3 ms·
"Rockefeller is widely considered to be the richest person ever" But back in a time when life was not as good, for even rich people, as it is today. Not to men
by larrys 14y ago
"Rockefeller is widely considered to be the richest person ever"
But back in a time when life was not as good, for even rich people, as it is today. Not to mention medical care or even pain medication or air conditioning or any creature comforts (I'm remembering when cars didn't have even electric windows when I was really young).
Would you rather have 10 times the money you have and be back in the 1930's?
Similar also to computers. As anyone who has worked with a teletype, floppy drives, punch tape, or green ascii terminal can attest to vs. being able to ssh into your server from an ipad mini.
- dllthomas 14y ago> Would you rather have 10 times the money you have and be back in the 1930's? If I could keep my current knowledge, yes I think so. "Hey, guys, here's some capital; look into these 'semiconductor' things..." I recognize that this is deliberately missing your point, however.
- dennisgorelik 14y agoYou are extremely too optimistic about your personal ability to move technical progress forward. The amount of technological knowledge our civilization carries is enormous, and even if you are extremely knowledgeable, you are unlikely to know even 1% of it. So yes, you would be able to move civilization forward in the magnitude of a few months. But that's about it.
- dllthomas 14y agoObviously, it's not something we can really test... However, I do think you are severely underestimating the benefits, for technological progress, of: 1) Knowing that things are possible, 2) knowing approximately where to look, and 3) having a large (and growing) pile of resources to put behind these things.
- protomyth 14y agoWell, since I grew up on a reservation, I'll take now, but I don't think the health care has improved much (given the stats).