Technological Advances...

[Kent]

When I think of this subject, I often think about what drives the advances.

Im not really personally thinking of computers, I actually end up thinking in a much broader sense.

I think of history and the driving forces behind tech from the days of ancient greece, to the days of the old west.

In most cases I think of the tech being pushed by war.

Whether medical or otherwise, the advancments of technoligy have been limited to certain feilds up until the recent years of computers and the space race.

I personally often wonder about what actually drives the minds of those who build weapons like the gatlin gun.

I also often think about the fact that because of those same advancments, things like goss wrap for wounds with freeze dried clotting agents contained in them are developed.

I wanted to know what you guys thought about the tech advancments of the last thousand years?

Everything from the gun to the anti-biotic.

[Juu]

[color=ff00cc] [size=1]I think we could've lived without the discovery of bronze...

Alot of warfare began with bronze, and people became a little more violent too... = \

It's really interesting how things evolved like this though. ^_^
It makes you think of what some of the things'll look like years later in the future. ^_^[/color] [/size]

[RicoTranzrig]

[COLOR=darkblue]I know 'cause of the recent shuttle accident, it's been a big blow to my interests in space. I've loved astronomy and space exploration ever since I was a little kid. But just in the past decades, we know it's possible to travel outside Earth, even though it might take a very long time to refine propulsion and safety techniques so we can go and visit far away places like in those Sci-Fi flicks. And this was all due to the Cold War.

Just like with the Bronze Age back in ancient China, we have the "Information Age" today. It's brought a lot of people closer together. Just in the past century, it's expanded like crazy and now you've got information overload just because ARPAnet was invented.

I also think that technological/scientific advancements can be harmful because we might discover certain things that we don't want to or we might be advancing too fast, which makes us worry a whole lot more.[/COLOR]

[Guest cloricus]

Humans have been advancing to fast for a long time, it?s a risk.

You take away the Bronze Age you destroy the time line we exist on now. For example no Bronze, less war, less advancements.
So if you like existing don't criticize the past.

War is the single most important part of our technical advancements, it speeds up there developments by years.
Example, radar was invented in one of the world wars, it has since advanced and allowed us to have an effective commercial air service and even the space program.

One thing I found out today, the sept 11 attacks actually advanced forensic identification by an amazing amount, because they had less to work with to identify bodies they had to improved it. This will probably happen with the "parts" of bodies they find from the Columbia, technics to deal with rocket fuel contamination will have to be invented.
So a tragedy advances our race... Weird hay.

But I have to say that my favourite new invention is the Ion Drive. :D
(Deep space 1)
This peace of equipment can massively advance our attempts at moving around the solar system. In fact until Columbia the other day they were planning on having ion drives in the dawn missions and even on shuttles. (A new class of them that is.)

So yeah I'd have to say I accept the way we advance because I like the results... Though it would be nice if it could be done a lot less violently.

[Fall]

Food. :D

Dehydrated pasta. Powdered cheese. Skim milk.

Why. Sure it's a convenience to most but it tastes like [i]****[/i] to me. Rather go and make my own cheese.

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]Personally, the worst invention I think human kind ever came up with was the plough. We could have gotten by without it, we were just too lazy. And it was the start of the long road that has led to our screwed up environment today.[/font][/color]

[Dan L]

A lot of advancements are brought on by war, and sheer chance.. like the microwave oven.

The heating properties of microwaves were discovered when a radar operator left his chocolate bar on the machine, and the microwaves melted it.

Some of the ways things are discovered are quite odd..

[Kent]

Actually harlequin, the plow was a much more important invention than you are giving it credit for.

Not only did it allow us to work greater sized pieces of land but it also changed our diets.

You see, during the middle ages when the plow hadnt been invented there was very, very little protien in the diets of humans.

However, because of the deep plow man was able to begin planting beans, which must be planted deeper in soil.

With the bean, there was a cheap way to get protien in mass amounts into the human diet. This, according to history professors, allowed man to begin a new age of development.

Protien added to our phisical development and our mental development and that inturn created a chain of events that led to the current state of human development. (such as myself, an Irish kid who stands 5'10" which was unheard of at that point)

So yes, the plow was very important to the development of society and human culture.

I also would like to mention that I do not believe tech drove the warring ways of man, but on the contrary, man's warring ways drove tech development.

Man always engaged in war, but with tech advancments we found better ways of going about war.

The advancments of war devices have always been looked down upon. Did you know that the cross bow was official deemed as a sin to use upon its invention by the catholic church?

I think one of the most important inventions besides the plow (during the middle ages) was the sturup.

The sturup was almost as important as the plow.

With the invention of the sturup people were now able to ride horses more efficiently.

We were also able to ride larger horses which were priorly too difficult to ride and control.

These larger horses we were now capable of riding led to man being able to load more on to the animal, hence, enabling the armored knights we so commonly think of.

With the sturups invention, which was also just about the same time as the plow, we were able to do things never thought of before and this also added to the coming of a new age.

I would also like to point out that the tech developments of the past are also not limited to the application of war.

Take the hagia sophia for example. This was the largest building of its time and is still to date an extremly large building.
This building was a marvel of architecture and feature the first dome which was symetrical to the size of the building.
This would have created a perfect circle between the floor of the building and the roof of the dome.
This also ushered in a new age of architecture, but this was built in 537, in constantinople. So this was quite a feat considering the fact that all building to that point all used a flat ceiling.
Hence, the dome made a building of twice the normal size a possibility.

This sort of tech advancments being played out in architecture was also seen in the abbey church of Saint Denis near paris france, created by the archetitect Suger. (pronounce "sue-jay")

This building is the perfect example of what, we today call, a gothic church.

Now you see, not all tech advances come from our desire to kill more effectivly.
(just incase anyone wonders... every elective course I have taken since 8th grade all the way up to my current level of college edu. has been a history course of some sort.)

[liamc2]

The key question here is, if the Romans had not been destroyed and their knowledge lost, would people in Medieval times have parecetemol and Television?

Think about it, we only [i]just[/i] caught up with Roman and Greek technology in the mid 1800's.

And when we did, technology just exploded. In the space of 200 years we went from Roman knowledge to the massive almost overwhelming world we live in today.

So basically, because of war, technology took two steps back and one step forward, remaining dormant for hundreds of years...

it really makes you wonder...

[The Harlequin]

[font=gothic][color=crimson]I too have taken a hell of a lot of history courses, and I know that while humanity would have developed slower without the plough, it also would have developed more efficiently. Besides, it's the fact that it allowed us to work land, and thus settle with far less effort, that I'm complaining about. Protein is not a hard neccessity to obtain. Humans just found walking a couple of hundred metres a day easier than actually going and looking for alternatives that might be a little further.

War develops certain technology, stagnates others. What did you expect? When the Spanish destroyed the Aztecs, Incans whatnot, particularly the Mayans, we lost priceless knowledge that we don't have today about time and how the solar system worked. Or that lost civilisation, existed about 10 500 BC. They knew a hell of a lot more than we would, and dominated the globe, basing everything on stars, and precession. Precession the apparent movement of stars based on the tilting of the earth's axis. The earth's axis changes angle by 72 degrees in a year. Or some time period. But there are numerous sites, the only one I can remember being Easter island, that are exactly 72, or 144 degrees away from each other, and form solar patterns. And these are all sites we know very little about.

Of course, they were all crazy and thought the stars would give them immortality, apparently. But hell, who am I to say it wouldn't?[/font][/color]

[James]

[color=#507AAC]Hm, I don't really know what else I can say here. You've all been pretty in-depth.

Mankind's technology, language and reason are really what make us unique in the animal world. Although, of course, there are other animals who use basic technology (whether you're talking about a chimp fishing out termites with a stick or a bird making a small hook to maneuvre objects in its nest). So, we're not alone in terms of making technology, but we're certainly much further ahead than any other creature on the planet.

Our technology and language are really the two major elements that define who and what we are. Just about everything else in our society comes from our inherent ability to utilize language and to interpret language in an intelligent way.

The only thing about technological advancement that annoys me is that new technology is often frowned upon by certain sectors of society. For example, IVF was ridiculed only a few short decades ago. Now, it provides a valuable resource for a growing percentage of families.

The same could be said for stem-cell research. Such research is [i]so[/i] necessary to the future of our species, yet political/social factors slow that process down. In ten years though, you can bet that it'll be considered the norm.

Society always develops and for the most part, technologies with inherent benefits are accepted. The biggest annoyance I have with the rejection of new technology is those who argue that the technology could be used for the wrong purposes. Now, of course...almost any technology could be used in a harmful way. And I would never support that. [i]But[/i], I would not ban or limit a technology [i]because[/i] of that possibility; especially if the positives far outweigh the negatives.

As a society, we need to be responsible for our actions. It's easy to ban this or censor that...but ultimately, those are just band-aid solutions. In terms of technology, it's better to embrace the new capabilities for the good they can do but to also be responsible as a society for protecting such technology against abuse.[/color]

[Charles]

Oh man, the pace of technological change has increases so rapidly in the past 150 (or so) years. Just think about it how much it contrasts with the 4,000 years prior to that in which humans advanced from digging sticks and hoes to the plow. Computers and electronic communications are really making leaps and bounds and defining how we live. It's amazing.

The only problem is when culture has to play "catch-up" with technology and people are forced to unjust so quickly. Like, for instance, the PC and electronic coding have made it possible to create a health identifier for upper, middle and working class people in the United States. Heck, we might even be able to throw homeless people into the mix.

Based on available technology, it would probably be possible to create a national data bank that includes everyone's individual medical records from birth to death. Using that kind of identifier, health providers and insurance companies could rapidly transfer those medical records around the globe, and researchers could access unlimited data on people's diseases, test results, and treatments.

But, I doubt that a lot of people would immediately accept it. It would be considered an invasion of privacy and could be abused. So, I guess with every step mankind takes forward, they have to pay a price. That theory has been applied to a lot in society--even in religion and other literature.

[JCBaggee]

[color=red]Well, it really all depends on who you are. People like me don't mind most of them, seeing as how they do a great deal of helping. I am a little disturbed by the thought of cloning though. Are we [b]really[/b] ready to start this? Watch any Sci-Fi movie and you'll probably see what I mean.

--Chris[/color]