Why is it taking so long for humans to advance technologically

Originally posted by diehard_democrat
Oh, thanks for clearing that up for me. I don't really know much about how the internet developed and that...

Wasn't for you, it was for everyone else. This is a conspiracy board after all, people always think the worst of anything posted.

OMG WTF TEH GUBBERMENT HAS TEH INTERNET!!!!111OMGOMGOMG ZERG RUSH!!!!!!1111

wow mike boy do u have an imagination!!!! YOU POST SUMTIN AND DON'T THINK ABOUT IT lmao!!!

Originally posted by DeltaChaos

I now believe that the secret technology level is more like tens of thousands of years beyond what we see.

And yet you jut spent a day asking someone to prove that magic exists. ATS is a hell of a place

I'm inclined to agree with a lot of you guys. From the birth of our species, until the mid-1800's, the primary source of travel was either by foot, horseback, or boat. The primary source of food was whatever grew in your backyard, or what your neighbor grew in HIS backyard. (or whatever you trapped or shot.)

Today, people walk for excercise and do their food gathering at the Safeway around the corner.

As for how one earns a living, forget about it! A hundred years ago, if you didn't live in the city, you were a farmer...period. Today, it's flip-flopped to the point where farmers are downright hard to come by.

I'd like to take a line from the OLD Star Trek and quote the infamous Kahn, who said, "Improve man, and you gain a thousand fold."

Perhaps THAT is where we should make our next strides, (not meaning to sound eugenistic, but hey, what ever works.)

P.S.

Is Eugenistic a real word?

Also, what was Kahn's full name? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

[edit on 24-10-2004 by Toelint]

Yes the concept for the "internet" is over 20 years old as a military network for conduction of communications, but only within the last 20 years has it become a viable commercial and public venture, and only within that time has it grown into the vurtual universe that it is today. The Internet is as much a sociological invention and social movement (which by the way is another type of human advancement) as a technological one, and the people needed to be ready before the Internet was truly built into its potential.

As for th "tens of thousands of years" idea, it must be some pretty boring tech then because I am sure that if there was money to be made on it, the tech would be in the consumer market by now. Look at where space travel is going, a year ago it was the sole domain of superpower (and ex-superpower) governments, now Virgin Spaceways already has close to 2 Billion (US dollars) in advance reservations for their trips. Their fleet of Space Ship Ones and the comming Boeing Starliner will only set them back about 500 Million, meaning that they reap close to 1.5 Billion in profit on the venture.

Maybe it's time to buy some more stock in Virgin...

I really don't buy into a lot of that "super-ultra-mega secret" government tech stuff, after all it is America, and any great military tech has got to come from some company, and if they could pull some super-ultra-mega profit on it, it would be sitting on our kitchen counters as soon as a production like could be started. That's one advantage of a market economy.

As for the original poster, you know you're probably going to have the same mentality in 2020 as you do now, despite the massive advances you'll see by then. Keep one eye on the horizon, but also be aware of the now. To someone from the 1950s this IS the world-of-tomorrow. We cook popcorn with radiation in our microwaves, we chat instantly with friends in Hong Kong, Toronto, Moscow and Sydney at the same time for free, and we play interactive movies on our PCs PS2s and X-Boxes. The most amazing part is that we think nothing of it! This is just the mundane everyday boring world. So too will be the world of our tomorrow, we could fly to distant galaxies in a cloud made of nanotechnological machinery, while interfacing with the net directly through cybernetic implants and never aging because of advanced genetics and it would all be just as boring and bland because it's just the average life then too.

Scientific advancement is exciting, but it rarely if ever will give meaning to one's entire life, and it will only keep you thrilled so long before it too becomes just another tool. Do not try to define your life by tech, you will inevitably get hopelessly bored and jaded no matter how fast the pace of progress.

May Peace Travel With You
~Astral

The lack of real scientific progress from areas that aren't related to the weapons and the pharmaceutical industry ticks me off no end. There has been active supression of science over the years. The church being responsible for crushing advancement for such a long time, science just isn't God. Today's supressor is capitalism, science just isn't cheap. There is also the fact that the military (government) likes to keep things to themselves.

The inventors of the years gone by could invent and discover in their sheds, and they did, mostly because technology then could be invented like that. Technology today mostly requires labs and what have you, not many sheds have particle accelerators knocking about! Let's not forget that TV and working hours take up a lot of our inventors' lives.

Originally posted by Dae
The lack of real scientific progress from areas that aren't related to the weapons and the pharmaceutical industry ticks me off no end. There has been active supression of science over the years. The church being responsible for crushing advancement for such a long time, science just isn't God. Today's supressor is capitalism, science just isn't cheap. There is also the fact that the military (government) likes to keep things to themselves.

The inventors of the years gone by could invent and discover in their sheds, and they did, mostly because technology then could be invented like that. Technology today mostly requires labs and what have you, not many sheds have particle accelerators knocking about! Let's not forget that TV and working hours take up a lot of our inventors' lives.

I also blame that most inventor's have a quality of lfie so high in western nations that they lack a certain drive to make things better. Many scientists search for knowledge, whish may or may not have a current practical application.

I guess the reason is that all new discoveries are used for military purposes and are being kept secret.

I wonder what's the progress on electrogravitics. By now all UFOs we see in the sky should be man made.

Originally posted by WisdomMaster
I guess the reason is that all new discoveries are used for military purposes and are being kept secret.

I wonder what's the progress on electrogravitics. By now all UFOs we see in the sky should be man made.

I see why they call you WM!

Taking into account all of the craft sightings that are void of loud noise and external airflow, one must surmise there is some kind of AG tech present.

And drawing the assumption that the military has the best of the best is I believe perfectly valid as well.

Originally posted by The Astral City
As for th "tens of thousands of years" idea, it must be some pretty boring tech then because I am sure that if there was money to be made on it, the tech would be in the consumer market by now.

I believe that the technology that is tens of thousands of years beyond where we should be is a result of developing technologies that have been found at alien crash landings.

I think that some of the technology that has been developed from this alien stuff actually has made it to the market. Or at least inspired by it, or maybe the advanced technology has allowed us to fill in some holes that we hadn't yet filled ourselves.

I also believe that there is technology that is kept invisible from the public by the vast bureaucracy of government, military, and industy. Do I believe we have an interstellar propulsion technology on line right now? No, but I believe that we have a good knowledge of the system, but may just be missing material, fuel, or a few key concepts that elude us.

Technologies like propulsion, energy production, super-tensile matierials, super alloys, gravity and inertia manipulation, things like this. There has been so much information/disinformation volley on these subjects that the jury is perpetually out, until there is a release of information, or we all see it for ourselves. I don't think either of these things are likely anytime soon, but we continue to discover new information, gain new testimony, and get more documentary, visual, and radar evidence.

There is an incontrovertible amount of highly corroborated witness testimony, documentary evidence, and and electronic surveillance records to prove the ET/UFO thing. If, from the mid 1940's til now, all of this information from all over the world is consistent and corroborates itself is a lie, then it is the most carefully planned and perfectly executed conspiracy in the world. Even more perfect than the UFO cover-up conspiracy itself.

I agree with you deltachaos. However those technologies are not thousand of years more advanced than public technology.

1. Anti-gravity
2. Shape memory alloys
3. Time travel/Time manipulation
4. Battlefield holograms
5. Quantum Teleportation
6. Psychotronics
7. Particle beam lazers
8. Neural reprogramming
9. Mind control
10. Warp engines
11. Anti-matter and ZPE weapons
12. Zero point energy
13. Gene weapons
14. Androids
15. Dimensional shifting
16. Cloaking
17. Quantum Computers
18. Matter dematerialization
19. Energy Sheilding
20. Tractor beams
20. Life extension
21. Life resurrection
22. Interstellar travel
23. Creation(other life, as well as the ability to create a mini-universe)
24. Weather Control and tectonic weapons

All of the above already exist at some level in the public, except the government versions are much more advanced. Just watch star-trek, most of the tech is real. This is why aliens are engaging us, we possess technology that can destroy the universe, and we are evil enough to do it.

[edit on 24-10-2004 by Indigo_Child]

[edit on 24-10-2004 by Indigo_Child]

Economics & in many cases corporate greed.

Let's use the light bulb as an example. They made a better lightbulb that lasted 5 times longer & burned 90% less energy years ago , but they wanted to sell you a new lightbulb twice a year, so they never made a better one until recently. I went on a trip in the deep bush in the mid-70's and I noticed my guide used a fluorescent light connected to an auto battery. I was a child & I asked them why they used fluorescent lighting for our camp & they told me because they only take power to start & you can run them all night without running the batteries down. At that time I wondered why don't we use them in the house as we were in the middle of the 70's energy crisis.

I'm sure there's many other examples, but I think you get the picture.

We are still using steam to produce most of our electricity. And not only are we still using a nearly 300 year old engine, but we are still using coal and in some cases wood, to produce the steam.

We basically have five power sources that we can control and dispose.
Nature, most efficient
Steam, most efficient man made source
Internal combustion
gas turbines
mixing chemicals in order to produce an electrical current

But when looking at the smaller everyday items, we are still stuck in the 1950s and 60s, just everything is hyped up, smaller, and cheaper. Digital is still digital no matter if it travels through the phone lines, air, mp3 players, camera, or is stored on a disc.

Medical is about the only area that is still reinventing, at least until neocons decided stem cells and cloning was too scary and immoral.

I feel there are three groups keeping us from advancing. Government is only funding medical research, military isn't sharing its toys, and corporate america continues to sue each other whenever an innovation hits store shelves.

I have thought about it too. My great grandmother set me straight ( she just passed away ). She went from Missouri to California in a covered wagon then watched a man land on the moon. Advancing tech wise is relative to what you compare it to. Heck buy a pc today and its obsolite in a week. All of todays advanced fighters would not be able to fly without a computer or two. The F-16 can pull 9g's because the cg is so out of wack. It needs a computer to keep it between the navigational beacons. Watch the tail closely especially on takeoff and landing, constant movement not noticed by the pilot because its fly by wire. With todays computers you could even make a piano fly. Who knows whats out there that we dont know about. I remember when it was cool to sit in front of a black and green screen on DARPANET ( Eifle in the Air Force ) and chat with other squadrons.

JB

I think a lot has to do with government priorities and what the government chooses to do. In other words, it�s all about POLITICS.

Back in the 60�s, for instance, the only reason we made it to the moon was to to statisfy political objectives. We had to beat the Russians. PERIOD. Once we got there, and accomplished the goal, then interest waned and the Vietnam War got in the way.

Those who thought of the space program as a scientific venture were making projections that we would have colonies on Mars by the �80�s. Had there been a political objective driving it, then we surely would have had those colonies. Unfortunately, the space program fell quite a few notches on the prioritiy list, replaced by concerns over the enormous cost of the Vietnam War. NASA budgets were cut, and it�s slogan became, �Faster, Better, Cheaper ��. A truer slogan would have been, �Going Nowhere, Fast, but Cheap ��. Without government backing, the space program has since basically gone nowhere. IMHO, the only way we will make progress in space exploration is if it�s backed by commercial interests. But somehow, it just won�t be the same.

It�s too bad we�ve abandoned the noble, visionary projects, since much of our greatness as a nation was defined by it. The whole world watched in awe and envy as the Eagle landed on the moon, and Humanity took it�s first steps into a new frontier. We sparked the imagination, and had the support, of the entire planet when we did that. Nothing today even approaches it. Today our funds are diverted to yet another senseless war, and the slogan at NASA remains, �Faster, Better, Cheaper ��.

IMHO, as long as we (the government) choose to spend our money on negative things like war, weaponry and oil interests instead of things like alternative energy sources, navigating the universe through worm holes (research has shown it�s plausible), and improving the quality of our lives through genetics, then real advancement as a species will be retarded. And if our focus doesn�t change to more positive endeavors, we may eliminate ourselves altogether, without ever knowing all the wonderful things that could have been �

Originally posted by Toelint
Also, what was Kahn's full name? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Khan Noonien Singh is his name...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ money, everything is money. For example today we have the tech. to build bases on mars.., but we don't have the resources (money) to do it.

Sorry everybody,

but the original claim in thi thread is dead wrong, as some of the posters suggested. The technology moving at an incredible speed. It is most obvious to those who help develop it and are sophisticated users of it, like myself. Laypeople get jaded easily.

The original claim about the tape and CD is pretty silly. Tape is an extremely simple concept and does not involve electronics aboce the level of the shortwave radio.

CD, however, needs a new level of mechanical tolerances in production, on a mass scale, needs reliable lasers, needs compact and energy efficient memory, needs error correction. I mean you need tech education to really appreciate how much advanced stuff goes into things like a modern hi quality color TV. Whereas a layperson says "we had color TV for 40 years, how about holographic display?".

I'm still amazed that I can take a color picture with my cellphone (which is less than half the size of a cigarette pack) and e-mail it to my mom across the world in fraction of a second.

And you call it slow progress?

Geez.


[edit on 26-10-2004 by Aelita]

[edit on 26-10-2004 by Aelita]

Maybe if our advances were not immediately produced for military purposes then your average layperson wouldn't be so jaded. Alot of stuff is generally developed with the consumer at the bottom of the list. The Internet was originally for scientific exchanges, microwaves for military radars, etc.

Business/Government and simple ignorance...

Read anything about a man called Nikolai Tesla, he was a scientist/genuis that died in 1943. He developed a/c current used all over the world today.

I have a few links to some sites that tell some of his story, bottom line much of his work(journals) were taken after his death and the government is the chief suspect. Certain projects he had spoken about like his "death ray" meant to stop all wars is likely to be a laser. The "Haarp" program was something he had done decades ago when he shook half a town with a artificial earthquake....Marconni was said to have been the inventor of the radio---guess what...all his patents were eventually denied because Tesla had patented the design years before him..

the story goes on and on, turbines that are in use today were chiefly his tech.

anyway........much of the tech he developed his here now, but you'd have to eliminate the profit from the gas/electric and most of the big money makers in industry to allow it to be put to use.