Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons?

#131

Post by philwelch » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 5:30 AM UTC

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #122

philwelch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone who's ever been declared "dead" has ever been "resuscitated" more than a year after the fact, at least not since we've been able to distinguish a comatose state from death. Fine, there's a slim chance it's theoretically possible. I openly conceded that. Multiply that by all the other slim chances involved, though, and it gets even slimmer. It doesn't balance against the extreme costs unless your…

I choose not to pretend my decisions aren't selfish.

Even from a selfish perspective, cryonics is basically the science fiction version of Pascal's Wager.

Re: Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons?

#132

Post by jodrellblank » Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 1:17 AM UTC

gohat wrote: post #44

I don't think this question is as profound as it seems. Basically, it is asking: If a civilization had access to the resources to create a technology, why didn't they? Take perspective, or drawing things so that they look real. Closer things are bigger, further things smaller. Until it was invented around the Renaisance (1400/1500), all art was flat and kinda clumpy. Why couldn't people draw nice things until then? T…

I don't think this question is as profound as it seems. Basically, it is asking: If a civilization had access to the resources to create a technology, why didn't they?

But it is a profound question. The turnaround version of it is: what do we have the resources to create, but aren't doing? What aren't we looking for? What aren't we seeing?

Re: Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons?

#133

Post by herval » Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 12:21 PM UTC

Charuru wrote: post #12

jasonkester wrote: post #10

In hindsight, it seems clear that if humanity had decided in 1939 to colonize space, instead of expending ~$17 trillion and ~74 million human lives on war and destruction, we would have reached the moon in a robust and durable way by no later than the mid-1950s He kinda gives away the answer to this earlier in the article, while explaining why the cool edge-case technologies the Romans had never took off: the truth i…

Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. Competition invites advancement, blowing up your competitors does nothing.

been discredited by who? I still take this as logical and true to many levels... would love to read a reasonable oposite opinion

Re: Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons?

#134

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 7:09 PM UTC

anamax wrote: post #114

qw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well? US is a single country with a common language and culture. It's much easier to share academical results and knowledge in that environment. I hate to use a buzzword, but "synergy" is probably a good description of that effect. > So, why is their GDP so much lower? We keep hearing how much be…

> > Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well? > US is a single country with a common language and culture. True, but that doesn't explain why the comparison is fair in some cases and not others. >> So, why is their GDP so much lower? We keep hearing how much better they are, so why doesn't it show up in output? > In my opinion it's n…

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