(If you haven't read all the books, don't read this comment.) There's also magic in general. Until relatively recently, societies could accomplish a great deal

(If you haven't read all the books, don't read this comment.) There's also magic in general. Until relatively recently, societies could accomplish a great deal through magical means, from road-building to instantaneous long-distance communication. For much of the six thousand years, there was probably no reason to focus on scientific and technological advances when you could just use magic. Things apparently changed with the near-extinction of the dragons. Dragons apparently somehow boost magic - it almost disappeared without them, and now it's coming back with them. In the books, Marwyn the Mage (a maester) claims that the maesters were responsible for the death of the dragons, because they couldn't build the world they wanted with magic, prophecy, and dragons around - suggesting that the maesters want a world of science and technology, perhaps with them as the gatekeepers. Lady Dustin also suggests that the maesters are much more political than they pretend.