What held us back, technologically, for so long??

Originally posted by wlord
lack of electricity ? i dont know, thank god for tesla.

Electricity had been fully described mathematically by James Clark Maxwell about 100 years before Tesla and significant electrical science and technology existed contemporaneous to Maxwell.

While electricity was part of the knowledge that grew during this period, it was not specifically the impetus to that growth until, as you mentioned, Tesla provided a consistent and reasonable priced generation method which was taken up by the public.

The Baghdad Battery, Galvani's Animal Electricity and Electroplated Sumerian artifacts all attest to electrical technology far pre-dating the growth in knowledge.

Originally posted by Legion2024
600 years of hunting witches, Imagine where we would be now if those 600 years were more productive.

edit on 14-3-2012 by Legion2024 because: (no reason given)

With the realistic resources that were sent against hunting witches (which in general were poor peasant women and midwives), remarkably like today because that isn't the answer to the question.

The question is also wrong, what you should be asking is what propelled us forward? I'd say that answer would be the domain of the ways of thinking that evolved in Europe and then expanded across the globe as European empires grew and began to categorize things in a rational manner while also obtaining wealth and prospective to turn the new way of thinking from thought experiments into reality. Or basically credit the Enlightenment.

With regard to the guy who commented about capitalism (which is mostly sour grapes about consumer society which ironically disproves his point since we're still advancing) holding us back, I would point out that capitalism is one of those things that help inspire creativity in finding not only a new way to do old things cheaper, but new things to develop to sell to others.

Originally posted by BrokenCircles

Originally posted by chr0naut

While I agree, in principle, artefacts like the Antikythera Mechanism show an incredible amount of technological sophistication and yet we never saw a similar rise in knowledge from Ancient Greece (although we should have, IMHO).

I don't know what that thing could do, but I feel it is safe to assume that it could not be used to have a real-time conversation with someone on the opposite side of the world.

Communication is an important tool for sharing and gaining knowledge.

Communication and new media is part of the result of this boom, but American Indians could use smoke signals in relay to spread news and in ancient China, they could send a message across thousands of miles in an hour by semaphoring the details from mountain top, to mountain top (The same has been suggested for the Incas).

Again, its almost there but something just seems to be lacking in the theory.

... and PS the Antikythera Mechanism was a mechanical computer for predicting where the stars and planets would be in the sky. Sort of like self-calculating ephemeris tables that the British Navy used for navigation in the 1700's.

Originally posted by jude11
When we started reverse engineering UFO crashes it was all forward from there I believe.

Peace

But I think that by '47 we were well underway into our current knowledge 'boom'.

Originally posted by Moneyisgodlifeisrented
Energy and Capitalism is what is holding us back Technologically, Think about this.

Oil and other fossil fuels is the main way we still after a 100 years use to get our energy.

Like it or not, the technological hyperinflation of the last century was driven by capitalistic industry made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuels.

Originally posted by Koffee

Originally posted by Legion2024
600 years of hunting witches, Imagine where we would be now if those 600 years were more productive.

edit on 14-3-2012 by Legion2024 because: (no reason given)

With the realistic resources that were sent against hunting witches (which in general were poor peasant women and midwives), remarkably like today because that isn't the answer to the question.

The question is also wrong, what you should be asking is what propelled us forward? I'd say that answer would be the domain of the ways of thinking that evolved in Europe and then expanded across the globe as European empires grew and began to categorize things in a rational manner while also obtaining wealth and prospective to turn the new way of thinking from thought experiments into reality. Or basically credit the Enlightenment.

With regard to the guy who commented about capitalism (which is mostly sour grapes about consumer society which ironically disproves his point since we're still advancing) holding us back, I would point out that capitalism is one of those things that help inspire creativity in finding not only a new way to do old things cheaper, but new things to develop to sell to others.

While the Enlightenment "feels" right as the impetus to change, there is a significant gap between it and the growth of technology that is hard to justify. The Enlightenment and the Reformation may both have been requirements but something else was the final trigger.

Advances have been actively held back and suppressed for almost a hundred years. We are being actively suppressed NOW.

I defy anyone to think of something truly new that has been invented since WW2. Even ONE thing, that is not just a refinement of existing tech.

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by jude11
When we started reverse engineering UFO crashes it was all forward from there I believe.

Peace

But I think that by '47 we were well underway into our current knowledge 'boom'.

edit on 14/3/2012 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)

Yup.

But in '47 we were still trying to perfect the car. 22 yrs later, we're on the moon? (Maybe) Or at least in space.

Big leap there.

And who knows? Was the '47 incident REALLY the first craft we got our hands on?

Peace

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by jude11
When we started reverse engineering UFO crashes it was all forward from there I believe.

Peace

But I think that by '47 we were well underway into our current knowledge 'boom'.

edit on 14/3/2012 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)

What knowledge "boom" do you think is happening?

Originally posted by CaptChaos
Advances have been actively held back and suppressed for almost a hundred years. We are being actively suppressed NOW.

I defy anyone to think of something truly new that has been invented since WW2. Even ONE thing, that is not just a refinement of existing tech.

Here's a few:

The science of genetics and recombinant DNA.
Spintronics,
Graphene, Fullerines and other allotropes of Carbon.
Magnetic monopoles,
Superconductivity, and its associated discoveries.
String theory, M theory and Brane theories,
Theoretical dark energy,
Hawking Radiation,
Memory Alloys,
Metamaterials and negative refractive index,
Space Travel,
Kevlar,
Graphite Polymers,
Lasers and Masers,
Nanotechnology,
Neuro-chemistry,

... as you imagine, I could easily go on for ages.

Originally posted by zerotime
Religion held us back. And I'm not bashing religion just stating a fact. Religion is still fighting science tooth and nail on any modern advances.

edit on 14-3-2012 by zerotime because: (no reason given)

I don't mean to bash your post but you are dead wrong for the wrong reason because religion, or rather the Bible, has been mentioning the End Days since it was first written mega years ago.

Of course the End Days can be identified as the Age of Increased Knowledge, which is what this topic is all about.

Don't bash the messenger, aka religion.

Originally posted by CaptChaos

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by jude11
When we started reverse engineering UFO crashes it was all forward from there I believe.

Peace

But I think that by '47 we were well underway into our current knowledge 'boom'.

edit on 14/3/2012 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)

What knowledge "boom" do you think is happening?

In his book "The Singularity is Near", Ray Kurtzweil graphs the accumulation of technological knowledge over human history. Initially, the growth is almost non existent, producing a line that is almost parallel to the X axis. However, somewhere around one hundred years ago, the line changed direction and began shooting increasingly towards being parallel with the Y axis. The inference, mathematically, is that at some stage the change in the rate of technological growth will essentially be a vertical line with nearly infinite change instantly. It is this he calls the Singularity.

That growth of technological knowledge is what I am referring to.

I actually think technological growth peaked in the period from 1960-1995 and has since slowed down. Cultural change too. I mean how different is 2012 from the better part of the 90s in terms of the music and popular fashion and culture? Not very much.

Originally posted by Alxandro

Originally posted by zerotime
Religion held us back. And I'm not bashing religion just stating a fact. Religion is still fighting science tooth and nail on any modern advances.

edit on 14-3-2012 by zerotime because: (no reason given)

I don't mean to bash your post but you are dead wrong for the wrong reason because religion, or rather the Bible, has been mentioning the End Days since it was first written mega years ago.

Of course the End Days can be identified as the Age of Increased Knowledge, which is what this topic is all about.

Don't bash the messenger, aka religion.

I tend to believe that the human race was too immature to deal effectively with such change (and we're not really that much more mature now), so God held back this growth and its consequences, and He has been doing so since Babel.

... but now something has changed and he has withdrawn his control.

(just my 2c).

Still, as a scientist, I want to see the mechanism.

Originally posted by wlord
lack of electricity ? i dont know, thank god for tesla.

You are correct, the mass distribution of electricity was the fundamental enabling technology that drove the exponential growth in most of our advancements in the last 100 years.

international banks. the ability to bring all countries together under monetary systems that allow any person anywhere to buy something from anywhere. the ability to constantly and maybe even instantaneously know the market value of all currency. the creation of super banks is relatively a new phenomena, leading up to the second world war. one might even say that technology and advancements are directly related to the rise of america as the hegemonic state after ww2. but that would just be hubrous.

Originally posted by lampsalot
I actually think technological growth peaked in the period from 1960-1995 and has since slowed down. Cultural change too. I mean how different is 2012 from the better part of the 90s in terms of the music and popular fashion and culture? Not very much.

I would disagree. The 60's advertised a lot of hopeful but unrealized ideas while communication was reaching critical mass.

I also believe the "space race" was one of the hotbeds of technological creation. It forced solutions to things that had never been even considered before, which had offshoots into more usable technology.

Today we have the iPhones and computers that they fantasized about in the 50's & 60's.

Originally posted by chr0naut
Humans have been around for ages (3 million or more years according to current Science) and yet it is only in the last 100 or so years that we have progressed from horse & cart to the Internet & Space.

The start of the upward spike of the application of knowledge could have occurred anywhere, (ancient India, China, the Middle East or Greece), at any time but it seemed to come mainly from Europe and only a few decades ago.

So, what was it? Or conversely, what propelled us forward?

your definition of technology and the ancestors are different.

you call tv microwave jets all technological advances.

they called the wheel, the great pyramids, the great wall of china, the colloseum, great chapels, aqueducts and their own warmachines technological advances.

Originally posted by Lawgiver
international banks. the ability to bring all countries together under monetary systems that allow any person anywhere to buy something from anywhere. the ability to constantly and maybe even instantaneously know the market value of all currency. the creation of super banks is relatively a new phenomena, leading up to the second world war. one might even say that technology and advancements are directly related to the rise of america as the hegemonic state after ww2. but that would just be hubrous.

Hubris aside, there is some truth in what you say.

But was it the banks or the Financial analytics utilized by governments and banks which achieved the required change?