faster, more reliable and affordable route to the East Indies. The Spice Islands in the Indonesian archipelago, home to the nutmeg tree (and mace and cloves), were their main target. The hope was to undercut the many Persian and Arab intermediaries responsible for the exorbitant prices of these culinary and medicinal items.

It was, of course, the Portuguese who first sailed to India around the Cape of Good Hope. (Around the same time, the Genoese sailor, Christopher Columbus, aimed west in search of the East Indies, and somehow managed to convince King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to fund what seemed a crazy idea.) Vasco da Gama completed the journey in 1498, but when he reached Lisbon on his return, only 55 of the original crew of 170 men had survived the journey. The high mortality rate was not unique to his voyage; millions of sailors would die aboard Portuguese and Spanish and later English, Dutch and French ships over the next few centuries.

The main reason was scurvy. To sail from Amsterdam to India, as many VOC (Dutch East India Company) ships did, took between 6 to 8 months. Sailors, soldiers and officials on board these ships, after several months at sea, almost all began to experience muscle pain, fatigue, swollen and bleeding gums, and dry, scaly skin. The more severe cases included hair and nail loss, fever, convulsions, coma and death. Combine this with storms, boredom, and the risk of piracy or war; it is remarkable that anyone volunteered to board these ships. It reflects just how bad the situation at home must have been.

The problem was that no one knew what caused scurvy. For this reason, in the mid-17th century, the VOC decided to establish a refreshment station below Table Mountain, with the express instruction to passing ship captains to acquire fresh food and fuel and heal the sick. Jan van Riebeeck, the first commander who arrived with his crew on April 6, 1652, would grow an impressive variety of fruits and vegetables, including grapes, nuts, potatoes, and apples. In 1659 he produced the first red wine, partly in the hope of curing scurvy.

It would be a century later, though, that the first real breakthrough in the treatment of scurvy was made. The Scottish doctor James Lind ran an experiment on the English ship HMS Salisbury: he divided the crew into groups, and prescribed different diets. The group whose diet included oranges and lemons survived in much greater numbers than the rest. Although Lind would not understand the science behind vitamins, he had stumbled upon the solution to an age-old problem.

And yet, despite writing a book on the topic – A Treatise on the Scurvy, published in 1753 – Lind ignored most of his own findings, and so did almost all ship captains. Lind attributed the improvement in the sailors to other factors and recommended that lemon juice be boiled, removing the vital vitamins. It would be another half-century until an English admiral on the ship Suffolk prescribed daily rations of orange juice. News of the remarkable health of the crew spread quickly, and the practice was soon adopted on almost all ships.

The story of scurvy shows just how difficult technological innovation can be, especially if it contradicts the deeply held convictions and established conventions of the time. We cling to the familiar, even if there is no scientific reason for it, and even when it is bad for us.

But the story of scurvy and lemon juice does not end there. Another lesson is that the consequences of technological innovation are not predictable or even beneficial.

Soon after word spread about the benefits of orange and lemon juice, demand for it spiked. One of the regions where oranges and lemons were grown was Sicily, in southern Italy. Sicily had a tumultuous history; one consequence of this was a rather lawless place with very low levels of interpersonal trust. Sicilian farmers needed ways to protect their now valuable crops and find a way to negotiate collectively with traders. A new institution was thus born: the Sicilian mafia. This privatised security force would not only protect farms (at a price, of course) but also negotiate on their behalf.

This worked well until the price of oranges and lemons fell. The mafia needed a new source of revenue and turned to organised crime, like extortion, smuggling and racketeering, and, by the 20th century, built up vast financial and political power. Today’s Sicily is still characterised by these networks.

The economic historian Joel Mokyr writes that ‘every invention is an act of rebellion against time-honoured beliefs and deeply entrenched customs’.

Even if we were to discover the solution to our greatest social ills tomorrow, it is unlikely to be adopted or even welcomed. Technological innovation, like the cure for scurvy, can be resisted, intentionally or unintentionally, for many decades. We can, moreover, not be confident that our innovations will have the effect we might envision: Lind would not have imagined that his invention would one day result in one of the world’s most famous organised crime syndicates.

Does this mean we should not innovate? Absolutely not. What it does mean is that our most serious social ills won’t be solved by technology alone. This demands that we study how innovations alter our thoughts, behaviour and interactions, especially at a time when technology changes so quickly.

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash. An edited version of this post appeared (in Afrikaans) in Rapport on 9 April 2023.