X-Message-Number: 14467
From: "john grigg" <>
Subject: what propels technological growth and what could have been?
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 23:04:00 GMT

John de Rivaz wrote:
Another point is the fact that if humanity had single mindedly created our
present technological society, instead of fighting inter tribal wars, then
how many thousands of years ago would we be at our present level?
(end)

I have to disagree with you.  I think the "inter-tribal wars" have in fact 
been a major factor in our development of technology.  Whether you are 
talking the ancient world, medieval, or especially the modern age, improved 
technology gave the upper-hand in warfare and so the incentive was there to 
seek advancement.  European culture's dominance of the rest of the world 
came in large part to what was learned by these "inter-tribal wars."  China 
for awhile did have the technological lead, but Europeans(for better or 
worse) had the social aggressiveness to use advanced technology to dominate 
resources and peoples worldwide.

World war two certainly brought about so many advances in areas such as(to 
name a few things) rocketry, electronics and even medicine.  I don't think 
advances would have come nearly as fast without that war which mobilized 
huge resources for scientific research.

I remember Carl Sagan writing in Cosmos that if only the Persian empire had 
not taken over the little Greek Ionian colonies, that we might be around 
five centuries more technologically advanced then we are.  That is because 
supposedly the scientific method and accompanying research spawned by it was 
being developed there.  The Persians squashed this creative spark and the 
world is less for it now.

But is it?  Alternative reality fantasy novels are very popular for obivious 
reasons.  What if we had this level of technology in the fifteenth century?  
That might not be a good thing.  Of course, the fifteenth century we know of 
might never had been if science had taken a leap forward with the Ionian 
Greeks.  Perhaps a form of Greek or Roman culture would still straddle the 
earth...

I still think that we ourselves have barely had the maturity to handle the 
powerful technologies at our command.  Our ethical development as a species 
has been a slow one until fairly recently.  The ways of ancient or medieval 
man with advanced technology could have easily destroyed them.  But, we only 
have our world's time stream to know of, at least for now....

John Grigg
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