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Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons?

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

#71

Post by Eliezer »

nitrogen wrote: post #8

The informative first half of the article was fascinating, but it slowly deteriorated from there as I read the argumentative second half. In my view, things took a drastic turn for the worse around this sentence: Mature genetic engineering, nanotechnology, strong artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, to name but a few, each hold many times the potential for systemic harm to, or destruction of our civilizati…

I don't know what quantum computing is doing on that list, but a mere glance around you will confirm that small increases in intelligence and brainpower, such as that involved between humans and the LCA of humans and chimps, can have rather large effects. Marvin Minsky once said, "Nuclear weapons are not really dangerous because nuclear weapons are not self-replicating." To this I would add that nanotechnology is not really dangerous because nanotechnology is not smarter than you.

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

#72

Post by Eliezer »

lionhearted wrote: post #5
aoeuid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy who wrote this post used to be president of Alcor ( http://alcor.org ), one of the two cryonics organizations in the US. Cryonics is in fact certainly a procedure where people will definitely die if they don't get it, particularly because it can only be done after 'legal death'. Its efficacy can't be established conclusively right now, but it's certainly more likely you'll be revived if you undergo cryopreser…

Eliezer Yudkowsky has written about cryonics extensively at LessWrong - if anyone you know is forward-minded about living forever and at risk of passing away soon, you should probably start reading those articles and arguments for cryonics and pass them along. (Actually, everyone should read it, but I think the state of medicine makes it unlikely that you're preserved if you die from random trauma like a car accident…

Posts we've had to Less Wrong on this topic: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Cryonics

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

#73

Post by dennisgorelik »

adrianN wrote: post #35
dennisgorelik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason why practically nobody gets cryopreserved is that Cryonics is a form of scientific scam. It sells people confidence that their mind can be preserved by freezing it. http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html That said, the author seems to be a true believer in Cryonics (however that does not make Cryonics legitimate). The article has interesting points, but cannot really be trusted, becau…

I don't think (mostly) self sustaining outposts on the Moon and Mars are technologically infeasible. See for example the studies Robert Zubrin did for NASA. Whether there are sufficient economic incentives to actually build them is unfortunately a different question.

It's technologically feasible to send a mission to Mars.

It's unfeasible to have self-sustaining colony on Mars.

Mars Direct proposal does not even try to cover self-sustaining part.

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

#74

Post by varjag »

simonsarris wrote: post #65
varjag wrote: post #29

The Greeks and Romans were societies of slavery, with very little need to industrial innovation.

Oh come now, there was certainly abundant industrial innovation in those soceties. The sawmill (like at Hierapolis), grainmill, shipmill, cranks and connecting rods, roman cranes, the first book (codex) had many advantanges over scrolls... The first recorded (buttress) dams, cements, camel harnesses, foot-powered looms, force pumps, glass blowing, hydraulic mining, hushing (flood mining), reaper, lateen sails. Almost…

Some of those where invented there, but, not unlike Hero's turbine, never enjoyed a widespread adoption. A lot of other is non-machinery processes that can't really be easily replaced by manpower alone (sails? dams?)

Industrial innovation (as in replacing manpower with machines) was not really catching up in ancient times, mainly because there is little incentive to save on labor if you have a steady supply of slaves.

Perhaps the best illustration of social dynamics at play there we have is North vs. South states, pre civil war. Same people, same starting point, but such a dramatic difference.

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

#75

Post by montagg »

masklinn wrote: post #21
Charuru wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. That is not quite entirely true, war -- especially long-term -- results in huge funds being funnelled towards things that can blow up the other guy, which can then move into more peaceful realms. Not to mention the requirements for research safety and grants are often quite different. Without WWII, wou…

I think you've both hit on and missed the point of the article at the same time. We think war = technological progress because that's how it happened in our civilization. We're biased toward that line of thinking because the evidence -- our history -- keeps us biased. The article is saying, it didn't have to be that way. Likewise, that isn't how it has to be in the future. So, yes, you are correct that funds provide progress, war provides funds, so war provides progress, but that's only one of many possible scenarios. It isn't a law of nature.

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

#76

Post by EdiX »

Gormo wrote: post #53
WalterBright wrote: post #7

The Romans did not have the printing press. The press produced a sharp exponential increase in technological progress. Without the press, the spread of new ideas and techniques is extremely slow, and there isn't much cross-pollination of technologies. Worse, an awful lot gets forgotten.

This is begging the question in a way, though. Why didn't the Romans have the printing press? Like the hot-air balloon, the concept of printing is clear and simple, and the technological prerequisites are minimal - you just need metallurgy, which the Romans had in abundance. The printing press ended up being developed in a culture that was in many ways less technically sophisticated than the Romans'.

I vaguely remember that this has to do with more with the paper than with printing technology, the paper being very expensive until recently.

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

#77

Post by anamax »

qw wrote: post #45
00010 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that a great deal of the technological advancement of the later 20th century is a direct result of the CIA's paranoia and inability to correctly assess the real capabilities of the USSR (and the attendant fervor and fear of the public, which enabled the vast level of government expenditure on the Space Program). A content and secure populace would surely have preferred the money to have been spent els…

You can't compare the output of a country with over 300 million people with Northern Europe. The money spent on technology alone is probably larger than the combined national budgets of those countries. Of course this will produce more noticeable results, but that doesn't mean that they don't contribute to innovation.

> You can't compare the output of a country with over 300 million people with Northern Europe.

Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well?

Northern Europe has roughly the same population as the US. The people look basically the same. They're considered first world. etc.

> The money spent on technology alone is probably larger than the combined national budgets of those countries.

Not even close. Total govt spending, per capita, is roughly the same. (Canada spends a bit less per person than the US.) So, there's no way that US govt tech spending, which is a small fraction of govt spending, can be greater than the total govt spending in those countries.

The US probably does have more private spending on tech than those countries, but that's because the US' greater gdp/person lets it spend more money privately on everything.

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?

Yes, it's plausible to choose lower output, but is that really what's going on? Let's see the numbers showing that having less makes them better off.

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

#79

Post by api »

"Transhumanists must come to realize that in order to control history, and thus their own destinies, they must leverage their way into a position of control over the ideology, morality and direction of this civilization. To fail to do so at this juncture in time is to accede to the end of our history – not by the practical abolition of death, but rather by its universal application to humankind, and perhaps to all life on earth."

The followers of hate, fear, and superstition spend virtually every waking hour attempting to leverage such control. Why not visionaries?

But there is a counterpoint too. The ideology of some sectors of the transhumanist/visionary community is uncomfortably reminiscent of superstition itself. I am referring to Ray Kurzweil and his Singularity University cult, and others. It looks very much like a religious movement reminiscent of Scientology or flying saucer contactees in the 1950s. It doesn't strike me as being much more rational than many other superstitious religious movements.

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

#80

Post by loup-vaillant »

lionhearted wrote: post #5
aoeuid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy who wrote this post used to be president of Alcor ( http://alcor.org ), one of the two cryonics organizations in the US. Cryonics is in fact certainly a procedure where people will definitely die if they don't get it, particularly because it can only be done after 'legal death'. Its efficacy can't be established conclusively right now, but it's certainly more likely you'll be revived if you undergo cryopreser…

Eliezer Yudkowsky has written about cryonics extensively at LessWrong - if anyone you know is forward-minded about living forever and at risk of passing away soon, you should probably start reading those articles and arguments for cryonics and pass them along. (Actually, everyone should read it, but I think the state of medicine makes it unlikely that you're preserved if you die from random trauma like a car accident…

A fatal disease will probably make the life insurance that pays for your cryopreservation much more costly. Signing up when you're still healthy and young may be more beneficial, even when the probability of eventually destroying your brain is higher.
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