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submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 111 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I know this isn't the comparison being made, but I love the idea of jumping straight from swords to nukes. Writing prompt: a 16th century blacksmith suddenly realizes, "If I surround an unstable rock with a neutron reflecting earth metal, I can trigger a runaway chain reaction that'll get that stump outta me yard."

[-] Technus@lemmy.zip 33 points 6 months ago

What always blows my mind to think about is how the materials for our advanced technology were here the whole time. We could have had computers and nuclear energy and spacecraft 20,000 years ago if we'd just had the knowledge.

[-] k110111@feddit.de 14 points 6 months ago

Not quite, in order to have a technology you need methods, materials and society needs to be ready for the tech.

I recently learned that 50 years ago someone filed a patent for solar panels with more than 20% efficiency and the us government was like yeah its too revolutionary so you can't sell this nor tell anyone about this unless it is US military. Imagine we all could have had >20% solar panels 50 years ago, even today we are only marginally above 20% efficiency.

Another example, would be the company who made the iPhone like device well before iPhone but the market wasn't ready.

Another example that is fucked up. Governments are starting to restrict AI for consumers but also using AI to kill children in Gaza.

I'm pretty sure a lot early doctors were also burned at stakes because they were called witches or smth.

[-] Technus@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 months ago

You're right, it's not strictly just the knowledge, but it's also the expertise to execute it, the tooling to build precision machinery and devices, and a production chain of raw materials of sufficient quality.

Even theory itself doesn't just come out of the blue. Einstein didn't pull the General Theory of Relativity out of his ass, he was building on centuries of groundwork and experimental evidence and just connected the dots. On the shoulders of giants, indeed.

Its funny to look at games like Civilization 5 that make you work your way down a tech tree and think of them as reductive, but in many ways the actual progress of technology was not far off.

But I was just thinking that it's crazy that it's theoretically possible that we could have had this technology at any point if we had the capability. Like, there was no rule that was like "must reach game year 1945 CE to unlock nuclear weapons".

I'm pretty sure a lot early doctors were also burned at stakes because they were called witches or smth.

You don't even have to go back that far to find blatantly dangerous willful ignorance, not even two whole centuries.

The idea of a doctor washing their hands to avoid the transfer of disease-causing germs from one patient to another (like, going from an autopsy in one room to delivering a child in the next without washing up) was deemed so ludicrous and laughable that the backlash and rejection led to the man who suggested it having a mental breakdown and dying in an insane asylum.

This was right in the middle of the development of the germ theory of disease, among a mounting pile of evidence that it wasn't just "bad smells" that cause disease.