Have you ever thought about why and how humans went from level 0 to so much technology in 100 years?

Question

I mean, if you think about it, the world existed for however many years with people hunting, cooking over fires and traveling by horse. But within the past little over 100 years, our advances, knowledge, and technology have expanded exponentially. Why do you think that is?

And, what do you think the invention or discovery was that started the boom in humankind's progress (i.e., electricity, the automobile, peanut butter, etc.)?

Answer 1

After the UFOs crashed in central Europe, in the mid-19th century, we have been playing catch up since then.  Roswell is just one of about a half dozen major UFO craft recoveries that has happened since 1850.

Answer 2

Basically we have been in fast-forward motion due to the positive-feedback loop.

background: widespread literacy, production-consumption cycle, application of science to technological obstacles

trigger: Agricultural revolution, population growth, industrialisation

mechanism: 1. simple positive feedback loop, i.e. one activity resulting in strengthening itself in a recursive manner

mechanism 2: a number of pos-feedback loops interconnect to create a network of effectively pos-feeding system

examples: energy from slow-burning firewood to coal and petroleum which helps discover more energy sources (oil-wells)

food from slow-producing medieval agriculture to fast-producing modern agriculture which helps produce more food

schools from prividedged learning to universal education which promotes higher studies, more teachers and schools and more education opportunities for the human population

simplistic examples

capital producing more capital

books encouraging more books

production leading to more production

consumption leading to more consumption

population leading to more population

...

As you can see, these are essentially exponential changes identical in principle to the dynamite explosion or the nuclear bomb.

Such a system must slow down eventually or wipe itself out by reaching the environmental limits of growth. Bacteria have been observed to experience "colony-wide collapse" once it has depleted its food-base, and humans are no different except we have some leeway, but not fundamentally if we fail to find unique ways to survive onece humanity has reached the maixmum carrying capacity of the environment. This has not been forthcoming as yet although speculations abound.

So much for development; we are already seeing local pockets of stagnation or minus growth in industrialised countries -- which is a healthy thing.

The schools should teach not only about growth, and the glories of the recent scientific revolution, but also the future of sustained equilibrium when there is no net growth, and encourage students (future industrialists and scientists) to find models of happy existence in a 0-growth world.

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Answer 3

The airplane.

Answer 4

Actually I think it  was a change in society, the power of the church was broken, the fear gone, free societies evolved and with that the exchange of knowledge began. It also helped, that the educational level rose, a 100 years ago only few people were literate, now in most countries close to 90% are literat. Unfortunately at the moment we are going back to the dark ages, peoples fear level rises, oppression begins again and the smart citizen is no longer wanted. So in the near future I doubt any real big leaps will come but as soon as the circumstances change, we will progress again.

On a more cynical level the most technical progress always followed after a world war ...

Answer 5

I  wouldn't say we were at 0 a hundred years ago.

Ancient Romans had indoor plumbing- the wealthy ones anyway -  and cities had aqueducts, drinking water filtration,  and sewer systems.

Some ancient architecture, we still aren't 100% sure how they built it.

Some reasons for yesteryears lack of advancement to the level of today had to do with lack of resources available to us now, at a local usable level. Science builds on itself.  We are only where we're at because we stand on our ancestor's achievments. It hasn't been that long ago that you could say the world became a global marketplace of ideas. Ideas and technologies were always exchanged through trade,expansion/warfare, colonization/imperialism, etc. But nothing like today at such a fast rate of exchange. I think that had a little to do with it, the speed of communication and the networking of the scientific community.

Just a thought. : )

<spell check does not seem to be working properly, so I apologize for any mistakes.>

Answer 6

It's simple, really: technology advances at an exponential rate, which is why one discovery can lead to 10 more in a very short period of time.

Answer 7

Nutrition and education. IQ's have massively increased in the past 100 years, by about  30 points. This is traceable to when the first social welfare programs appeared, feeding the children of the poor. This seems to have lead to an increase in the number of people who could end up in research.

Also, technology has accelerated ever since we started having professional scientists and researchers.

Before the Victorian era, you only ever really got a few rich people dabbling in science, the only people paid to be inventive were engineers. Now we have colleges pumping out phd's whose sole purpose in life is to make the next big discovery. It's going to speed thing along a lot.

Answer 8

Clearly the vast majority of the inventions and technology came from the western world.  I think the primary reason is free markets and freedom.  When you unleash human inventiveness and provide proper incentives, good things happen.  We are all priviledged to live in such a place and time.

Answer 9

This exponential growth did not start 100 years ago. I suggest that you study history a little farther back, say 20,000 years or so.

Answer 10

It is a valid question; according to the theory of evolution humanity has been on this planet, in their present physical and biological form, for the past 200,000 years, and you mean to tell me, we have only had high technology for the past 100?

You're right; that doesn't make logical sense.

I mean, if you hold the evolutionary view, human beings are "fragile animals."  We need protection from all kinds of things.  That humans would band together, settle down somewhere, and that human creativity would lead to a technological boom within 1,000 years, is not unfeasable within a 200,000 year time span.  There is a group of scientists, although a very small one, who believes that the world we live in now, may have existed in the remote ancient world.

To support this belief they point to findings in India, where they have found traces of nuclear glassification that is over 20 thousand years old, leading to speculation that humanity has nuked itself into the stone age countless times, only to start from scratch and figure everything out again.  You are absolutely right; many mainstrean anthropologists, biologists and the like, do not hold to that view because, well, lets just say not all scientists are impartial, and some like the idea that white people created civilization ALL on their own.  To help reinforce this belief they will abuse their authority, even propose a ridiculous idea that even though we have been here as we are now, for 200,000 years, we have only been high tech for the past 100.

Who knows, advanced cultures from ages now long gone could have been destroyed by ice ages.  Ever see the show "life after people" on the history channel?  It would only take 5,000 years, for all traces and memory of this world, to dissapear completely.  No one would ever know we even existed, as a culture, as a group of people.  Also the computer simulations do not take into account how huricanes, earthquakes, cracks in the earth can swallow entire cities, not to mention volcanic cataclysms.

Thing is there is no evidence for any of this, other than conjecture, and a few nuclearly glassified old stones from India.  The glassification could have been caused, for instance, by natural uranium.

To answer your question; I do not believe, we have had technology only in the past 100 years.

To agree with your question, the idea, that we have been here for 200k years, and only had technology for the past 100, is indeed VERY ridiculous, not to mention insulting to other peoples of the world as to how some racist crank white Psychologists advance the view and call it "mainstream" as to racial I.Q. differences not taking into account a given race's belief about themselves, or if their upbringing was even conducive to brain development but I suppose there are people out there who need to fancy thsemselves God.

that however, is a different problem.

Answer 11

I've also thought about how some people still have no technology. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/388921...

Great technology has been advancing longer than 100 years.

Ever hear of the Renaissance? http://www.mrdowling.com/704renaissance....

The Industrial Revolution? http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_7615...

Even the Agricultural Revolution gave men the time to study these things. http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/agricul...

Answer 12

we're like a virus, we mutate and multiply and destroy all natural resources until we run out and we move on..... Our technology is merely our form of distruction.

Answer 13

It's not true that w went from 0 in 100 years.

There was technological development as long as we'v been around (though it's been speeding up faster and faster for th last several centuries).

Part of it is that technology begets technology -- once there is a basic piece in place, lots of other things are possible. A biggi, for instanc, was the movable-type printing press. People's discoveries could be easily printed in lots and lots of copies, for lots of people to learn from.

Similarly, people all over th world communicate instantly (that's one of the first uses of the Internet -- scientists sharing their work).

Also, there are more people applying themslves to technological innovation.

BTW, before electricity, th steam engine was a huge technological advancement.

You might be interested in The Discoverers -- a really interesting book about the history of knowledge.

If you could get your hands on it, you might also enjoy James Burke's "Connections" TV series (th first one, or The Day th Universe Changed -- there are also companion books for both seris -- th latter Connections thingies weren't as good).

I'd rate th movable printing press as #1.

I guess electricity is another biggie -- as it's made so much possible.

Accurate machining, though, was important.

Computers are also really big -- to communicate, to crunch numbers quickly, to simulate stuff we can't do othrwise (simulat weather, volcanoes, traffic patterns, eco-systems -- any complex stuff).

But people's lives in year 1000 were not the same as in 1500, or 1700. There were advances long before, say, 1850.

Answer 14

Think of a factory-production, shipping, marketing and paperwork.  In the ancient world someone came up with the potter's wheel-production and civilization started. Later on, large ships were able to carry cargo-the classic world started.

Then, the printing press was created and people started to read. Later on, a man in England created the steam engine and he was successful because England didn't tax products like other countries. This started the Industrial Revolution which was speeded up by Ford's assembly line which we come back to production. Aircarft was additional method of shipping. The computer has replaced the printing press. So on. A previous person also hit on the subject of government. The reason why the US want democracy for everyone so bad is the fact that it allows for greater ease of trade which like the steam boat example causes improvement and success.

Answer 15

Personally, I think that the level of O2 in the atmosphere is now over 21%, causing our brains to work better than they ever have in history. It's a slow increase, and the mid 1700s was the noticeable start. We will continue to advance until the oxygen level begins to rebound.

This would also explain why fires are harder to extinguish. And the earth is warmer.

And let's not forget that, according to the Epistles of Peter, the world ends in fire this time!