Is occupational specificity bred from job reduction due to progress, a stepping stone to eventual collapse?

There is a flexibility to knowing multiple disciplines, that when roles become specified, the progress initially accelerates, and then becomes static when the role specifies to irrelevance.

At that point, the whole structure becomes inflexible. It is the product of indirect assembly-line culture. When only a few know the whole production, the system is weakened, and controlled solely by the few.

We're living in the period of expansion to irrelevance. The larger the specified fields grow, the more they are broken down into specified components, that grow and are broken down. Generalized knowledge becomes an antiquity, and often, as the field progresses- an impossibility.

is there a mathematical way to assess the knowledge capacity of a single person that can surmise the entirety of our species? Is there a cap on the cooperativeness between disciplines, and the breadth of applicable knowledge before the system breaks down? What is the limit? What is the maximum allowable disconnect between those disciplines? And can AI/technology bridge the gap?

For example: The expanse of applicable knowledge a person contains at the peak of their career, the extinction of some of that knowledge with progress, and the replacement rate of that knowledge covered by those replacing said person that role.

There are so many jobs undergoing extinction at this moment- some of them simple, some of them very complicated.

A great example of this is FOGBANK: "In 1996, the US government decided to replace, refurbish, or decommission large numbers of its nuclear weapons. It was soon realized that the FOGBANK material was a potential source of problems for the program, as few records of its manufacturing process had been retained when it was originally manufactured in the 1980s, and nearly all staff members who had expertise in its production had either retired or left the agency."

As fields grow and diversify, knowledge application retention needs to be passed down in order to continue as a society.

It seems as if we've moved from people who know how to complete part B, also know A,C,D and E well enough to fill in- to people who know part B very well, but would be unable to complete A,C,D,E,F and G.

When this happens, the system becomes unstable... and if we reduce population- inevitable.

My thoughts are just as we progress- things become more and more complicated. At what point do the screws stop showing up at the factory because Dave died before he could show Aaron when/how to lubricate the production machine and broke a part that no-one makes anymore?

submitted by /u/2022FAMINE
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/C_S_T/comments/pa4qyr/is_occupational_specificity_bred_from_job/