6 ms·

The Universal Tech Tree

153 points by mitchbob 1y ago

jessep 1y ago
I absolutely love this.
- pizzooid 1y ago
  same
acenturyandabit 1y ago
The link to the actual tech tree is buried In the article: https://www.historicaltechtree.com/ https://www.historicaltechtree.com/
- croemer 1y ago
  Thanks! I could not find it
- maxekman 1y ago
  That is fantastic! Thanks for providing the link. I was expecting something like that on the submission URL.
- uncertainrhymes 1y ago
  Someone is probably already making the most brutal Factorio mod of all time.
- WillAdams 1y ago
  Does anyone know of a similar arrangement for books or biographies? At one point in time I tried to read one of each major category of books in the Dewey Decimal system but was stymied (need to try again using LoC), then later, wanted to read biographies in chronological order to my kids, but that was a hard list to put together. For an associated text, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29240912-why-the-wheel-is-round https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29240912-why-the-wheel-i... which I'm currently reading and which is quite good and very engaging.
NamTaf 1y ago
I was waiting for the inevitable Connections reference. It took longer than I expected. I like the idea and I like the article describing the background and rationale. I look forward to poking around in it. However I have a little bit of a hang-up with calling it a “tree”. Namely, a tree conjures the image of it being a 1-to-N graph, i.e. a single idea leads to several new ones, and so on, when it is very much not. Ironically Connections was really what rammed this point home for me. It really is more like a social media graph, where ideas from all over, old and new, coalesce into a new epiphany that leads to a new invention. Burke constantly demonstrated this in his examples, and explicitly rejected the linearity of inventions. But then again, the concept of a ‘tree of tech’ is rather poetic :)
- garrettgarcia 1y ago
  I see your point about it not being a strict tree. It is tree-like, however, in the sense that the branches/edges only point in one direction: forward in time.
  - MarkusQ 1y ago
    But it's a reticulating structure; yes, the graph is directed / partially ordered, but it's certainly not tree-like. The key property of real trees is that they _branch_ and the branches don't recombine.
    - garrettgarcia 1y ago
      Au contraire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inosculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inosculation I do agree that branches staying separate is the essential property of a tree data structure.
      - Retric 1y ago
        That’s referring to a joining between different trees not the same tree. The need to connect leaves to roots is what gives individuals trees their branching nature. Obviously a tree can have holes in it etc, but loops in nutrient delivery present an inherent issue.
garrettgarcia 1y ago
I've been wishing that this existed for a long time, and am thrilled to see that it does now! Something that fascinates me about early technology is that a significant amount of it was invented prior to Homo sapiens.
efm 1y ago
Thanks for doing this research! The information is organized clearly by date, technology and predecessor/descendant. But,technology continues to improve, and this site has no database or github for continuing to update with new tech or to fill in the gaps. This website format also makes it difficult to do other forms of analysis. I wonder if the authors would make the data available in a knowledge graph form.
tunesmith 1y ago
One of my favorite things to wonder about is if our historical tech tree has ever been truly limited by anything other than human ingenuity. Like, if not for the random placement of smart people in the right places, who's to say we might not have started launching rockets 500 years ago, or 500 years from now? And how disjoint can branches of a a tech tree really be; are there branches of our tree that could conceivably be completely dark ages and undiscovered given where we are in the other branches? But it's the first question that is most fun: have we ever been externally gated, like where a certain idea or technology was just completely impossible to invent discover until something external happened like a meteor hitting the ground, or a volcano erupting, etc?
- vkou 1y ago
  It's not the placement of smart people, it's the political climate. When an idle ruling class of parasites siphons all the productive surplus of society, there's not a lot of room for innovation... Unless they come up with a gentleman's compact to dabble in gentleman scholarship.
  - garrettgarcia 1y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted. The political climate, and more broadly the culture of a society, is the crucial component to whether or not technological progress happens. Evidence of this is all around us, even today. Look how much more progress there's been in South Korea vs. North Korea over the last 75 years. That is a direct consequence of the differing cultural and political climates.
  - truekonrads 1y ago
    Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond addresses this head on - resources, safety and political climate seem to contribute a lot
- nradov 1y ago
  Sure. Someone could have invented gunpowder at pretty much any time. It's not particularly complex, just no one figured it out until (probably) some Chinese monks discovered it accidentally in the 9th century. But in some plausible alternate history the Roman legions were using explosives and cannons to conquer the world a millennium before that.
diggan 1y ago
Very coincidental as I've been building my own "technology tree" for a game I'm doing, but currently just at ~50 technologies. It would be amazing if this universal tech tree would also publish its data under a permissive license, I'm sure it could be useful to more folks than just me, and would make it even more universal!
jlcx 1y ago
For something related that takes a very different approach: https://causegraph.github.io/causalaxies https://causegraph.github.io/causalaxies In contrast to the author's decisions here, I decided to -go for an "everything tree" even if that will contain many more errors -use DBpedia/Wikidata, and address issues discovered by editing Wikipedia/Wikidata -use a 3D visualization tool, due to the size of the graph I think it reveals an interesting overall structure, and some interesting details for those who zoom in despite the issues with the data.
- ricksunny 1y ago
  OK this is amazeballs. Can you expound on technical implementation? Relying on Wikidata, then it relies on whatever Wikidata editors' internal governance system is for inclusion, exclusion, quality control of entries, correct? I see you submitted this to HN almost a decade ago. How has it not gotten picked up for discussion??
  - jlcx 1y ago
    Thanks for the compliment! The larger graph is basically built by extracting all relationships of certain types (e.g. parent/child, teacher/student, cause/effect) from Wikidata, along with the earliest known date for the items (e.g. date of birth, time of invention/discovery). The layout started as a 3D force-directed layout, but I turned one axis into the timeline. For the visualization, I used (forked) https://github.com/anvaka/pm https://github.com/anvaka/pm (which did get some deserved attention here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40817852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40817852 ) and the related ngraph.offline.layout repo. Trying to answer your final question: there are a lot of things that I should probably improve here, but I've also wondered if this kind of giant graph visualization just doesn't really work for most people.
tbrownaw 1y ago
Is there an individual-scale tree with skills and jobs?
thrtythreeforty 1y ago
One of my favorite sci-fi authors wrote Lady of Mazes, which in part explores what a "finished" tech tree looks like, and how societies might explicitly reject parts of it as part of their values. It explores multiple societies physically overlaid but invisible to each other because their technological values are incompatible. (The titular lady possesses a rare ability to step through to different societies.)
haddr 1y ago
There is this theory of „adjacent possible”, that quite well explains why the technology develops the way it does. Some enabler technologies or inventions or even economy are just not just there yet for next thing to happen.
ttoinou 1y ago
Great article. There was a puzzle game called doodle god on ios 10+ years ago where you would combine basic elements to form the next one, etc. in a tree fashion. We could use the same game concept and gamify the tech tree
paulorlando 1y ago
I love the execution on this. It's powerful because it overlaps with different approaches (adjacent possible, inflection points, dominant design, creative destruction, opportunity curves, the multigenium, hype cycles, Cambrian explosions, tech leapfrogging...) and also just lets you click around to explore. I've been interested in the timing of new inventions and how they sometimes go on to become successful innovations. This visual tree is a great resource.
Freedom2 1y ago
The article opens with a great line that really sets the stage for the whole "Universal Tech Tree" idea: "When we try and pick out any technology in isolation, we find it hitched, in some way, to every innovation that preceded it." That really resonates with me. It’s like trying to isolate a single root in a massive banyan tree – impossible! Every new tool or technique we develop isn't just born in a vacuum; it’s built on the shoulders of giants, as they say. Or, to keep with the tree metaphor, it's nourished by the nutrients and structure provided by all the growth before it. It’s a very organic way of looking at progress, far more accurate than the typical linear 'invention A led to invention B' timelines we sometimes see. It also makes you wonder about the butterfly effect in technology – how a seemingly small 'hitch' in the past could have profoundly altered the entire tech tree's future branches
- empath75 1y ago
  Yeah, but I feel like there are sort of "substantial" and "accidental" dependencies to any invention. The example he gives of photography being dependent on firearms seem more of the "accidental" kind. Photography could have still existed without those influences, but the form may have been slightly different. The key thing was actually the silver chemistry and optics. I think one can make a similar argument that Generative AI, for example was dependent on 3D video games, but that seems sort of contingent, and in another universe it could have happened in the opposite order.
corimaith 1y ago
What I would find interesting is if the tech trees of different civilizations, not just in Earth but elsewhere would eventually converge. And if you can reach a point where you can anticipate that, how would that predetermine the relationshp between your civilization today and others in the future, or even better, how would that define the relationship between those more advanced to those behind them?
meindnoch 1y ago
It's not a tree, it's a DAG.
DavidPiper 1y ago
I'm not sure how accurate the dot-graph is at the bottom of the Tree, but anyone notice that 1880 to 1980 has a huge density, and since about 1980 we seem to be stagnating? Data collection bias? Goalpost/definition change maybe (many recent advances are in "better" software and hardware)? Less research/exploration investment vs. business/exploitation investment? Interesting to think about "what if my whole life has actually been in a period of global exploratory slowdown?"
- davedx 1y ago
  Possibly related to that period having two world wars and the Cold War? If I look a lot of the inventions in that timeline, they're related to or directly funded by warfare. Consider radio and radar, rocketry, space flight, the Internet and its related technologies, there's a very big list. In the US, institutions like DARPA were directly funded for that purpose.
CommenterPerson 1y ago
I love it that the Tech Tree goes all the way back to a stone tool. It reclaims the word Technology. If we asked a youngster to describe Technology they might point to a phone or a computer. Noooo .. it is "is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals" (Wikipedia). Phones and computers are a small subset of Technology.

153 points by mitchbob 1y ago

jessep 1y ago

I absolutely love this.

pizzooid 1y ago
same

acenturyandabit 1y ago

The link to the actual tech tree is buried In the article: https://www.historicaltechtree.com/ https://www.historicaltechtree.com/

croemer 1y ago
Thanks! I could not find it
maxekman 1y ago
That is fantastic! Thanks for providing the link. I was expecting something like that on the submission URL.
uncertainrhymes 1y ago
Someone is probably already making the most brutal Factorio mod of all time.
WillAdams 1y ago
Does anyone know of a similar arrangement for books or biographies? At one point in time I tried to read one of each major category of books in the Dewey Decimal system but was stymied (need to try again using LoC), then later, wanted to read biographies in chronological order to my kids, but that was a hard list to put together. For an associated text, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29240912-why-the-wheel-is-round https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29240912-why-the-wheel-i... which I'm currently reading and which is quite good and very engaging.

NamTaf 1y ago

I was waiting for the inevitable Connections reference. It took longer than I expected. I like the idea and I like the article describing the background and rationale. I look forward to poking around in it. However I have a little bit of a hang-up with calling it a “tree”. Namely, a tree conjures the image of it being a 1-to-N graph, i.e. a single idea leads to several new ones, and so on, when it is very much not. Ironically Connections was really what rammed this point home for me. It really is more like a social media graph, where ideas from all over, old and new, coalesce into a new epiphany that leads to a new invention. Burke constantly demonstrated this in his examples, and explicitly rejected the linearity of inventions. But then again, the concept of a ‘tree of tech’ is rather poetic :)

garrettgarcia 1y ago
I see your point about it not being a strict tree. It is tree-like, however, in the sense that the branches/edges only point in one direction: forward in time.
- MarkusQ 1y ago
  But it's a reticulating structure; yes, the graph is directed / partially ordered, but it's certainly not tree-like. The key property of real trees is that they _branch_ and the branches don't recombine.
  - garrettgarcia 1y ago
    Au contraire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inosculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inosculation I do agree that branches staying separate is the essential property of a tree data structure.
    - Retric 1y ago
      That’s referring to a joining between different trees not the same tree. The need to connect leaves to roots is what gives individuals trees their branching nature. Obviously a tree can have holes in it etc, but loops in nutrient delivery present an inherent issue.

garrettgarcia 1y ago

I've been wishing that this existed for a long time, and am thrilled to see that it does now! Something that fascinates me about early technology is that a significant amount of it was invented prior to Homo sapiens.

efm 1y ago

Thanks for doing this research! The information is organized clearly by date, technology and predecessor/descendant. But,technology continues to improve, and this site has no database or github for continuing to update with new tech or to fill in the gaps. This website format also makes it difficult to do other forms of analysis. I wonder if the authors would make the data available in a knowledge graph form.

tunesmith 1y ago

One of my favorite things to wonder about is if our historical tech tree has ever been truly limited by anything other than human ingenuity. Like, if not for the random placement of smart people in the right places, who's to say we might not have started launching rockets 500 years ago, or 500 years from now? And how disjoint can branches of a a tech tree really be; are there branches of our tree that could conceivably be completely dark ages and undiscovered given where we are in the other branches? But it's the first question that is most fun: have we ever been externally gated, like where a certain idea or technology was just completely impossible to invent discover until something external happened like a meteor hitting the ground, or a volcano erupting, etc?

vkou 1y ago
It's not the placement of smart people, it's the political climate. When an idle ruling class of parasites siphons all the productive surplus of society, there's not a lot of room for innovation... Unless they come up with a gentleman's compact to dabble in gentleman scholarship.
- garrettgarcia 1y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. The political climate, and more broadly the culture of a society, is the crucial component to whether or not technological progress happens. Evidence of this is all around us, even today. Look how much more progress there's been in South Korea vs. North Korea over the last 75 years. That is a direct consequence of the differing cultural and political climates.
- truekonrads 1y ago
  Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond addresses this head on - resources, safety and political climate seem to contribute a lot
nradov 1y ago
Sure. Someone could have invented gunpowder at pretty much any time. It's not particularly complex, just no one figured it out until (probably) some Chinese monks discovered it accidentally in the 9th century. But in some plausible alternate history the Roman legions were using explosives and cannons to conquer the world a millennium before that.

diggan 1y ago

Very coincidental as I've been building my own "technology tree" for a game I'm doing, but currently just at ~50 technologies. It would be amazing if this universal tech tree would also publish its data under a permissive license, I'm sure it could be useful to more folks than just me, and would make it even more universal!

jlcx 1y ago

For something related that takes a very different approach: https://causegraph.github.io/causalaxies https://causegraph.github.io/causalaxies In contrast to the author's decisions here, I decided to -go for an "everything tree" even if that will contain many more errors -use DBpedia/Wikidata, and address issues discovered by editing Wikipedia/Wikidata -use a 3D visualization tool, due to the size of the graph I think it reveals an interesting overall structure, and some interesting details for those who zoom in despite the issues with the data.

ricksunny 1y ago
OK this is amazeballs. Can you expound on technical implementation? Relying on Wikidata, then it relies on whatever Wikidata editors' internal governance system is for inclusion, exclusion, quality control of entries, correct? I see you submitted this to HN almost a decade ago. How has it not gotten picked up for discussion??
- jlcx 1y ago
  Thanks for the compliment! The larger graph is basically built by extracting all relationships of certain types (e.g. parent/child, teacher/student, cause/effect) from Wikidata, along with the earliest known date for the items (e.g. date of birth, time of invention/discovery). The layout started as a 3D force-directed layout, but I turned one axis into the timeline. For the visualization, I used (forked) https://github.com/anvaka/pm https://github.com/anvaka/pm (which did get some deserved attention here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40817852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40817852 ) and the related ngraph.offline.layout repo. Trying to answer your final question: there are a lot of things that I should probably improve here, but I've also wondered if this kind of giant graph visualization just doesn't really work for most people.

tbrownaw 1y ago

Is there an individual-scale tree with skills and jobs?

thrtythreeforty 1y ago

One of my favorite sci-fi authors wrote Lady of Mazes, which in part explores what a "finished" tech tree looks like, and how societies might explicitly reject parts of it as part of their values. It explores multiple societies physically overlaid but invisible to each other because their technological values are incompatible. (The titular lady possesses a rare ability to step through to different societies.)

haddr 1y ago

There is this theory of „adjacent possible”, that quite well explains why the technology develops the way it does. Some enabler technologies or inventions or even economy are just not just there yet for next thing to happen.

ttoinou 1y ago

Great article. There was a puzzle game called doodle god on ios 10+ years ago where you would combine basic elements to form the next one, etc. in a tree fashion. We could use the same game concept and gamify the tech tree

paulorlando 1y ago

I love the execution on this. It's powerful because it overlaps with different approaches (adjacent possible, inflection points, dominant design, creative destruction, opportunity curves, the multigenium, hype cycles, Cambrian explosions, tech leapfrogging...) and also just lets you click around to explore. I've been interested in the timing of new inventions and how they sometimes go on to become successful innovations. This visual tree is a great resource.

Freedom2 1y ago

The article opens with a great line that really sets the stage for the whole "Universal Tech Tree" idea: "When we try and pick out any technology in isolation, we find it hitched, in some way, to every innovation that preceded it." That really resonates with me. It’s like trying to isolate a single root in a massive banyan tree – impossible! Every new tool or technique we develop isn't just born in a vacuum; it’s built on the shoulders of giants, as they say. Or, to keep with the tree metaphor, it's nourished by the nutrients and structure provided by all the growth before it. It’s a very organic way of looking at progress, far more accurate than the typical linear 'invention A led to invention B' timelines we sometimes see. It also makes you wonder about the butterfly effect in technology – how a seemingly small 'hitch' in the past could have profoundly altered the entire tech tree's future branches

empath75 1y ago
Yeah, but I feel like there are sort of "substantial" and "accidental" dependencies to any invention. The example he gives of photography being dependent on firearms seem more of the "accidental" kind. Photography could have still existed without those influences, but the form may have been slightly different. The key thing was actually the silver chemistry and optics. I think one can make a similar argument that Generative AI, for example was dependent on 3D video games, but that seems sort of contingent, and in another universe it could have happened in the opposite order.

corimaith 1y ago

What I would find interesting is if the tech trees of different civilizations, not just in Earth but elsewhere would eventually converge. And if you can reach a point where you can anticipate that, how would that predetermine the relationshp between your civilization today and others in the future, or even better, how would that define the relationship between those more advanced to those behind them?

meindnoch 1y ago

It's not a tree, it's a DAG.

DavidPiper 1y ago

I'm not sure how accurate the dot-graph is at the bottom of the Tree, but anyone notice that 1880 to 1980 has a huge density, and since about 1980 we seem to be stagnating? Data collection bias? Goalpost/definition change maybe (many recent advances are in "better" software and hardware)? Less research/exploration investment vs. business/exploitation investment? Interesting to think about "what if my whole life has actually been in a period of global exploratory slowdown?"

davedx 1y ago
Possibly related to that period having two world wars and the Cold War? If I look a lot of the inventions in that timeline, they're related to or directly funded by warfare. Consider radio and radar, rocketry, space flight, the Internet and its related technologies, there's a very big list. In the US, institutions like DARPA were directly funded for that purpose.

CommenterPerson 1y ago

I love it that the Tech Tree goes all the way back to a stone tool. It reclaims the word Technology. If we asked a youngster to describe Technology they might point to a phone or a computer. Noooo .. it is "is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals" (Wikipedia). Phones and computers are a small subset of Technology.