4 ms·

IANAH, but if you graph the rate of progress, it seems to generally be exponential (over the long term). Did this rate of progress continue smoothly in other pa

IANAH, but if you graph the rate of progress, it seems to generally be exponential (over the long term). Did this rate of progress continue smoothly in other parts of the world, during the "Western European Dark Ages", or did it slow a little? i.e. not a decline, but a lull or slower progress. I guess if 1/4 of the world is declining, that would make global progress a little slower than if it had contributed equally. As a layperson, I've always had the impression you counter, i.e. that there was great progress in classical times, and it didn't accelerate again until the Renaissance. OTOH I know of one fundamental development made elsewhere during the W.E. Dark Ages: algebra.

benbreen 9y ago
A list of advances that came from the eastern and southern parts of the sphere of Greco-Roman influence c. 500 to 1000 would be pretty impressive I think. Off the top of my head, there'd be: algebra, chess, windmills, distilled alcohol, mounted plate armored warfare (earliest proto-knights are from Sassanian Persia) and Greek fire. I think the astrolabe too? A fun list and it would be interesting to see what else it might include. Technological innovation might be an interesting counterpoint to arguments based on population or GDP. I might write a blog post about it...
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  I'd be very interested in reading that! Unfortumately, there's no objective metric to quantify the importance of each development, which is a problem for charting it, but this kind of thing has been attempted for the development of life on earth, and of technology, based on complexity. e.g. Kurzweil's singularity stuff. I think his charts are quite well argued for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTCountdowntoSingularityLinear.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTCountdowntoSingularity... It's also been back-extrapolated to estimate the genesis of life (which pre-dates earth, they find): https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html Moore's Law has a similar chart, but it's easy to quantify in FLOPS or other computation units, so doesn't really help here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s_Law_over_120_Years.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s_Law_over_120_Ye...
  - nl 9y ago
    You can chart outcomes instead of trying to score inventions. See for example: http://lukemuehlhauser.com/wp-content/uploads/all-curves-with-events.png http://lukemuehlhauser.com/wp-content/uploads/all-curves-wit... I'd caution that these graphs are completely useless for talking about a technological singularity though, and - even worse - they make it seem like "something must happen" because that line is so obviously "almost vertical". This simply isn't the case, and - importantly - is almost the opposite to the argument for a singularity.
    - hyperpallium 9y ago
      Thanks, I'm interested here in global progress during the dark ages. I agree that GDP and other outcomes are another approach - and perhaps more accurate and more easily measured. GP suggested tech innovation might be an "interesting counterpoint" to conventional population/GDP approaches. Innovation from China too... though I have the impression the government managed to lock-down dangerous (to the government) innovations, like gunpowder and flight, so I think progress would have slowed there, too.
      - nl 9y ago
        Chinese gunpoweder was pretty ineffective for anything except as a terror weapon. There are plenty of records of it being as terrifying (and dangerous!) for those using it as those it was used against. There's little evidence it was anymore effective than things like the incendiary Greek Fire used by the Byzantines to great effect. I'm not aware of any particular efforts to suppress or restrict it beyond the usual Chinese restrictions on weapons. Wikipedia says a (non-central-government) militia official demonstrated a particularly effective form, and that there was later a restriction on trade of sulfur and saltpeter, but that appears more to build up their own stocks. flight Err.. they had manned kites if that was what you mean? Marco Polo say to foretell whether a ship should sail, a man would be strapped to a kite having a rectangular grid framework and the subsequent flight pattern used to divine the outlook[1]. That does seem to have been particularly restricted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines#Man-carrying_kites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines#Man-carr...
nl 9y ago
progress, it seems to generally be exponential Unclear how one would measure this, but assuming one could... One would definitely expect some kind of accelerating rate of change: it would be very rare for innovations to be lost completely, and fairly common for one old piece of innovation to be waiting on a new innovation to unlock a subsequent change. Assuming a constant rate of "raw innovation" would give an accelerating rate just by combining new innovations with existing technology.

benbreen 9y ago

A list of advances that came from the eastern and southern parts of the sphere of Greco-Roman influence c. 500 to 1000 would be pretty impressive I think. Off the top of my head, there'd be: algebra, chess, windmills, distilled alcohol, mounted plate armored warfare (earliest proto-knights are from Sassanian Persia) and Greek fire. I think the astrolabe too? A fun list and it would be interesting to see what else it might include. Technological innovation might be an interesting counterpoint to arguments based on population or GDP. I might write a blog post about it...

hyperpallium 9y ago
I'd be very interested in reading that! Unfortumately, there's no objective metric to quantify the importance of each development, which is a problem for charting it, but this kind of thing has been attempted for the development of life on earth, and of technology, based on complexity. e.g. Kurzweil's singularity stuff. I think his charts are quite well argued for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTCountdowntoSingularityLinear.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTCountdowntoSingularity... It's also been back-extrapolated to estimate the genesis of life (which pre-dates earth, they find): https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html Moore's Law has a similar chart, but it's easy to quantify in FLOPS or other computation units, so doesn't really help here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s_Law_over_120_Years.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s_Law_over_120_Ye...
- nl 9y ago
  You can chart outcomes instead of trying to score inventions. See for example: http://lukemuehlhauser.com/wp-content/uploads/all-curves-with-events.png http://lukemuehlhauser.com/wp-content/uploads/all-curves-wit... I'd caution that these graphs are completely useless for talking about a technological singularity though, and - even worse - they make it seem like "something must happen" because that line is so obviously "almost vertical". This simply isn't the case, and - importantly - is almost the opposite to the argument for a singularity.
  - hyperpallium 9y ago
    Thanks, I'm interested here in global progress during the dark ages. I agree that GDP and other outcomes are another approach - and perhaps more accurate and more easily measured. GP suggested tech innovation might be an "interesting counterpoint" to conventional population/GDP approaches. Innovation from China too... though I have the impression the government managed to lock-down dangerous (to the government) innovations, like gunpowder and flight, so I think progress would have slowed there, too.
    - nl 9y ago
      Chinese gunpoweder was pretty ineffective for anything except as a terror weapon. There are plenty of records of it being as terrifying (and dangerous!) for those using it as those it was used against. There's little evidence it was anymore effective than things like the incendiary Greek Fire used by the Byzantines to great effect. I'm not aware of any particular efforts to suppress or restrict it beyond the usual Chinese restrictions on weapons. Wikipedia says a (non-central-government) militia official demonstrated a particularly effective form, and that there was later a restriction on trade of sulfur and saltpeter, but that appears more to build up their own stocks. flight Err.. they had manned kites if that was what you mean? Marco Polo say to foretell whether a ship should sail, a man would be strapped to a kite having a rectangular grid framework and the subsequent flight pattern used to divine the outlook[1]. That does seem to have been particularly restricted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines#Man-carrying_kites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines#Man-carr...

nl 9y ago

progress, it seems to generally be exponential Unclear how one would measure this, but assuming one could... One would definitely expect some kind of accelerating rate of change: it would be very rare for innovations to be lost completely, and fairly common for one old piece of innovation to be waiting on a new innovation to unlock a subsequent change. Assuming a constant rate of "raw innovation" would give an accelerating rate just by combining new innovations with existing technology.