What held us back, technologically, for so long??

Humans have been around for ages (3 million or more years according to current Science) and yet it is only in the last 100 or so years that we have progressed from horse & cart to the Internet & Space.

The start of the upward spike of the application of knowledge could have occurred anywhere, (ancient India, China, the Middle East or Greece), at any time but it seemed to come mainly from Europe and only a few decades ago.

So, what was it? Or conversely, what propelled us forward?

Religion held us back. And I'm not bashing religion just stating a fact. Religion is still fighting science tooth and nail on any modern advances.

Technology itself, is the most important contributor, that has given way to the continuous exponential increase.

The ability to share information with ease, is still fairly new to us. It still seems to be getting easier & easier at a fast rate.


Something that I have been thinking about lately, is: [color=82FFE2]Where will it stop?

[color=82FFE2]Will there ever be an end to the growing possibilities of technology?

Originally posted by zerotime
Religion held us back. And I'm not bashing religion just stating a fact. Religion is still fighting science tooth and nail on any modern advances.

edit on 14-3-2012 by zerotime because: (no reason given)

I don't think there is less religion today. It has just moved around.

And many of the scientists, philosophers & technicians who ushered in this "age of knowledge" were, themselves, highly religious.

Perhaps it is a particular facet of religion which held us back but is now absent.

It is interesting to note that the Reformation preceded the change fairly closely (though, perhaps, not close enough to be a factor).

It was a nice try but I think that answer is too general and not actually historically justifiable.

RELIGION

and she is continue to holding us back ...

reply to post by chr0naut

Try this on for size. In "olden days" the life expectancy of the general population was low. See here.

This in stark and almost inexplicable contrast to the Kings, Queens and major religious figures of the same time period. I think that is the answer right there. "They" have held it back in order to control and keep power. I mean, don't you see the same thing happening today? Suppressed technologies? We have nano-technology yet are still using a combustion engine whose fundamental design has changed little in 100 years. Sure they bolted on a few bells and whistles but it's still an inefficient piece of junk.

Humans have been around for ages (3 million or more years according to current Science) and yet it is only in the last 100 or so years that we have progressed from horse & cart to the Internet & Space.

reply to post by chr0naut


No doubt you base this statement on what TPTB have told us. If you dig deep enough, you will find that a lot of our history has been shaped and manipulated to serve there purpose. Furthermore the deeper you dig I think you will find that our civilization has come and gone many times on this planet.

lack of electricity ? i dont know, thank god for tesla.

Good food for thought here, I believe that we have been where we are now a few times and we keep resetting.
Either due to our love for war or some sort of natural disaster that keeps repeating.
It is not hard to Imagine either just look at the most recent pictures of Chernobyl and you will get the idea of how fast nature can reclaim what is her's.

Just imagine how it will look in just 1 million years?
Regards, Iwinder

Originally posted by chr0naut

While this explains where our capability arose from, it doesn't explain why for millennia, we stayed fairly static.

Lack of communication.

Originally posted by BrokenCircles
Technology itself, is the most important contributor, that has given way to the continuous exponential increase.

The ability to share information with ease, is still fairly new to us. It still seems to be getting easier & easier at a fast rate.


Something that I have been thinking about lately, is: [color=82FFE2]Where will it stop?

[color=82FFE2]Will there ever be an end to the growing possibilities of technology?

While I agree, in principle, artefacts like the Antikythera Mechanism show an incredible amount of technological sophistication and yet we never saw a similar rise in knowledge from Ancient Greece (although we should have, IMHO).

I personally think ancient civilizations were a lot more advanced than history gives them credit for. Just look at what they built thousands of years ago.

I always think of Kitty hawk when I ponder this question. Just over one hundred years ago the two bicycle dudes made a short historic flight and now we have rovers on mars, the Airbus 380, been to the moon and can punch each other out with nukes in a heartbeat. What will 50 years down the pike bring? I remember my first computer in the 1980's, I'd spend all weekend typing in code with my buddy, when we finished we'd stare in amazement at a graphical representation of a clock on a 15" black and white TV. Today my system can produce multimedia with ease and cruise mountains of knowledge instantly. That's roughly 30 years, where will it be in another 20? It's all exponential in my view, discover the wheel, cog and all of a sudden you've got a thousand spin offs which in turn produce another ten thousand spin offs and so it goes. Question I'm concerned with is can we keep up culturally, emotionally and intellectually with our technological development or are we going to end up like a band of monkeys who found an AK 47 and accidentally came across the trigger?

Originally posted by chr0naut

While I agree, in principle, artefacts like the Antikythera Mechanism show an incredible amount of technological sophistication and yet we never saw a similar rise in knowledge from Ancient Greece (although we should have, IMHO).

I don't know what that thing could do, but I feel it is safe to assume that it could not be used to have a real-time conversation with someone on the opposite side of the world.

Communication is an important tool for sharing and gaining knowledge.

600 years of hunting witches, Imagine where we would be now if those 600 years were more productive.

Energy and Capitalism is what is holding us back Technologically, Think about this.

Oil and other fossil fuels is the main way we still after a 100 years use to get our energy.

Now on that same note, the money we pay for countless amounts of things we NEED force us to work for that money to pay the things we NEED in life. Thus not really leaving much room for people to be innovative ( at least in the places it needs ) Your workplace most likely isn't one of Energy engineering or the likes thereof. Also related to Capitalism is our robust means of taking an idea or concept thats already been done, and either making a new sibling concept or just find ways to make it cheaper and more profitable. This leads to all the Junk that is being sold and materials being wasted, all in the name to make more money than otherwise they think they would pumping out something people could use, that would last, that has a place to be recycled afterwards.

We are unable to move onto may ideas and concepts due to our complete lack of moving onward and away from Fossil fuels and Selling people junk that they really can live without.

We are too much a Throwaway Society, mixed with a Fossil Fuel tunnel vision and a Whole heap load of Junk to buy/ fill up a mound somewhere.

---------Reason I say this--------
Simply put back during the 1900s and even a 30 year window before and after, people wanted ideas, and concepts, they wanted people to set up shops and populate the cities with stores, and commerce. Ideas flowed freely ( sometimes too freely ) but the name of the game at the end of the day, was not to see what corners to be cut in name of profit, or not listening to a fellow who speaks up about a new way to do something. It was all an open sourced idea market powered by will and shear muscle. They had better work ethic, better morals and weren't so consumed with facebooking their every min ordeal, or catching the latest remake of such and such on tv. It was Work, Family, Friends, Thought/sleep, repeat.

Yes other aspect of society were off as well, but seems we have traded that equality and freedom of expression for our hardwork gets stuff done motto, and know thy neighbor and help thy neighbor. I'm not throwing religon into this, because I'm kinda sure the numbers stay the same thruout time.

I want USA to become that powerhouse we once were, that innovative, industrialize get it done bunch with a pocket full of win.

When we started reverse engineering UFO crashes it was all forward from there I believe.

Peace