> Yes absolutely, environment makes a difference, but it also looks pretty clear that the raw tech can exist for something for a very, very long time without an

> Yes absolutely, environment makes a difference, but it also looks pretty clear that the raw tech can exist for something for a very, very long time without anyone putting the pieces together. Perhaps invention is slightly different, but in the empirical sciences there's a bunch of stuff that occurred at roughly the same time: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery Science and technology are closely related, as the latter builds on the former, and so it is often the case that sometimes a little bit of luck / timing determines who is "first", e.g. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray