Race From Tribal To Techno

[NavajoEverclear]

Ok we have all this technology crap today. Our discoveries have come at exponential rates, while technology of all history before the industrial revolution basically stayed the same for thousands of years until someone came up with something like the printing press. Except this doesn't exactly apply to the pyramids, which we still aren't sure how the hell they got there, and dont have any fricken idea how to duplicate it.

 

But now that its taken us thousands of years we know how its done. Well I myself dont know how to make computers, or make the machine that makes computers, but i'm sure someone does. Maybe they could teach me.

 

Anyway, the idea is, if you knew how to make something complex, like a computer, how long would it take you to go from primitive tools, to making a computer. Put a people, maybe a group of people on an island, a big island with plenty of resources (doesn't really matter, the point is they have nothing). How long would it take them, from using natural rocks, to making stone and wood tools, to making steel tools, to building a mechanical machine, to building some type of electrical generator, to making the machine that makes the machine that makes a computer, that they can hook to a power supply, and by satellite, log on to science forums.net.

 

I propose we desert all of the moderators (and their wives to keep them company) on an island with nothing but loin clothes, and wait until they complete the journey from nothing to technology, then log on and tell us they did it.

[mossoi]

This is a very interesting point.

 

While many of us understand to various levels the technology we use how many of us could actually reproduce these things even with modern tools?

 

I sure as hell couldn't build a PC or the equipment needed to make the chips.

 

I would hazard a guess to your island theory. It reckon it would take a bloody long time and we wouldn't recreate what we have today anyway. We would most likely deviate from the known as a result of the strengths and weaknesses of those who are re-inventing.

 

As for the pyramids, they aren't really that much of a mystery. It's amazing how big an object a group of determined people can move if they want to. The Egyptians had huge resources of willing manpower and lots of time to build the things.

[ydoaPs]

There was an old show on the Science Channel where they put scientists on an island and they had to build stuff like radios and make stuff like bugspray. It was pretty cool.

[mossoi]

Yeah, that was repeated on the Discovery channel last year. Quite interesting although a little formulaic. I would rather they had asked them to simply exist with the best possible quality of life rather than setting specific challenges.

[budullewraagh]

well, it all depends on how resourceful the subjects are

[NavajoEverclear]

it may take a bloody long time. That's why i'm letting them bring their wives, so their children can continue the quest if their fathers cant finish it. Hopefully they'll acomplish it before their generations run out of new breeding combinations and have to resort to imbreeding. It still aught to take a lot less time than it took us originally if they know how to do it, dont you think?

 

well about those pyramids, you may be right, i am usually skeptical myself, i just always have trouble believing people base their beliefs on lies and ill-interpreted facts. Not like its really an important issue anyway.

 

Hey what do you say we run this island experiment like a reality show?

[Skye]

Yeah, that was repeated on the Discovery channel last year. Quite interesting although a little formulaic. I would rather they had asked them to simply exist with the best possible quality of life rather than setting specific challenges.

Are they still running Gilligans' Island?

[alt_f13]

Cocoanut radio anyone?

[Thales]

I've had thoughts like that myself. Not that specific one obviously but I often wondered if/how long a post-apocalyptic world would re-achieve the technological standing. The problem is that most of this knowledge is, most obviousluy, accumulative. I think it was Newton who said: 'If I have seen this far it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.' No one person/small group of people, could possibly hope to retain any meaningful amount of knowledge on the broad topics required so, assuming they enter with very unspecific knowlegde, I would imagine it would take centuries for them to re-discover the previous knowledge. So while the people who intially know what the future looks like, their understanding of the modern world would probably quickly fade to obscurity as it gets passed from generation to generation eventually becoming almost mythical.

 

It raises an interesting question as to whether we would reach the same point. Whether we'd make the same technological follies (ie reliance on coal). Or, if in an economically isolated environment, this small group could actually overtake our current understanding due to the freedom of their thought processes and lack of populus that slows the rest of the world down.