2 ms·

I think that we should forget about "balanced portrayals" and instead laud the achievements of the human race: meaning, the inventions, innovations, and organiz

I think that we should forget about "balanced portrayals" and instead laud the achievements of the human race: meaning, the inventions, innovations, and organizations that have moved mankind forward. And if some demographics are largely absent from this past, that's worth mentioning -- but not focusing on. Time is too valuable for that.

walterbell 12y ago
> if some demographics are largely absent from this past Are they absent from the engineering past or only the recorded history? For example, much of modern technology involves mobility. Would it be useful to study the technology of mobile nomadic tribes? What was the historical equivalent of http://bulletjournal.com http://bulletjournal.com? Or, Mayan civilization where Europeans destroyed all books, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8113410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8113410 "Unfortunately only 3 of these Mayan codices have survived (imagine inferring 1,000 years of Western civilization from a comic book, an almanac and a prayer book). Here are some of the codices which contain very accurate astronomical forecasts on Venus, Mars, eclipses and the sun" In this map of 1492, http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s4_9519.pdf http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s4_9519.pdf, we see that http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan was the largest city-state in pre-Columbian Americas and the fifth-largest city in the world. Look at the size of the Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations. What could we learn from their science and engineering accomplishments? We need more projects like Joseph Needham's Science and Technology in China, started in the 1950s and still ongoing, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_C....

walterbell 12y ago

> if some demographics are largely absent from this past Are they absent from the engineering past or only the recorded history? For example, much of modern technology involves mobility. Would it be useful to study the technology of mobile nomadic tribes? What was the historical equivalent of http://bulletjournal.com http://bulletjournal.com? Or, Mayan civilization where Europeans destroyed all books, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8113410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8113410 "Unfortunately only 3 of these Mayan codices have survived (imagine inferring 1,000 years of Western civilization from a comic book, an almanac and a prayer book). Here are some of the codices which contain very accurate astronomical forecasts on Venus, Mars, eclipses and the sun" In this map of 1492, http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s4_9519.pdf http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s4_9519.pdf, we see that http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan was the largest city-state in pre-Columbian Americas and the fifth-largest city in the world. Look at the size of the Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations. What could we learn from their science and engineering accomplishments? We need more projects like Joseph Needham's Science and Technology in China, started in the 1950s and still ongoing, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_C....