Warning !! This will make you think!!!

Originally posted by OXmanK
I don't think it is an exponential curve as stated by SimpleTruth. It is just new step in our understanding of the world. By the time electricity began getting popular, steam and other machines were explored to their furthest extent. Sure, some modifications could be made, but for the most part, other technologies were exhausted and were advanced as they ever would become.

I think it is more of a parabolic curve. First it is discovered and only minor things are known and used this new technology. Then, it grows and grows and grows...then it starts to tank when nothing new can be done with it. Then the new breakthroughs are further and further apart...then we need a new technology.

The big question now should be what the next big breakthrough will be. I personally find that it will be more along the lines of using radiation or cold fusion for powers...not just a steam boiler for electricity...

I don't think we would ever see the phase out of electricity in our time...but I believe it will happen one day...

Just my opinion.

Or is it possible that there is a Secret Society that has been passing on the true body of human knowledge and doling it out as they see fit? What if there is a mass knowledgebase of EVERYTHING EVER that only 33rd degree masons or WHOEVER gets access to. The good ones protect it and pass it on. The bad ones pull pieces of it out and drop it into the mass culture and let us play with it.

Originally posted by wannabe
maybe you guys should search the forum and read the intelligent discussion that's already happened concerning thsi topic before you rehash the same stuff.
sheesh.

Maybe we're enjoying rehasing the old stuff. I get REALLY tired of the messages that say "There's a thread on that already". Maybe it's a part of our learning process to participate in the discussion and not simply read ground that's been covered before. I think that's at the root of what we're discussing. There are things that were learned...but we need to relearn them. There are things that through relearning we can reinvent or orginally invent. So...I'm enjoying this conversation and will perhaps read the old thread...while finding this one relevant for me now.

agreed. It also comes from major advancements. The thing is, that we have had more of these advancements in the past 150 years then the rest of history combined. Things like combustion, DNA, flight, computers, antibiotics - these were all discovered because our society has become much more specialized.

I agree and disagree. I think someone earlier said something to the affect of "if we didn't have the other stuff to build on we wouldn't have crap. If we didn't have alloys...we wouldn't have transistors." I think before we say antibiotics are "more important" we have to say..."can you IMAGINE what it was like to be able to create fire." Just because our current technologies appear rapid and exponential, doesn't make them more important or significant.

Originally posted by jhova
Well damn!We humans are the smartest!!We can find a way to nuke an entire race of people, but we can't even find a way to wipe our own a$$e$$ without destroying half of the trees on our planet.We are the most anatomically alike species on the planet, yet racism (oh yes I said it!!) still exists today, and millions have been killed because our beliefs are not the same, yeah we are super smart!!We know that cigarettes kill thousands, but they are still legal, and people continue to smoke them.Yeah...We are geniuses!!

upon reading this I voted for you for an "Above Top Secret" post. I voted while sitting here sucking on the cigarette that I know (hope) will kill me.

wow it really did make me think i was thinkin away like why did i bother reading this

Originally posted by jhova
And I don't want to hear about any innovations of scientists because before the Roswell incident, it was ALL mediocre.But after the late 40's it picked tremendously...but we love to kiss our own a$$!!

That is by far the least impressive post anyone has ever submitted. "I don't want anyone to argue with me because i dogmatically assert that the late 40s to 50s were an instant boom, not in any way associated with the *mediocre?!* work done by Einstein, Tesla, and others for over 10 years before hand."

Logic works in bursts. One revelation gives you three more. Learning is exponential until you reach the end of the logic. Then you have to wait for someone to make the next successful leap of reasoning to start a new chain of thinking. All it takes is one spark, and the whole world catches fire.

This has been increased by modern communications.
During the Renaissance an idea had to be concieved by the right person, in the right city, applied, spread, and fall into the hands of another "right" person to make the next step. This could take decades. If a farmer's kid improved the plow, it might not get beyond that farm or village for a couple of years, and it might not become totally standard for a decade or more. And only farmers are looking at it to improve it, so it might not advance again for a long time.

The church lost influence, people and governments and corporations grew in power. The world urbanized, increased travel, and increased communication.

In the 1800s, a larger percent of the population could make something of their idea, because a major city with communication to other major cities was so much closer. Now if someone built a new farm machine, he could patent it and it could be sold nationally in a couple of years, and spread to another nations almost as quickly, while being mass produced and looked at by companies who wanted to improve it even further to make more money.

Today, a common person in a remote place can get online and suggest his brilliant idea to a dozen more brilliant people, who can play with it and make something of it right away, and within maybe just weeks it comes into the hands of somebody else who expands on it. If I invent a new machine I can have it pantented within the month, and have ATS members and other friends trying to make it better while I hunt for a company to buy it. Ideas go from a persons head to world wide mass production in a year or two, and are obsolete before the assembly line is built.

Eventually we'll come to the end of the line for this boom, and we'll have to learn something new before we can go on another boom. Of course that may not take long. I heard "they" now have computers that just do math all day, starting with the most basic and "learning" things for themselves, which are already beginning to approach the limits of our understanding. If thats true, we could actually have computers feeding us new starting points for ideas.

Many reasons exists for the relative explosion of technological advancement in the past 100-150 years. Alot of it has to do with the socioeconomic climate of the past century. It fosters intellectual growth and advancement. Quality education is much more readily available, more people are able to attend college. Governments encourage development through the funding of research, both private and military. People no longer fear imprisonment or death by the chruch or state in pursuit of their research. Standards like the scientific method have established a basis for modern scientific advances. The rise of industry and modern corporations has yield further investment in research and development in the private sector. Past generations where mainly agriculturally centered. Modern improvements have taken people off the farm in into an industrialized workforce more geared towards technological advancement.
I think that it should be said that comparing recent achivements and those of past centuries isn't really fair. We should recognize that all the recent advancements are outgrowths of previous advancements. Each single advance spawns a multitude of other advances and this growth continues exponentially. "If I have seen a little farther than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." -- Sir Isaac Newton

Originally posted by jhova
And I don't want to hear about any innovations of scientists because before the Roswell incident, it was ALL mediocre.But after the late 40's it picked tremendously...but we love to kiss our own a$$!!

I thought the atom bomb was built in the early to mid 40's and was'nt the physics invented a bit before that

yep, i think an atom bomb is pretty damn 'mediocre' too

Isnt it true that in any given population, there is a tiny percentage of those who are highly intelligent, and working on the next big discovery that pushes us all upwards and onward? The rest of us form the mass of people who keep things running. In the past I guess the majority was also busy trying to burn the geniuses at the stake for being too brilliant.
Also I've noticed that anyone who is incredibly intelligent, or talented as a singer, artist or whatever, never seems to have parents who were as smart or talented, or do they have children who are. Einstein's children were never heard of--and he had three--were Gallileo's parent's smart, Michealangelo's family members ever do anything?

It doesn't matter. Earth's time is short. Go here:
onealclan0.tripod.com...

Originally posted by j619pinoy
Have you ever wondered how we advanced so much in the last 100 years than the last 10,000 years!?????

When I really think about it I find it extremely odd. It's hard to grasp at first because you never really think about it, but when you look at history in general, the last 100 years stand out in terms of advancement in many things.

Any intake?

Yeah, it's called OIL.. and it's about to run out, unless someone really smart figures out a way to replace it really soon...

BABBAGE

Look him up chumps.

Originally posted by jrod
I think with the USA being born and capitalism spreading all over the world really made our descendents bust their chops to find new and innovative ways to get rich. Inventions flurished and minds like Edison really pushed the envelope. Then came modern physics and everything changed. Now our electronic devices has already enslaved most of us

, Now what?

[MInds like Edison???/quote]

Edison was little more than a theiving two-bit hack, that did nothing more than run with others ideas and inventions to propfot for himself.

It's really that I often think about it.That's amazing that we advanced so much in past 100 years.Other lives used more than a millium year to form today's lifestyle.Though our brain have a very long time to advance to this level,but to every kind of life,it seems exceed the normal.I think maybe someone we didn't see and know brings the power of mind to us.

[edit on 21-6-2004 by kaidylibre]

Technology and advancement of civilization in some cases are a negative quantity and quality. Reasons should be apparent in the persistence of earlier trends. For example if you are a huge corporation, and no one wants your "snake oil," then you buy some scientists!

Data distortion, plain and simple tends to reverse technical gains in the balance of different aspects about technological advancement. What good is it to sweeten your coffee with Nutra Sweet, when all the actual data about it is twisted to accomodate some monetary profit motive? You are basically killing yourself because you believe an advertising campaign, an actual regime with the full force of the government that insists a product is "safe."

Many other chemistries are suppressed in their disclosure and ignored by any popular consensus by design that proceeds on a normative basis. What ought to be, and what a civilization gives as to amelioration is absent due to a particular obsession with selfish even stupid interests who have no concept of a larger balance sheet when doing business.

So what good is civilization and "progress," when the average person simply works to help some super rich black hole get even blacker and deeper in its pockets?

Most philosophies and approaches do not even begin to deal with this issue by issue fault of our otherwise normally operating free speech systems which are supposed to be comparable to at least a sense of touch.

Consequently civilization at each suppression of vital information, is retreating into a disorder comparable to leporsy, where not having a sense of touch over time accumulates injuries that twist and distort an otherwise vibrant world. We don't really know what is wrong, but we sense it or accomodate any ignorance in order to know something is wrong, but we cannot put our finger on it.

Aside from unfairness alone and general usary, concentration of wealth is destroying the common welfare, but not in itself, but by most of its methods of attainment. Ill gotten gains cannot withstand universal justice in perpetuity.

[edit on 21-6-2004 by SkipShipman]

More scientists and technicians are alive today than the total of all who have ever lived.

Within the past century, almost all the technology that most affects us was invented in that short a time.

Unfortunately, none of this is likely to last much longer.

Check these out: onealclan0.tripod.com...

onealclan0.tripod.com...

Eventually the world gets smaller thanks to things like the internet and rapid transportation know that we can comunicate quicker and easier as in a matter of years or months down the instant communication only helps everything else. I figure its like a chain reaction once communication and transportation get to a certain level they help all the other technologys advance. So much for making me think.

Look at it this way:

The first sign of civilization began with Sumeria. Eventually, the Greeks came into power. The Romans borrowed Greek culture and built an empire. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe entered the "Dark Ages." The Dark Ages were mainly characterized by the lack of technology and the fact that Western Europe was being overrun by Germanic tribes. At this time, Eastern Europe (Byzantines and Muslims) were flourishing. All the way to the east, China was very technologically advanced as well (China being the most powerful empire after the fall of Rome).

So now you've got three advanced civilizations. So, why didn't the world just advance together? Lack of communication. When Gutenberg developed the printing press, communication over distances became easier. Gutenberg basically laid the foundation for Western European dominance over the rest of the world. All because of communication we now have what we call "westernization" and not "easternization" or "middle easternization" lol.

Anyhow, the printing press allowed for scientists to communicate and share their discoveries abroad. Before Gutenberg, scientists 100 miles away did not know what another was doing. In fact, they could be doing the same thing and have no means of cooperating or even knowing. Thus, with the printing press came the Renaissance. Eventually, the steam engine was created and powered the Industrial Revolution.

Now, following my thesis on communication, we are very technologically advanced right now because of communication. Look what the internet has brought us (instant communication). Only time can tell how far we'll be able to go with communication (perhaps we may even get to the point of teleportation, who knows?).

things make you Advance think about how we advanced during the cold war.

Major advancements in recent history are probably because:

The speed of transmission, and the ability to share and store information.

The things we invent now, allow us to invent other things, faster and cheaper.

We've invented invention machines: Computers.

Am I making sense? I just got back from the Dentist. I'm pretty sure
the left side of my brain is still numbed by novacaine..