| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"JTEM" |
| Date: |
29 Nov 2006 03:21:18 PM |
| Object: |
Technology... |
It's finds like this that make me think that
technological development is less a matter
of time than it is a matter of disseminating
it.
I tend to think that if all the trade "Secrets"
and knowledge had been readily shared,
humans might've reached our current level
of technology many centuries earlier...
http://www.livescience.com/history/061129_anitkythera_mech.html
Mind you, it works both ways. That is, people
not only had to disseminate their knowlede,
but they required a culture/technology that
welcomed it.
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| User: "MemePilot" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 11:11:44 PM |
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JTEM wrote:
It's finds like this that make me think that
technological development is less a matter
of time than it is a matter of disseminating
it.
I tend to think that if all the trade "Secrets"
and knowledge had been readily shared,
humans might've reached our current level
of technology many centuries earlier...
http://www.livescience.com/history/061129_anitkythera_mech.html
Mind you, it works both ways. That is, people
not only had to disseminate their knowlede,
but they required a culture/technology that
welcomed it.
I tend to think that it was not dissemination of technology that set
the pace of technology development through the ages. If you look at all
the "Great" societies (Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, etc) you see
that they all had amazing technological developments that by todays
eyes should have permitted them to leapfrog directly into a
technological society like today; cutting centuries off the formation
of a modern society. But none of these amazing technologies went any
where beyond curiosity level or the specific purpose they were designed
for. It is generally only through a modern perspective that we can see
the great potential of these inventions. In the end what really seems
to be lacking for technology to evolve is the idea of using technology
to propagate change, i. e. create more technology from it, which is
inherent in our current perception of technology. It appears to me
that it was the accumulation of several inventions on a social level
that has lead to our current state of technology and current rate of
change. These social inventions included Science, reason, and the whole
idea of technological change that came out of the Renaissance era along
with the invention/creation of a modern self sustaining middle class
and emergence of a global consumption based economy. All of these seem
to have their roots in the Renaissance era and hit critical mass with
the industrial revolution. The actual causes for why modern society
manifested itself when it did, is most definitely a lot more
complicated that I understand.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
01 Dec 2006 12:54:12 AM |
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MemePilot wrote:
I tend to think that it was not dissemination
of technology that set the pace of technology
development through the ages. If you look at
all the "Great" societies (Egypt, Greece,
Rome, China, etc) you see that they all had
amazing technological developments that by
todays eyes should have permitted them to
leapfrog directly into a technological society
like today; cutting centuries off the formation
of a modern society.
China, Egypt & Greece all had insurmountable
social obsticals. Even Rome, certainly the
closest, needed great socio-economic reform
before it could ever clear a path towards modern
technology.
First, there was so much social disparity that,
even if you developed some really neat technology,
your market was tiny. With most of the city's
population either slaves or reduced to living off
of charity, there just weren't a lot of buyers. and
there weren't a lot of educated workers, either.
So if your hi-tech development required a lot of
technical knowledge/skill to produce, your
production was always going to be limited... for
generations.
Cars changed America when they became
affordable by the common man. In ancient Rome,
that was never going to happen. It couldn't
happen. The elite spent centuries doing everything
from stealing their land to making it illegal for
them to even wear gold jewelry.
Never mind the manufacture and sale of cars,
look at all the other industry surrounding cars.
Roads. Lights. Signs. Gas stations. Repair
shops. Tow trucks. AAA. Insurance. Tires.
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| User: "Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
29 Nov 2006 09:27:42 PM |
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JTEM:
I tend to think that if all the trade "Secrets"
and knowledge had been readily shared,
humans might've reached our current level
of technology many centuries earlier...
Agreed. As Ken Humphreys of "jesusneverexisted.com" nicely depicted it by
showing a picture of Mr Ford (yup, Tin Lizzy's dad ;) ) on one of his
pages, with the subtitle "Fordicus?"...
(...implying that, who knows, without the jebus cult, maybe the first
automobiles would've been built in the Roman empire?)
--
"To his friend a man a friend shall prove, and gifts with gifts requite;
But men shall mocking with mockery answer, and fraud with falsehood meet."
(The Poetic Edda)
Must have been written with fundies in mind...
My personal judgment of monotheism:
http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
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| User: "Matt Silberstein" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
01 Dec 2006 08:54:39 AM |
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On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:27:42 +0100, in alt.atheism , "Thurisaz,
Germanic barbarian" <MAILTOsecretary@carcosa.de> in
<eklj37$5k4$2@online.de> wrote:
JTEM:
I tend to think that if all the trade "Secrets"
and knowledge had been readily shared,
humans might've reached our current level
of technology many centuries earlier...
Sharing information is, itself, a technology. The most revolutionary
(and disruptive) innovation of the last 2,000 years was the printing
press (movable type, screw press, etc.). Of course it also lead to the
deaths of millions of people so lets not confuse technical progress
with "good".
Agreed. As Ken Humphreys of "jesusneverexisted.com" nicely depicted it by
showing a picture of Mr Ford (yup, Tin Lizzy's dad ;) ) on one of his
pages, with the subtitle "Fordicus?"...
(...implying that, who knows, without the jebus cult, maybe the first
automobiles would've been built in the Roman empire?)
Or not for another few thousand years. Do you have a reason to think
that any other religion would have been more innovation friendly?
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
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| User: "Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
02 Dec 2006 12:03:59 AM |
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Matt Silberstein:
(...implying that, who knows, without the jebus cult, maybe the first
automobiles would've been built in the Roman empire?)
Or not for another few thousand years. Do you have a reason to think
that any other religion would have been more innovation friendly?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on how you define "religion".
If religion = morontheism like fundie christianity or islam, then you have a
strong point there. But then, to be fair, not all religions are as dogmatic
and aggressive as them (heck, not even all christians and muslims are
idiots!). The Roman religion itself doesn't seem to have been that much of
an obstacle to progress, does it? ;)
I admit that it's all hypothetical... but sometimes thinking about such
scenarios is fun ;)
--
"To his friend a man a friend shall prove, and gifts with gifts requite;
But men shall mocking with mockery answer, and fraud with falsehood meet."
(The Poetic Edda)
Must have been written with fundies in mind...
My personal judgment of monotheism:
http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 03:36:52 PM |
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Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian wrote:
(...implying that, who knows, without the jebus cult,
maybe the first automobiles would've been built in
the Roman empire?)
You know, I may be strutting out on a limb here, but
I don't think the problem was religion.
Don't get me wrong. Christianity certainly added to
the problem. But Christianity stepped into an
existing socio-economic (even socio-religious)
environment.
Allow me to explain (as if you could stay awake
through it)...
Let's say that unusually innovative people were born
at roughly the same rate in ancient times as they
are today, as a near identical percentage of the
population. But what if they weren't a citizen? Heck,
what if they weren't part of the aristocracy?
Slaves... serfs... peasants...
For the vast majority of human history, it wasn't
enough to be born with a capability, a capacity.
You also needed the luck of being born into the
right situation where you had access to the
tools (including education), and the freedom to
persue your ideas. This "Luck" usually (almost
always) involved being born into an elite family.
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| User: "skyeyes" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 03:51:26 PM |
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JTEM wrote:
<Snips>
Let's say that unusually innovative people were born
at roughly the same rate in ancient times as they
are today, as a near identical percentage of the
population. But what if they weren't a citizen? Heck,
what if they weren't part of the aristocracy?
Slaves... serfs... peasants...
....women...
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes at dakotacom dot net
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 04:28:46 PM |
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skyeyes wrote:
JTEM wrote:
Let's say that unusually innovative people were born
at roughly the same rate in ancient times as they
are today, as a near identical percentage of the
population. But what if they weren't a citizen? Heck,
what if they weren't part of the aristocracy?
Slaves... serfs... peasants...
...women...
You are correct, of course. That was an unfortunate
oversight on my part.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes at dakotacom dot net
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| User: "Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 09:01:17 PM |
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JTEM:
For the vast majority of human history, it wasn't
enough to be born with a capability, a capacity.
You also needed the luck of being born into the
right situation where you had access to the
tools (including education), and the freedom to
persue your ideas. This "Luck" usually (almost
always) involved being born into an elite family.
True... but then, is it really that different today?
--
"To his friend a man a friend shall prove, and gifts with gifts requite;
But men shall mocking with mockery answer, and fraud with falsehood meet."
(The Poetic Edda)
Must have been written with fundies in mind...
My personal judgment of monotheism:
http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
.
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| User: "Frank Mayhar" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
30 Nov 2006 10:03:18 PM |
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On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:01:17 +0100, Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian wrote:
JTEM:
For the vast majority of human history, it wasn't
enough to be born with a capability, a capacity.
You also needed the luck of being born into the
right situation where you had access to the
tools (including education), and the freedom to
persue your ideas. This "Luck" usually (almost
always) involved being born into an elite family.
True... but then, is it really that different today?
In places, yes. Not everywhere, but with a lot of work and a bit of luck
that will change.
--
Frank Mayhar frank@exit.com http://www.exit.com/
Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/
http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/
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| User: "DarkAngel" |
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| Title: Re: Technology... |
01 Dec 2006 09:06:58 AM |
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Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian wrote:
JTEM:
For the vast majority of human history, it wasn't
enough to be born with a capability, a capacity.
You also needed the luck of being born into the
right situation where you had access to the
tools (including education), and the freedom to
persue your ideas. This "Luck" usually (almost
always) involved being born into an elite family.
True... but then, is it really that different today?
The elite is a bit broader. Apart from that, no.
A lot of the speed increase in tech advances is due to simple
demographics. More people = more discoveries. It's also why countries
like Russia and China would have so many top Olympic athletes: larger
populations means more statistical outliers.
---
No Gods. No Masters.
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