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> I am really relaxed about the US primacy in tech "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly. > It has all the systemic advantages Then let's take full adv

> I am really relaxed about the US primacy in tech "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly. > It has all the systemic advantages Then let's take full advantage of them. We must remain extremely hungry for science/tech progress/breakthroughs or we will eventually get run over.

h0l0cube 3y ago
> "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly. And history is littered with examples of technological disruption ending empires
- philwelch 3y ago
  Name some examples.
  - 0xf00ff00f 3y ago
    Byzantine Empire? Lasted over a thousand years, fell to the Ottoman cannons.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      I agree with you - but there are counter examples. Germany made some amazing developments that were superior to allied tech, and they didn’t win.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        This is almost entirely a myth. If you set aside all of the fantastical prototypes, there are a few plausible examples but none that are truly “amazing”. For example, Germany did develop some of the earliest jet engines, but then again, so did Britain. The Me 262 and Gloster Meteor were introduced within months of each other, and while the Messerschmidt had its advantages, it also required scarce materials and couldn’t be manufactured at scale. Manufacturing issues were also present with the later German tanks, which were also significantly less maintainable and less reliable than Allied tanks. One place where they were significantly ahead was in large scale rocketry. By the same token, they were significantly and consistently behind the United Kingdom and United States in cryptography, computing, radar, electronics, atomics, and manufacturing—all of which had much more significant strategic impacts.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      By the time the Ottomans took Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire had been in decline for centuries already. The crusaders and Venetians took Constantinople 200 years previously, and while the Byzantines eventually recaptured it, that was still an ultimately fatal blow. And even that blow was only possible because Venice had been allowed to drift out of the Byzantine sphere of influence.
      - h0l0cube 3y ago
        I immediately regretted my claim soon after posting it, and this was the first example I had in mind, along with this counterargument. If I was to make a further (somewhat weak) counter-argument, it was engineering know-how that established the Roman Empire as a dominant military in the first place, consuming the territories of other empires. It's a safer claim that technological asymmetry permitted the conquest of the less equipped 'societies', rather than 'empires'.
  - sterlind 3y ago
    the Spanish using guns and horses to topple the Aztec empire? and smallpox, but the guns and horses helped.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      The Aztecs were toppled because they had alienated all of their neighbors and vassal states. The main thing the Spanish did was to organize everyone against the Aztecs. They had guns and horses, sure, but not nearly enough to singlehandedly make a difference on the battlefield.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Fundamentally, we are not an empire - we are a republic. Feel like that has gotten lost in the noise recently.

h0l0cube 3y ago

> "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly. And history is littered with examples of technological disruption ending empires

philwelch 3y ago
Name some examples.
- 0xf00ff00f 3y ago
  Byzantine Empire? Lasted over a thousand years, fell to the Ottoman cannons.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    I agree with you - but there are counter examples. Germany made some amazing developments that were superior to allied tech, and they didn’t win.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      This is almost entirely a myth. If you set aside all of the fantastical prototypes, there are a few plausible examples but none that are truly “amazing”. For example, Germany did develop some of the earliest jet engines, but then again, so did Britain. The Me 262 and Gloster Meteor were introduced within months of each other, and while the Messerschmidt had its advantages, it also required scarce materials and couldn’t be manufactured at scale. Manufacturing issues were also present with the later German tanks, which were also significantly less maintainable and less reliable than Allied tanks. One place where they were significantly ahead was in large scale rocketry. By the same token, they were significantly and consistently behind the United Kingdom and United States in cryptography, computing, radar, electronics, atomics, and manufacturing—all of which had much more significant strategic impacts.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    By the time the Ottomans took Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire had been in decline for centuries already. The crusaders and Venetians took Constantinople 200 years previously, and while the Byzantines eventually recaptured it, that was still an ultimately fatal blow. And even that blow was only possible because Venice had been allowed to drift out of the Byzantine sphere of influence.
    - h0l0cube 3y ago
      I immediately regretted my claim soon after posting it, and this was the first example I had in mind, along with this counterargument. If I was to make a further (somewhat weak) counter-argument, it was engineering know-how that established the Roman Empire as a dominant military in the first place, consuming the territories of other empires. It's a safer claim that technological asymmetry permitted the conquest of the less equipped 'societies', rather than 'empires'.
- sterlind 3y ago
  the Spanish using guns and horses to topple the Aztec empire? and smallpox, but the guns and horses helped.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The Aztecs were toppled because they had alienated all of their neighbors and vassal states. The main thing the Spanish did was to organize everyone against the Aztecs. They had guns and horses, sure, but not nearly enough to singlehandedly make a difference on the battlefield.
whimsicalism 3y ago
Fundamentally, we are not an empire - we are a republic. Feel like that has gotten lost in the noise recently.