On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 9:59 AM, SS <[email protected]> wrote: > History should be a good > pointer to what humans do with technology.
Not really. To quote one example, there were no examples of broadcast technology at scale before the printing press. The radio increased scale further added another dimension of time. No amount of reading history would have prepared one for that. (the phrase "phase transition" comes to mind) All of this is without even succumbing to the temptation to talk about the internet. > If we ignore the industrial revolution and look at individual "game > changing" technological advances that have occurred in the past - say > from 10,000 BC to 1700 (The wheel, domestication of animals, > agriculture, bows and arrows, writing, bronze, iron, steel making) we > can make a rough comparison of how changes in technology were applied > and used by human societies "back when" as compared to what has happened > after the industrial revolution. I would have thought that such studies > are more in the field of expertise of historians, sociologists and > perhaps anthropologists, rather than Sci Fi writers? Again, not really. It turns out that the pace of change is such that such studies are not the most useful way to deal with the future. Again, phase transitions. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
