151–160 of 315 posts
The Greek philosoper Hero of Alexandria actually invented something close to a steam engine in the 1st century BE [1]. Whenever I think about "obvious" inventions which happened quite late in our civilization, I remember "The road not taken", a fantastic short story that plays with this idea. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_stor...
There's a big gap between 'inventing' a steam engine as a diagram in a book or table top novelty and physically creating one that can do more work than a horse or two, can work continuously, and is safe to use. The technical advances of Newcomen and Watt also coincided with the ability to create boilers and pressure chambers that didn't explode (too often).
When we're talking about industrial revolution type of stuff, there is a whole train of dependencies that I suspect would have been difficult to speed up a lot. Maybe if the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed though you could make arguments both ways given the Roman Empire as a slave society didn't necessarily need a lot of labor saving devices. The genuine innovations that mostly just needed ideas and the will to put the…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Byzantine_Empir...
There's a big gap between 'inventing' a steam engine as a diagram in a book or table top novelty and physically creating one that can do more work than a horse or two, can work continuously, and is safe to use. The technical advances of Newcomen and Watt also coincided with the ability to create boilers and pressure chambers that didn't explode (too often).
When we're talking about industrial revolution type of stuff, there is a whole train of dependencies that I suspect would have been difficult to speed up a lot. Maybe if the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed though you could make arguments both ways given the Roman Empire as a slave society didn't necessarily need a lot of labor saving devices. The genuine innovations that mostly just needed ideas and the will to put the…
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When we're talking about industrial revolution type of stuff, there is a whole train of dependencies that I suspect would have been difficult to speed up a lot. Maybe if the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed though you could make arguments both ways given the Roman Empire as a slave society didn't necessarily need a lot of labor saving devices. The genuine innovations that mostly just needed ideas and the will to put the…
The use of the word dependencies in this context is perfect. Untangling the history of technological innovation is an adventure into dependency hell.
You could pick it up anywhere, read forwards; back from something specific (or forward, if you made it a doubly linked list?); or back from whatever 'the end' would be.
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I reject the idea that patent and IP law would have made these developments occur sooner. In fact, I blame the slow down in technological development partly on patent and IP law. You think the rapid development seen during the industrial revolution could have happened if people were at litigious as they are now? The ability to create derivative inventions is essential to progress.
Your perspective on patents seems colored by the relative recent advent of patent trolls and the use of litigation to stifle innovation and competition. I suggest you look at the situation in England around 300 years ago and compare to the feudal system that was the rule elsewhere at the time - everything had to be approved by the king or the nobility, who had vested interests in land owning and serf systems. This so…
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The use of the word dependencies in this context is perfect. Untangling the history of technological innovation is an adventure into dependency hell.
Hell, even today if a CME or something wipes out our electronics we'll have to go way back to vacuum tubes or even simpler setups to restore our society since most modern electronics need modern electronics to be designed and manufactured.
You’d have to go back to hand-cut Rubylith for the mask sets.
Hand made transistors are no problem, just more expensive.
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It's very unlikely that slaves would be able to cover any present-day jobs except very menial service tasks. Cleaning houses, mowing lawns, sure. But you wouldn't even get as far as a taxi/truck driver, which is one of the least qualified jobs today.
Just because someone is born into poor circumstances without many options for upward mobility doesn't make them stupid. Furthermore, truck driver isn't a particularly low skill occupation. I couldn't drive an 18-wheeler. Can you? And something like taxi driving mostly seems low skill because most adults in industrialized society have been driving since they were relatively young.
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>OTOH in an industrialized society you wouldn't want slaves even if you could have them. Really? Leaving aside the moral issues most associated with slavery specifically, there is a huge demand in modern industrialized society for all sorts of low cost human labor. If middle class-ish people in the West could hire more people for the equivalent of a couple dollars an hour many would absolutely do so.
It's very unlikely that slaves would be able to cover any present-day jobs except very menial service tasks. Cleaning houses, mowing lawns, sure. But you wouldn't even get as far as a taxi/truck driver, which is one of the least qualified jobs today.
Of course most slaves were just hard labor, but they did hold other positions. I think you can find examples of slaves holding every position in society other than government leader.
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It's pretty common for things like that to happen. There are many other cases. Calculus from Newton and Leipzig being another example. There is even a wikipedia page delving into the concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery Basic hypothesis is that once enough precondition for an invention are there then the leap can be made.
I stared for a long time at your third sentence before I remembered that Leibniz is the correct name of the German mathematician you are referring to, and Leipzig is a German city (where, coincidentally, he was born). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig
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It's very unlikely that slaves would be able to cover any present-day jobs except very menial service tasks. Cleaning houses, mowing lawns, sure. But you wouldn't even get as far as a taxi/truck driver, which is one of the least qualified jobs today.
Slaves did many skilled labor jobs back in the day. In Uncle Tom's Cabin (a book you really should read, but beware the purpose was to make you pick up your gun and march, so if you have those tendencies...) on of the important slaves held a good factory job. Of course most slaves were just hard labor, but they did hold other positions. I think you can find examples of slaves holding every position in society other t…
Also, just by the way, we ought to be able to talk without implying that other people have "those tendencies". There is simply no reasonable way a comment about the structure of an industrialized economy can be constructed as "having those tendencies". Appending "slavery = bad" to every comment is tiresome, there is such a thing as context.