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I mean, that's how we got here. In the grand scheme the time from using rocks to make fire (flint) to putting electricity into thinking rocks (silicon) to throw
by edoceo 5y ago
I mean, that's how we got here. In the grand scheme the time from using rocks to make fire (flint) to putting electricity into thinking rocks (silicon) to throwing refined carbon into space was very short. Amateurs stacked on amateurs from only 1600 mothers ago!
- robbedpeter 5y agoIt's only been 340-ish years since we started on the electricity tech tree in any rigorous sense. That's 16 or 17 moms ago, at most. If you had a durable, stable culture 200,000 years ago and dropped a series of carefully selected experiments in their laps, they'd have been able to create with electricity with as much brain power as we have today. Still, we had thousands of years of cultural experiments to survive to eventually arrive at a confluence of social structures that allowed for us to explore science and rational natural philosophies. From the Greek mathematics and Sumerian city states to Roman empire building and onward, we carry pieces of those things that perform best at giving us life less full of struggle and suffering. A smartphone, seen from Kurzweil's view of human progress as a function of structured information, you get a sense of being present for something vast and terrifying and beautiful. Stacked amateurs all the way back to the brave little rodents thriving after the dinosaurs died.
- vimax 5y agoThat reminded me of the poem The Calf-Path https://poets.org/poem/calf-path https://poets.org/poem/calf-path
- robbedpeter 5y agoThank you! >>They follow in the beaten track, And out and in, and forth and back, And still their devious course pursue, To keep the path that others do.