What could the world be like now, if technology had evolved faster?

[Diana]

Humans have been around for a very short period of time compared to many other species. However, we've made THE biggest and most profound advances in technology and learning how the universe works.

When you think about human history and how technology developed, the majority of our history it was very, very, very slow. You'll notice, that the two major things that've slowed advancements have been A) Political Opinion and B) Religious Opinion. Often, new ideas were met with a bloody and violent end, and took hundreds of years before they resurfaced again. Where nether politics nor religion is a bad thing, both are designed to stamp out all ideas that don't fall in to place with their beliefs.



Imagine if human culture HADN'T been so violent towards new ideas. Imagine a culture that is very knowledge centric. Seeking to learn, create, and understand. Where politics and religion are still very much a part of daily life, but are accepting and flexible towards knowledge.


How different do you think the technology of today would be? Would we be about the same or twice as advance? Ten times?

Have you ever thought about humanity's ancient and lost cultures, and their potential to have once been more advanced than ours had they survived?

 

[Ochalla]

I always wondered what Europe would have been like if Leonardo da Vinci didn't have to hide so much of his research in fear of being accused of doing witchcraft. He was well on his way to being able to fly after all.

 

[Sakura]

How different do you think the technology of today would be? Would we be about the same or twice as advance? Ten times?
Basically, with technology, I think about it and I'm compelled to think that at the rate at which we're advancing, we're just going to keep going faster and faster. Smart cities are in our future.

At the same time, however, you have to think about it with a grain of salt. Technology isn't being all wonderful to our environment. The fuels we're using and the things we're designing that are environmentally friendly AND efficient ARE EXPENSIVE. As a result, rarely anyone has the money to purchase an eco car when they can just get the regular carbon emitter. If you add that up for everyone in every advanced city we have, that's hundreds of thousands of carbon emitters. The more advanced we get, I'm sure this logic will spread to more than just cars. For example, cell phones are dangerous when it comes to direct radiation, but the amount of people I know that bluetooth, I can count on my fingers.

The same with the amount of people that carefully recycle and separate waste from plastic to glass and compost, etc. While our world advances in technology like touch screen computers and hand-held devices that can do just about anything, not EVERYONE is catching up to the pace. For that reason, I don't think that in ten years we will be much different from how we are now - the people who use a handful of technology and the people who practically live it -- in the same kind of environment, unless we can find a solution to the setbacks of old technology versus the new versus the high costs of the upgrade.

As a student of IT, I feel very strongly about this issue.

Have you ever thought about humanity's ancient and lost cultures, and their potential to have once been more advanced than ours had they survived?

Yes, and it's quite uncanny to imagine how their potential may have been and how scary it is that they have accomplished so much even without the same technology that we possess. Think about it, they discovered math, they made a calendar, they visualized planets and solar systems, calculated the distance across the earth, the distance to the sun and the moon -- and all of this without our fancy machines and calculators.


In a way, our technology is equal to their's. What we consider technology is basically worldwide communication - the internet, cell phones, cars, all this new technology has only increased our ability to move from place to place and to communicate, it has only built upon their boats and ships and their languages and trades. If they had not died down, I wonder if they would have been able to create the same technology we have now. It's a scary thought and intriguing at the same time!

 

[MurderDeathKill]

How different do you think the technology of today would be? Would we be about the same or twice as advance? Ten times?

The only technology I see that would have sped up our development by any major stretch would have been if certain precursors to the computer had gotten more funding and attention, namely Babbage's Analytical Engine. If the British government had approved the funding for Babbage's design, we might have become a lot more advanced than we are now.

Have you ever thought about humanity's ancient and lost cultures, and their potential to have once been more advanced than ours had they survived?

No, cultures undergo changes and paradigm shifts for good reasons, just like ours will. The difference between then and now being that we will likely live to see our culture undergo further shifts, these shifts will be neither too slow for us to notice, nor too fast to escape it, and we'll see a good deal more of them, barring some catastrophe or the singularity happening in our lifetimes. In which case, we would either cease to see any change - since we'd either all be dead or fighting for our very survival in some post-apocalyptic wasteland somewhere, I'm sure - or change will begin occurring so rapidly that it'll all be a blur to any unaided observer.

I mean, shit, we have motherfuckin' bionic cats now, why would I want to live in any other time in man's history?