4 ms·

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any tim

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

WalterBright 3y ago
To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Yeah, those fire, pots and crops where so useless compared to those. And the wheel? Na, it's not that important.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Those items could very well have been invented multiple times, because the how-to information was lost again and again.
- 0_____0 3y ago
  agriculture
- schoen 3y ago
  Now I wonder whether a rhythm-based writing system could have been developed ahead of pictographic and alphabetic writing if preliterate people had had a telegraph. They might have started off developing rhythm conventions based on particular songs, or something. I guess signal drums predate writing in many places and successfully use rhythm to convey information over long distances. I'm not sure whether any that don't encode writing have a writing-like ability to represent arbitrary messages rather than just prearranged ones.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    We have always had musical notation, though what we have today is much more complex than any surviving records from clay tablets and such of ancient times. The idea of communicating sounds via physical marks was there, but it clearly lost out- why bother writing a message that needs to be sounded out, then translated to a spoken language, when you can skip the translation step with something glottographic?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- tlavoie 3y ago
  Related, The Information is an excellent book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_Theory,_a_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_...
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Weird how that list doesn't include the state, coinage, or farming. Or animal domestication. Or smelting iron. Or steam engines and machine tools. Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I'd argue the long term fixed preservation of knowledge outdoes almost every other invention. The value of being able to have a book you distribute which describes how to do all those other things, is immense.
    - Qwertious 3y ago
      Writing doesn't do as much as you'd think for long-term fixed preservation of knowledge. It sure helps, but 1) oral teachings exist and useful practices are passed down whether or not they're written, and 2) at the end of the day books need to be constantly rewritten as they wear out, and ancient libraries burned down all the time. In terms of building a civilisation in the first place, animal husbandry is vastly more useful than writing because writing is something scribes do (i.e. your non-farming elite - in medieval times, more than 9/10 of the population were farmers, and prehistorical farming was likely far less efficient than medieval farming what with the lack of iron etc), and animal husbandry improves your agriculture dramatically and are a major factor in providing the food-surplus for those scribes to exist in the first place. In fact, particularly food-poor empires tend to be conquered by more food-rich empires that can field larger armies, so if your hypothetical has-writing empire fought my hypothetical has-animals empire then I expect mine would win. Especially since your army wouldn't have cavalry or charioteers.
  - readyman 3y ago
    >being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies Seemingly, yes, but this hasn't been proven quite yet. The American empire appears to be losing dominance since the proliferation of the internet, for example. However, the American empire certainly gained tremendous power from broadcasted electronic mediums.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  you would not be able to build computers if you did not have advanced math concepts in the first place and a bunch of engineering knowhow as well.
- emilfihlman 3y ago
  You are overestimating. Even if there was a working phone network and phones when we were hunter gatherers, this wouldn't allow us to grow cities. All inventions work off each other, but if we count them without prerequisites: Agriculture (farming / animal domestication etc), ie being able to quite reliably produce a lot of food, is the most important innovation and invention for humanity. Next, still not information but the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production. Without this we would depend on humans and animals to do the work, and I for one do not like the idea of a modern slave industry, but even beyond that we couldn't use economies of scale, which actually allows for absolutely bonkers progress. Then perhaps writing and reading, and networking.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    > the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production This was enabled by the printing press. Immediately prior to the industrial revolution, printers printed how-to manuals on every topic they could think of. It's not a surprise that the industrial revolution occurred in the area that invented and widely adopted printing presses.
selestify 3y ago
Do you have a link I can read? I’m having trouble finding mentions of this
- ahazred8ta 3y ago
  Jamie O'Shea's Immaculate Telegraphy video series (2009) - "It's the ultimate salvagepunk experiment" -- https://www.tumblr.com/immaculatetelegraphy https://www.tumblr.com/immaculatetelegraphy -- https://www.google.com/search?q=immaculate+telegraphy https://www.google.com/search?q=immaculate+telegraphy But also Lewis Dartnell (The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch) https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scratch/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scr... -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuild_Our_World_from_Scratch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuil... -- "a great read, even if civilization does not collapse"
tdudhhu 3y ago
Why 3000 BC? Isn't it true that if we applied today's knowledge it could also be built millions of years ago? I can understand it means something like: it could be built with tools and materials they had 3000 BC, but isn't it also true that knowledge was able to create different tools and different materials?
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  I think the parent meant that it could be built by 'modern' people, homo sapiens sapiens, with the same intelligence as people living today
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    Homo sapiens "with the same intelligence as people living today" existed for at least 160,000 years, possibly 300,000... Some even go as far as argue that invention of agriculture actually made us dumber, because we did not have to fight for our survival as much as before.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

WalterBright 3y ago

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Yeah, those fire, pots and crops where so useless compared to those. And the wheel? Na, it's not that important.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Those items could very well have been invented multiple times, because the how-to information was lost again and again.
0_____0 3y ago
agriculture
schoen 3y ago
Now I wonder whether a rhythm-based writing system could have been developed ahead of pictographic and alphabetic writing if preliterate people had had a telegraph. They might have started off developing rhythm conventions based on particular songs, or something. I guess signal drums predate writing in many places and successfully use rhythm to convey information over long distances. I'm not sure whether any that don't encode writing have a writing-like ability to represent arbitrary messages rather than just prearranged ones.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  We have always had musical notation, though what we have today is much more complex than any surviving records from clay tablets and such of ancient times. The idea of communicating sounds via physical marks was there, but it clearly lost out- why bother writing a message that needs to be sounded out, then translated to a spoken language, when you can skip the translation step with something glottographic?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tlavoie 3y ago
Related, The Information is an excellent book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_Theory,_a_Flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_...
Qwertious 3y ago
Weird how that list doesn't include the state, coinage, or farming. Or animal domestication. Or smelting iron. Or steam engines and machine tools. Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).
- XorNot 3y ago
  I'd argue the long term fixed preservation of knowledge outdoes almost every other invention. The value of being able to have a book you distribute which describes how to do all those other things, is immense.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    Writing doesn't do as much as you'd think for long-term fixed preservation of knowledge. It sure helps, but 1) oral teachings exist and useful practices are passed down whether or not they're written, and 2) at the end of the day books need to be constantly rewritten as they wear out, and ancient libraries burned down all the time. In terms of building a civilisation in the first place, animal husbandry is vastly more useful than writing because writing is something scribes do (i.e. your non-farming elite - in medieval times, more than 9/10 of the population were farmers, and prehistorical farming was likely far less efficient than medieval farming what with the lack of iron etc), and animal husbandry improves your agriculture dramatically and are a major factor in providing the food-surplus for those scribes to exist in the first place. In fact, particularly food-poor empires tend to be conquered by more food-rich empires that can field larger armies, so if your hypothetical has-writing empire fought my hypothetical has-animals empire then I expect mine would win. Especially since your army wouldn't have cavalry or charioteers.
- readyman 3y ago
  >being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies Seemingly, yes, but this hasn't been proven quite yet. The American empire appears to be losing dominance since the proliferation of the internet, for example. However, the American empire certainly gained tremendous power from broadcasted electronic mediums.
ekianjo 3y ago
you would not be able to build computers if you did not have advanced math concepts in the first place and a bunch of engineering knowhow as well.
emilfihlman 3y ago
You are overestimating. Even if there was a working phone network and phones when we were hunter gatherers, this wouldn't allow us to grow cities. All inventions work off each other, but if we count them without prerequisites: Agriculture (farming / animal domestication etc), ie being able to quite reliably produce a lot of food, is the most important innovation and invention for humanity. Next, still not information but the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production. Without this we would depend on humans and animals to do the work, and I for one do not like the idea of a modern slave industry, but even beyond that we couldn't use economies of scale, which actually allows for absolutely bonkers progress. Then perhaps writing and reading, and networking.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  > the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production This was enabled by the printing press. Immediately prior to the industrial revolution, printers printed how-to manuals on every topic they could think of. It's not a surprise that the industrial revolution occurred in the area that invented and widely adopted printing presses.

selestify 3y ago

Do you have a link I can read? I’m having trouble finding mentions of this

ahazred8ta 3y ago
Jamie O'Shea's Immaculate Telegraphy video series (2009) - "It's the ultimate salvagepunk experiment" -- https://www.tumblr.com/immaculatetelegraphy https://www.tumblr.com/immaculatetelegraphy -- https://www.google.com/search?q=immaculate+telegraphy https://www.google.com/search?q=immaculate+telegraphy But also Lewis Dartnell (The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch) https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scratch/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scr... -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuild_Our_World_from_Scratch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuil... -- "a great read, even if civilization does not collapse"

tdudhhu 3y ago

Why 3000 BC? Isn't it true that if we applied today's knowledge it could also be built millions of years ago? I can understand it means something like: it could be built with tools and materials they had 3000 BC, but isn't it also true that knowledge was able to create different tools and different materials?

pi-e-sigma 3y ago
I think the parent meant that it could be built by 'modern' people, homo sapiens sapiens, with the same intelligence as people living today
- Detrytus 3y ago
  Homo sapiens "with the same intelligence as people living today" existed for at least 160,000 years, possibly 300,000... Some even go as far as argue that invention of agriculture actually made us dumber, because we did not have to fight for our survival as much as before.