61–70 of 139 posts
This is amazing (still) but hasn't it been on here before? I remember reading through it ages ago.
I might be wrong (search turns up nothing), I have seen this before though and thought it came from here (since this is usually where I find my quality reading material). No need to get all downvotey, I wish I had the authors abilities.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/terry-pratchett-creates-a-...
(Being a knight no longer conveys the right to carry a sword, it is a violation of the knife laws, so he keeps the sword hidden. Such days.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're into sci-fi I urge you to read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep [1]. It doesn't have a lot to do with this except that it has a fairly primitive society that has high-tech dumped on it in two different camps and what eventuates is an arms race. In the same vein is CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series [2], which tells the story of human colonists who end up lost, unable to find their way home. They instead find…
You dont need sci-fi to ponder what happens when a superior technological culture meets a less technologicaly developed culture. Look at Europes "discovery" of the americas, and for that matter, look at how the nomads of the world react when they are even today being "discovered" by us civilized people. You could study anthropolgy if you are into this sort of thing, its not really sci-fi, this is the real deal.
> ...most civilisations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.
Also:
> The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.
The entry also notes the similarity to black swan theory [2].
It's reasons like this, that I really wonder if someone from today were to time travel into the past if anything they know would be useful at all. Medieval people would probably think we're all idiots.
If you're into sci-fi I urge you to read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep [1]. It doesn't have a lot to do with this except that it has a fairly primitive society that has high-tech dumped on it in two different camps and what eventuates is an arms race. In the same vein is CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series [2], which tells the story of human colonists who end up lost, unable to find their way home. They instead find…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious as to what easy advances there were in cooking. Do you mean something along the lines of better heat sources or do you mean recipes?
- Better Bread? Historically bakers had extremely short lives because without mixers they had to breathe in the flour dust all day. And the bread would have been extremely unevenly cooked (no temperature-regulated ovens), as well as being extremely salty (no preservatives). - Pasta? Pasta is absolutely amazing. It is an extremely dense source of calories, which doesn't rot, is super-compact, and only requires water a…
Actually that's a terrible idea. You want lemons, not limes. Really.
See http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm for a discussion of where the myth to the contrary came from, and for the complex history of how the proper prevention of scurvy was discovered, forgotten, proved false, and only later rediscovered again. It also discusses why you really don't want to use limes.
It's reasons like this, that I really wonder if someone from today were to time travel into the past if anything they know would be useful at all. Medieval people would probably think we're all idiots.
What was most interesting to me were the people who denied that they had ever come from earth, that all the fantastical technologies of the past didn't exist, etc.
I sometimes wonder how long would it take for the civilization to re-create the current level of technology, if all the material artifacts disappear one day: books, computers, robots, factories, even hammers. If all that remains is the current level of knowledge in the heads of 7bln people, how long would it take from the stone age to Core i7, heart transplants and Boeing 787s? And how much different the world would…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine the opposite: someone from the future were to time travel back to our present time. Certain knowledge the they bring would be useful. But a lot probably won't be until necessary technology becomes available.
The concepts would be invaluable though. If he/she were able to give of some of the base concepts for how those things worked, we could direct all of our energy towards those concepts rather than stumbling in the dark to increase our understanding.
Just knowing it's possible, with gross engineering parameters, can be half the battle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious as to what easy advances there were in cooking. Do you mean something along the lines of better heat sources or do you mean recipes?
- Better Bread? Historically bakers had extremely short lives because without mixers they had to breathe in the flour dust all day. And the bread would have been extremely unevenly cooked (no temperature-regulated ovens), as well as being extremely salty (no preservatives). - Pasta? Pasta is absolutely amazing. It is an extremely dense source of calories, which doesn't rot, is super-compact, and only requires water a…
I sometimes wonder how long would it take for the civilization to re-create the current level of technology, if all the material artifacts disappear one day: books, computers, robots, factories, even hammers. If all that remains is the current level of knowledge in the heads of 7bln people, how long would it take from the stone age to Core i7, heart transplants and Boeing 787s? And how much different the world would…
I guess the first most important step is for everyone to start documenting everything they know of science, creating a kind of ad-hoc paper Wikipedia (once we make paper, of course). If the current generations die before their knowledge is recorded or passed down, we're going to be held back hundreds of unnecessary years.
I imagine with some excellent leadership and coordination, we could be back to computers, complex medicine, and aircrafts within a century. Maybe even decades, if the culture shock doesn't trigger famine, disease, wars, and depression.