Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#151

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 2:07 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #138

dredmorbius wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lateen sails took a particularly long time to spread. They had been introduced to the Mediterranean region as early as the 2nd century BC (and had been developed much earlier in China and Arabia), but were not brought into widespread use in European sailing ships until the 1400s. This is hugely significant as a lateen-rigged ship can sail far closer to the wind than a square-rigged ship, giving it much better maneuve…

And yet European naval architects continued using square rigging for most large vessels until the end of the age of sail even when they were fully aware of lateen rigging. So clearly there were advantages to square rigging beyond just conservative finance.

The vessels made use of square-rigged sails, but also carried lateen, gaff, or fore-and-aft rigging, allowing for better handling.

Just to give a sense for the significance of this (and later steam): ships could spend weeks, or even months, awaiting favourable winds to enter harbour. Improved sailing capabilities were directly beneficial to all aspects of the shipping business.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sail-plan#/media/File%3AShip...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sail-plan#

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#152

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 2:10 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #32

One of the most fascinating books I ever picked up from the library was Ancient Inventions ( https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Inventions-Peter-James/dp/034... ), which goes over the details of stuff like this. The historical figure that strikes me as "most likely to be a time traveller" is Archimedes, who designed incredibly advanced machines that destroyed the Roman fleet and protected his home city. Sadly he was acci…

Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China needs mention, though you might not want to buy the whole thing.

It was begun in 1954, and now runs 27 separate volumes, with several more still planned.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilization_in_...

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#153

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:58 AM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #85

notahacker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other issue with having most of your labour performed by slaves is that the slaves themselves generally don't have the motivation, or education, or chance of actually being taken seriously to propose even incremental process improvements.

That's what you think. The nobility would usually sit in Rome or any other nice place and leave administration of their landholdings to a competent slave. Read Cato the Elder's Agri Cultura for details. Demotivation would be an issue for those slaves low on the food chain but not for every slave. For more contemporary examples, look no further than Daenerys' Dothraki handmaidens.

Sitting in some other nice place while a slave oversees administration of your landholdings is well documented in the US south too. See e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Time-Cross-Economics-American-Slavery... . They take pains to emphasize that slaves were educated, motivated, and taken seriously.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#154

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Nov 01, 2016, 3:43 AM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #142

dredmorbius wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lateen sails took a particularly long time to spread. They had been introduced to the Mediterranean region as early as the 2nd century BC (and had been developed much earlier in China and Arabia), but were not brought into widespread use in European sailing ships until the 1400s. This is hugely significant as a lateen-rigged ship can sail far closer to the wind than a square-rigged ship, giving it much better maneuve…

Thank you very much for following up on that off-hand question!

I'd run into Burke's observation concerning insurance and finance and simply found it fascinating. Been looking for a place to drop that since.

The case raises the question olueand risk of standardisation and institutions. It's one thing to establish proven norms for acting, but if you don't also incorporate some means for trialing new concepts, ventures, ideas, etc., these also make you hidebound. That's part of the problem that seems to have faced China, getting to the question of innovation and the Industrial Revolution (and another HN post).

In the case of industrialisation, lathes, machining tools, standardised fasteners and couplings, all helped bring about mass manufacture. At the same time, they're probably making it harder for some improvements to get out -- say, arguably, Linux as a mass operating system (desktop), or alternatives to the QWERTY keyboard.

Choices where there's not an obviously superior choice, but you have to choose one are even more captivating -- what side of the road do you drive on? Clearly, that's a case where you cannot leave it up to individual volition, where you must determine at the very least a regional or roadway standard, and where simultaneously choosing both options doesn't work.

I really ought to collect a set of standards-of-convention which operate similarly -- instances where a choice must be made but the initial option is arbitrary. Downstream, you end up with path-dependencies, lock-in, sunk-cost, familiarty, network effects, and more.

Hrm....

(Thanks for the offhand question :)

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#155

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Nov 01, 2016, 4:00 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #132

dredmorbius wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrasting: prison labour, concentration-camp labour, sweatshops, workhouses.

Prison labor is used for menial labor. See what I wrote about the nazi's use of concentration camp labor. Sweatshops and workhouses are not slave labor (and also are used for menial labor).

So, this starts to get into somewhat interesting territory. I'v been thinking about automation and its contrast with industrialisation.

From the start of the industrial revolution through about the 1960s, the principle mechanisms were division of labour and application of more energy per worker. There was some automation, but it was largely at a very simple scale -- Jaquard's loom, duplicating patterns on lathes and machining systems, dies (a simple mode for reproducing complex shapes).

But for the most part, what wasn't being substituted for was the worker's skill.

Since the 1960s or so, that's begun changing. Soup-to-nuts factories produce goods with little or no worker intervention. CAD-CAM systems translate design directly to machining.

Automation, in short, replaces the mind of the worker, rather than the muscle.

This also calls to mind the question of just what it is that labour is. I'd consider it a compound factor of production:

1. A prime mover.

2. A complex manipulation system.

3. Skill and processing knowledge.

4. A control system through sensing, processing, feedback, and resulting process management inputs.

Labour-as-muscle has been subject to replacing since the time of draught animals, water, and wind power, though at a vastly greater rate with steam, electrical, and internal-combustion power. The result has largely been an amplification of labour via energy inputs.

Substituting for the information-processing capabilities of labour is another matter. It does mean, however, that increasing amounts of skilled work might be replaceable with a much less-skilled technician. I've seen this trend in the IT world over the past several decades, though there remain points at which greater skills are still in demand.

This makes the viability of coerced labour, including the coerced labour of sweatshops and workhouses, as well as actual prison slave labour, for complex goods, far more viable.

Let that spin your moral compass for a bit.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#156

Post by Houshalter » Tue, Nov 01, 2016, 11:09 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #149

Houshalter wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you mention yourself, the US got by using mostly wood until relatively late in the second industrial revolution. There is still a lot of useful energy in wood. Even ancient rome burned a ton of wood for heat and their own industries. It would have been more expensive and less sustainable sure, but I think it would have been enough to start. There is also wind and water power which was utilized a lot during the sta…

Wood is sustainable until it isn't. Rome and the Mediterranian had a long history of deforestation, going to Egypt and Sumer. The first story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, can be read as a story of ecological limits and deforestation. Roman heating systems, hypocausts, had voracious fuel appetites. I'm not finding a solid reference but believe one could consume a ton or more of wood daily. That was imported from distant lo…

I'm trying to say that it would be possible to start some industrial processes and automation. A water mill is enough to power a lot of machinery, and they could have become more efficient as they developed the technology. There is a huge amount of energy in moving water and air.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#157

Post by mitochondrion » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 11:21 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #105

mitochondrion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a lathe now, how long will it take for that lathe to disintegrate into complete irreparable unusability? With a fertility rate of 1.3 among the intelligent (read: technologically capable) peoples of the world, we are far more likely to run out of people to maintain the technology than we are to run out of the energy to power it. Indeed, if you walk into any utility company or similar, who do you see doing…

That assumes that technologically capable people must be the progeny of technically/technologically capable people, which I put to you is not in any way, shape or form true. Are you using the number of 1.3 from people with university education in the rich world? It seems a very narrow window through which to view humanity'a 'capable' people, who exist in all shapes and forms, all colours, on all continents, and often…

Technological capability is more or less intellectual ability.

IQ is substantially heritable. A child's IQ is (more or less) the average of his four grandparents. The IQ of his four grandparents is largely the result of cognitive assortment within a breeding population with a certain mean IQ.

If a population's mean IQ is 70, the percentage of people with an IQ above 130 is 0 (out to four decimal places).

If 85, 0.1%.

If 100, 2.2%.

If 115, 15.9%.

The mean IQ of the white race is about 100. The mean IQ of SS Africans is about 70. The mean IQ of Arabs is about 85. The mean IQ of Chinese is 105 or so. The mean IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 110-115, depending on how you measure it (they are a special case).

There are probably more people possessing IQs of 130 or above in Israel than in all of Africa.

The number 1.3 comes from a rough average of the fertility of the white nations and of the high-end Asian countries, namely Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and to a somewhat lesser extent mainland China.

Re: Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012)

#158

Post by mitochondrion » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 11:21 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #105

mitochondrion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a lathe now, how long will it take for that lathe to disintegrate into complete irreparable unusability? With a fertility rate of 1.3 among the intelligent (read: technologically capable) peoples of the world, we are far more likely to run out of people to maintain the technology than we are to run out of the energy to power it. Indeed, if you walk into any utility company or similar, who do you see doing…

That assumes that technologically capable people must be the progeny of technically/technologically capable people, which I put to you is not in any way, shape or form true. Are you using the number of 1.3 from people with university education in the rich world? It seems a very narrow window through which to view humanity'a 'capable' people, who exist in all shapes and forms, all colours, on all continents, and often…

Technological capability is more or less intellectual ability.

IQ is substantially heritable. A child's IQ is (more or less) the average of his four grandparents. The IQ of his four grandparents is largely the result of cognitive assortment within a breeding population with a certain mean IQ.

If a population's mean IQ is 70, the percentage of people with an IQ above 130 is 0 (out to four decimal places).

If 85, 0.1%.

If 100, 2.2%.

If 115, 15.9%.

The mean IQ of the white race is about 100. The mean IQ of SS Africans is about 70. The mean IQ of Arabs is about 85. The mean IQ of Chinese is 105 or so. The mean IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 110-115, depending on how you measure it (they are a special case).

There are probably more people possessing IQs of 130 or above in Israel than in all of Africa.

The number 1.3 comes from a rough average of the fertility of the white nations and of the high-end Asian countries, namely Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and to a somewhat lesser extent mainland China.