Antworten zum Universum

I read this morning (yea, I wake up early, big deal. Sue me if you want), Dubner wrote that the Ancient Greeks were smarter than thought. Yea, if you have been following BBC’s RSS headlines, you’d probably see the news about the world’s first computer by the Greeks (in your face, Babbage!), and that it was a millenia ahead of its time.

Dubner asked: why didn’t the technology move forward for an entire millennium?

One simple answer could be attributed to the Dark Ages. Mediaeval knights, dedicated to preserving their religion, destroyed “heretical” relics of importance (one wonders why the stone henge got preserved).

Imagine, a Roman officer asking a simple Greek: “What does this do?”,
and the Greek replies “To tell when the moon shall be full“,
and the Roman officer says: “Heretical! Only God determines when the moon shalt be fulleth! Off with his head!”

Okay, the “off with his head” part is an overdramatization . But the point is that the ancient people, they’d destroy anything that is not in accordance to their beliefs (it happens even today. Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan?)

The Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed by conquerers, ranging from Julius Caesar to the Muslim invaders to Egypt. People think sources of knowledge are dangerous to the know-less-men. And in this day, warfare is over knowledge. What an irony.

So, what does this has gotta do with Pushing the Future? Let’s get back to Dubner’s question – why didn’t the technology move forward for a whole millenium?

Interestingly, I’ve did some look up on this, and have questioned myself similar questions before and I’ve kinda narrowed it down to a few reasons -

• Inacceptance
• Destruction
• No Marketing or No Apparent Usefulness
• Secrecy

Continue reading Pushing the Future