tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post2232034373584628053..comments2024-03-29T00:39:31.629-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Science Fiction! Science Fiction!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72193893622019071112016-08-23T20:15:36.279-07:002016-08-23T20:15:36.279-07:00Re Paul451
"...they lack external sources.&qu...Re Paul451<br />"...they lack external sources."<br /><br />I had thought Dr. Brin himself was the external source. Everything was approved by him before it went to Wikipedia. It's not a secret that our good Dr. wrote the Uplift novels without a pre-ordained Bible. He has stated that there is currently very little chance of there being a second edition to Contacting Aliens. <br /><br />We'll see what happens.Vilyehmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01608912239121014083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38069062427963416702016-08-23T14:06:01.062-07:002016-08-23T14:06:01.062-07:00@Paul451 - "What cultural artefact or artific...@Paul451 - <i>"What cultural artefact or artifice could you create in your lifetime that would persist beyond it, that would encourage destructive-innovation while protecting your own legacy?"</i><br /><br />I'd go with a university, as it is one of few mechanisms that (a) rewards the pursuit of technological and scientific advancement, (b) feeds the practitioners pursuing it, and (c) can thwart efforts by political authority to crush it but is itself outside the political order. Or rather, a university system - one needs the universities to compete with one another in more important ways than mere sport - many societies that stagnated had a single university to train their administrative/spiritual cadres (Egypt's Al-Azhar, Morocco's Fez, and many European entities that evolved into countries) . Gradually, a system of universities would impose expectations to attain some meritocratic credential, rather than merely reverting to hereditary bases of power. The rest of the structure would arrange itself around the university as a focal point of power.<br /><br />And I would ban any university from receiving public support unless they require all students to take a handful of courses outside their field (e.g., scientists must also learn a little history, theologians must learn a little science). That would reduce instincts towards monastic quietism quite common among academics.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11553441686806671902016-08-23T01:46:40.051-07:002016-08-23T01:46:40.051-07:00Re: Alfred and Duncan's innovation debate.
If...Re: Alfred and Duncan's innovation debate.<br /><br />If we accept Alfred's claim that cultures have to "honour destructive-innovation" more than simply "believing in positive-sum trade", in order to prevent a suppression of innovation: If, one day, you became the founding God-Emperor of a new empire (or you're thrown back in time and through your knowledge of gun-powder and double-entry bookkeeping, you are able to overthrow a couple of weak kings, their corrupt aristos and priests, and carve out a nice empire for you and your allies) and for reasons of either technological-necessity or just old fashioned patrilineal selfishness you really, really, <i>really</i> didn't want to stop being Emperor...<br /><br />How would you design a system that would not only protect your power (and that of your heirs and La Familia Real), but also prevent technological stagnation?<br /><br />You need to suppress disruption to protect your power, which means you need to encourage a culture of "loyalty" to the way things are (and hence dishonour those who seek change, "Traitors!", "Blasphemers!"), but you need that unstructured disruption to encourage and temper innovation.<br /><br />While you personally might actively seek out and sponsor innovations, it's unreasonable to expect your heirs and grandheirs to understand that need, particularly once the first round innovations become embedded. What cultural artefact or artifice could you create in your lifetime that would persist beyond it, that would encourage destructive-innovation while protecting your own legacy?<br /><br />I'm... asking for a friend.<br /><br />(The only thing I can think of is something like the biblical 50yr debt Jubilee that David often brings up. Create an "event" to be held once every second generation (50yrs), where all-comers are summoned to bring out their most innovative ideas and inventions -- from maths to philosophy, techniques to technology, the very ideas of laws and governance -- and by the end of the Jubilee a radically new "norm", a new powerbase/bureaucracy, new privilege & patronage, a new system of laws, <i>will</i> be created. You make it a "game". Part festival, part competition for power. Every prior title and formal privilege is revoked on the fiftieth year, to be recreated on the fifty-third year to Whomsoever Shall Earn It At The Emperor's Jubilee! Likewise, the Emperor/Empress may create a major symbolic upheaval for him/herself to celebrate and mark each Jubilee, changing the site of the Capital, making a major change to the official religion, changing the pattern of inheritance, whatever whim strikes a particular Emperor's fancy. The idea is that those given power by the Palace -- from Lords to guilds -- know they can keep it and can hand it to their children. But <i>those</i> children will grow up knowing that privilege can't be automatically passed on to the third generation, instead they must re-earn it in order to protect their own line. Moreso, there'll be no dishonour in innovative thinking, you are just "practising for Jubilee". Like the "loyal opposition" within the Parliament of a Constitutional Monarchy, disloyal to "the government", but loyal to the broader meta-government. Likewise, <i>within</i> an existing inter-Jubilee power-structure, local Lords might indulge in an out-of-season mini-Jubilee amongst the lower classes to solve local problems (or distract from them); they'll need to build up credit for the real-thing, after all, when their own power is at stake. The reason I suspect this Innovation And Power Jubilee would persist is because there'll too much demand from <i>untitled</i> nouveau riche for the chance of peaceful usurpation of their weak, entitled superiors. "It's my Right to compete!" Too much potential dishonour in suggesting cancelling the next Jubilee. "Are you afraid of being unable to compete? Coward! Cheat! Unworthy!")Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31437364717575985962016-08-23T01:46:01.140-07:002016-08-23T01:46:01.140-07:00Alfred: "The fact that unity did not occur al...Alfred: <i>"The fact that unity did not occur along the northern plains is an oddity historians have to explain. The fact that the Chinese DID manage it also requires explanation."</i><br />Donzelion: <i>"It's not 'mountains as physical barriers,' so much as 'winter is coming - and near mountains, it can come early.' [...] That made waging conclusive war difficult"</i><br /><br />Further to Donzelion's comment: It's not just that natural-barriers protect you from others, but that they protect others from you. In Europe, it was too easy for an ambitious prince in one part of Europe to stretch beyond their region, beyond Europe, even over water, rather than focus on just unifying the northern plains (for example, or any other "natural" location for a contained empire.) So you see the ambitions of the European empires throughout history shift and flow anywhere from the Middle East, north Africa, England, Russia, etc. There's just too much temptation, too many choices. It's too easy.<br /><br />With China, there was Central And Eastern China, and then large stretches of low value land (and deserts and mountains) between China and anywhere interesting. There's no temptation for an ambitious prince from central-west China, for example, to look north/south/west to expand his would-be empire. Trade, sure, why not. But to send an army over the Himalayas to take Indian territory? Or west over the deserts and mountains to take Persian land? It's might be possible, but it's a hell of a lot more tempting and profitable to send that same army down-river to the east to take land and riches from whichever of your Chinese rivals seems weakest. And those rivals know it and will likewise focus on you. So there's <i>millennia</i> of cultural assumption that only areas <i>within</i> China itself are worth conquering. (Note that the only group to buck that assumption were the Mongols, who arose within one of the "deserts" around China (vast low fertility grassland), and hence when they were ready to expand, any and every direction was equally full of riches.)<br /><br />Europe never had that "natural" focus of power. (Or rather all the natural foci are wet. The Aegean sea, the Baltic, the North Sea/English Channel, and especially the Mediterranean itself.) From the point of view of any historical empire, there's no such thing as "Europe" except for map-making convention. So there's millennia of cultural assumption that a "real empire" expands into Asia and Africa. Too much temptation to overreach <i>before</i> consolidating close to home.<br /><br />Culture, IMO, followed from that, rather than caused it.<br /><br /><i>"Did Marx honor market innovators?"</i><br /><br />A comment David has made before (in sort-of-defence of Marx) is that Marx appeared to believe that the technological revolution he was experiencing was once and done. Once the mills and factories were built, cities industrialised, steam everything everywhere, then industrialisation would be finished and that would be the new post-feudal norm. So his focus was on trying to figure out the best "natural" ownership structure of that fixed and final manufacturing infrastructure. He didn't see a need for continual innovation, because he assumed that industrialisation was (technologically) pretty much finished, now was just the matter of implementation and managing the transition.<br /><br />Marx treated industrialisation like many geek-writers treat "post-Scarcity society", as a singular event that creates a new norm, rather than a continuing process.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3776949425051703732016-08-23T01:38:58.243-07:002016-08-23T01:38:58.243-07:00William Taylor,
Re: Uplift and Wikipedia
I suspec...William Taylor,<br />Re: Uplift and Wikipedia<br /><br />I suspect your articles will be deleted within a few months. There's a large faction of regular editors, and supporting admins, who dislike these kinds of in-universe articles because they lack external sources. Unless there are sources other than David's books that have written/speculated about the races, technologies, etc, of the Uplift novels, then it will be considered "Original Research" or just "Fan Work" and hence not suitable for Wikipedia.<br /><br />You may be better off offering to supply the material you've produced to Trent Shipley's <a href="http://www.davidbrinfans.org/" rel="nofollow">fansite</a> instead.<br /><br />(The only format to sometimes survive a Wiki-purge is when you create a single article, "Species of the Uplift Universe", rather than trying to create a separate article for each species. But I'd <i>start</i> with establishing the details on another site, like Trent's, <i>first</i>, then try to create something on Wikipedia that cites those external sites as a source.)<br /><br /><i>"I don't know how to create a new Wikipedia listing"</i><br /><br />Type the new article name in the search box. If it doesn't match an existing article or redirect, you'll get a <i>"There were no results matching the query"</i> page. Click on the red-linked <i>"You may create the page 'Article Name'."</i>Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46160674090198147632016-08-22T22:32:59.108-07:002016-08-22T22:32:59.108-07:00@Alfred - yeah, I think we agree on our views of t...@Alfred - yeah, I think we agree on our views of the merits of a patronage system.<br /><br /><i>"Did Marx honor market innovators?"</i><br />Not in any formulation of Marx I've heard. Marx's view of technological innovation, as I understand it, asserts that if owners of the mode of production adopt better machinery, it will grow the ranks of the army of workers and make their plight that even more dire. <br /><br />But Marx is hardly the only exponent of Enlightenment thinking. <br /><br />Indeed, liberalism (small 'l' liberalism, as in classical liberalism, rather than any specific party or movement) accepts "Design" as a component in human endeavors, in the sense that human institutions and allocations of wealth arise from human decisions, rather than divine or natural causes. <br /><br />Both "conservatives" (actually, traditionalists) and Marxists would be in tension with liberals. Traditionalists view "wealth" as a gift from God, and any redistribution would violate God's will (most conservatives today do not accept that notion entirely, but many religious conservatives slip into it through mental habits). Marxists view "poverty" as a curse from capitalists, and any redistribution would merely be scraps from their table, prolonging subjugation to their will. Both sides are anti-liberal, in the sense that they disdain the human agency involved in the process.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16898031841965856852016-08-22T21:54:48.392-07:002016-08-22T21:54:48.392-07:00@Alfred - "The northern plains of Europe (Par...@Alfred - <i>"The northern plains of Europe (Paris to Moscow) are damn near impossible to defend in any era." "Only some of Europe is hard to take and hold, though."</i><br />Certainly enough feudal lords tried and failed. Winter accounts for why so few succeeded.<br /><br />It's not 'mountains as physical barriers,' so much as 'winter is coming - and near mountains, it can come early.' From the time it takes to muster an army, feed it, move it out, keep it fed, start the conquest, and finish the job or get them home before they all starve to death, a would-be conqueror contended with meteorological challenges in Europe that they would not face in much of China or the Middle East. That made waging conclusive war difficult, and extend fights for decades that might otherwise be quickly finished in other regions. In such a climate, all a castle needed to do was delay an advance by a few weeks to achieve its purpose. And there were quite a few.<br /><br /><i>"[China] had fewer compass points to watch for external attack, but more importantly, for external support of an internal schism."</i><br />Bear in mind that about half of China's current territory became China as a result of conquest by its northern neighbors ("Inner" Mongolia and Manchuria).<br /><br />But I'm not making Turchin's argument; haven't read it yet. <br /><br />donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9032413931852654802016-08-22T20:23:59.665-07:002016-08-22T20:23:59.665-07:00@donzelion: Regarding patronage, I see it as a bra...@donzelion: Regarding patronage, I see it as a brain drain. Come serve me as a boffin! Achieve social honor in service to me! Sing my praises in your book dedications and I will include you in the Great Chain of Being as a link close to me!<br /><br />Pfft.<br /><br /><i>The relevance today, as I see it, is that if we fail in the enterprise of our Enlightenment forebears, we revert to an oligarchy that will once again stifle innovation (or at least, revert to monumental buildings named after oligarchs as the measure of achievement) - just as the patronage system stifled it in Europe, China, the Middle East, and pretty much everywhere else. Which is why I find this debate fascinating.</i><br /><br />Some would argue (McCloskey essentially does) that the Intelligencia committed treason beginning in 1848 when they started arguing for socialism in hard or soft forms. The smartest and educated among us became less than enamored with the Enlightenment Project after the failed revolutions of 1848-49. Did Marx honor market innovators? Did he recognize the unintended benefit the proletariat received? What of the Marxians after him? McCloskey refers to the educated clade within the bourgeoisie as the Clerisy and argues that many of them turned against Liberalism arguing instead for a designed approach as the only ethical path of progress…. with them as Designers of course.<br /><br />Pfft.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91392845426514901962016-08-22T20:14:07.024-07:002016-08-22T20:14:07.024-07:00@Duncan: Europe is not a monolith - with mountains...@Duncan: <i>Europe is not a monolith - with mountains, broad fast running rivers, and seas Europe is almost impossible to operate as a single unit without modern technology</i><br /><br />I’m not buying it. The northern plains of Europe (Paris to Moscow) are damn near impossible to defend in any era. Any well motivated feudal lord should have been able to move up rivers that drain into the North Sea like the Rhine and many others and consolidate power blocs that equate to trading blocs. Look at old maps of Germany and you’ll see it didn’t work that way until powerful emperors swept away petty princes. Look to the behaviors of Russians and you’ll know a people who are used to getting invaded across those plains AND from what is modern Ukraine AND from central Asia. About the only direction they didn’t get attacked recently was from the north because maybe it is so cold in that direction. However, the Rus are a Nordic people, so maybe the compass for attacks is complete.<br /><br />There ARE mountains are unwise to cross with attacking armies, but they protect a nation’s flanks at best. However, European history is awash in the blood of invaders and defenders who simply went around. Attacking Balkan tribes is folly, but they did that too. Only some of Europe is hard to take and hold, though. The fact that unity did not occur along the northern plains is an oddity historians have to explain. The fact that the Chinese DID manage it also requires explanation. I suspect it is related to how China is almost a geographic island due to the way the mountains on its borders are arranged. They had fewer compass points to watch for external attack, but more importantly, for external support of an internal schism.<br /><br />The problem that I see with (my admittedly weak understanding of) Turchin’s argument here is that even competition in the form of war failed to propel Europe to richness. Cooperation within unified nations did too. Everything did until they did the oddest thing ever to happen on the planet with no intention of helping the poor… yet they did.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21972379683551065122016-08-22T19:52:55.404-07:002016-08-22T19:52:55.404-07:00@donzelion: Regarding Muslim cultures, McCloskey m...@donzelion: Regarding Muslim cultures, McCloskey makes your point about the role of traders, but then goes on to point out that the traders weren’t actually honored in the way the Dutch and English eventually did. The hegemony of Muslim nations/tribes depended upon trade and they treated traders far better than most, but it is the innovators who make the difference. Innovators are the ones who destroy existing power and trade structures. In today’s language, they destroy jobs and might make up for it… maybe… with other jobs or lower prices. Muslims get high marks as far as I’m concerned, but McCloskey argues they had to honor the creative destroyers too, which they didn’t enough to matter.<br /><br />One way to think of the Renaissance is as an opening of a part of Europe to foreign ideas. However, the Venetians didn’t exactly honor innovators either. The honored profit taking, but went for a guild structure turning merchants into princes in any practical sense. Renaissance innovation wound up serving the aristocracy and you can see this in how it failed to serve peasants, not that anyone intends to serve peasants. Traders got richer and ideas flowed in, but real incomes for the average people didn’t budge much. That’s what happens when innovation serves aristocracy.<br /><br />The way I’ve been taught to think of it goes like this. Traditionalism serves existing power structures, whether they be princes, priests, or merchant guilds. Innovation upsets their apple carts and serves who exactly? In the thick of it, power brokers would argue innovation serves ONLY the person trying to upset the cart. Why would they think an innovator was anything other than an upstart or usurper? Only in hindsight do we see that innovators unintentionally serve the poorest as well as themselves. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand works through them much like any other trader, but magnified.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25680498273531367022016-08-22T19:38:30.889-07:002016-08-22T19:38:30.889-07:00Re Hoon and Wikipedia. The Rousit were to be next,...Re Hoon and Wikipedia. The Rousit were to be next, but I need help. I don't know how to create a new Wikipedia listing using my very old and un upgradable 7 laptop.William Taylornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27089115836443290812016-08-22T18:12:59.772-07:002016-08-22T18:12:59.772-07:00@Duncan - you are now selling me on Turchin's ...@Duncan - you are now selling me on Turchin's book, which is now added to my list. Especially since I'd started to add portions on rivers & geography to my overlong commentary (on why Europe never centralized the way China did) and then removed them (because I was waxing verbose), but instinctively, that is a critical difference.<br /><br />Still, I think 'patronage' is the key. In Europe, China, and the Middle East, a smart person with a scientific inclination looked for a patron to support their efforts. In Europe, alternatives evolved that were far more effective in sustaining those efforts, and which, once in place, pragmatic exploitation of those developments became increasingly common.<br /><br />The relevance today, as I see it, is that if we fail in the enterprise of our Enlightenment forebears, we revert to an oligarchy that will once again stifle innovation (or at least, revert to monumental buildings named after oligarchs as the measure of achievement) - just as the patronage system stifled it in Europe, China, the Middle East, and pretty much everywhere else. Which is why I find this debate fascinating.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40695669782578468982016-08-22T18:06:30.503-07:002016-08-22T18:06:30.503-07:00@Jumper re Baghdad - very much the model of Muslim...@Jumper re Baghdad - very much the model of Muslim innovation that I was referring to, and it is proper to bear it in mind. The idea wasn't so much that learning produced miracles (though where that idea crept up, religious authorities quickly arose to challenge the learned), so much as that knowledge and innovation were good things in and of themselves.<br /><br />@Alfred - <i>"one needs a continual flow of such advancements [astrolabes, mathemtical advancements, etc.] to match what NW Europeans did starting in the 17th century for the Dutch and the 18th century for the English."</i><br /><br />I would start what Europeans did in the 15th and 16th centuries - the NW Europeans (and I'd surely include the French in that mix) sat on the sidelines while the Spanish & the Ottomans bankrupted themselves fighting over the Mediterranean (which is also why Italy became more of a backwater as competing factions vied for primacy in the region). The Spanish squandered mountains of silver, the Ottomans the vast wealth of the Silk Road, and both deadlocked in the Med, while the periphery grew dominant - especially because they lacked the physical gold of their rivals, and had to make due with alternatives (which were much harder for feudal lords to dominate and hoard, passing out largesse to their preferred sycophants).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72499855047117593262016-08-22T17:52:26.916-07:002016-08-22T17:52:26.916-07:00Hi Alfred
to accept the fact that they were ahead...Hi Alfred<br /> to accept the fact that they were ahead of Europe in many ways for many centuries up until they weren't<br /><br />Yes - they were ahead in many ways <br />But if you read Turchin there are two aspects <br />Cooperation and Competition<br />The Chinese did NOT have the Competition<br />China is a single country with inland waterways (rivers) for transportation and the mountains around the borders<br />This gave a massive killing advantage to a centralized authority - which means that there was no advantage in competing - or rather they competed in different ways<br /><br />Europe is not a monolith - with mountains, broad fast running rivers, and seas Europe is almost impossible to operate as a single unit without modern technology<br /><br />Jumper<br />The summary of that books says exactly what I said - improvement is a continual thing NOT a sudden surge<br />I am fighting with my base Scotsman over actually buying the book $16 for an e-book!<br /><br />Dr Brin<br />I really would like you to read Turchin's book - <br />You are perfectly correct about the role of the aristocracy and royalty but the details he has about the actual timelines are a bit of an eye opener <br />duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2482724591619642592016-08-22T17:50:41.059-07:002016-08-22T17:50:41.059-07:00@AF Rey - "As I recall, the first Emperor of ...@AF Rey - <i>"As I recall, the first Emperor of China had all the scholarly books burnt when he gained control, along with anyone who objected to the burning. This alone would hobble innovation for quite a while."</i><br /><br />This is likely a myth, initially created by the Han dynasty to critique the excesses of the Qin dynasty which they replaced - and then embraced by Confucians themselves to critique many dynasties in China. But most Chinese dynasties, once entrenched, restored a 'patronage' system (whereby geniuses and innovators were rewarded as an employee of a prince, to the extent a prince wanted to reward them). Folks seeking the sorts of jobs that went to 'court philosophers' in other countries were required to master Confucian writings with perfect calligraphy, but any additions to the canon were incidental to their day jobs.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47231115450558867162016-08-22T17:45:27.976-07:002016-08-22T17:45:27.976-07:00Interesting debate between Duncan v. Alfred. I th...Interesting debate between Duncan v. Alfred. I think I see myself as a fence-sitter here as well: the tools cannot be separated from the ideas, and the one did not generate the other, so much as they co-evolved.<br /><br />Alfred - <i>"There is decent evidence that many thought [trade] was barely tolerable in the ethical sense."</i><br />A quibble there - in Muslim cultures, trade was among the highest social functions (the Prophet himself was a trader). As was science. China and the Middle East never stopped producing ideas, so much as the rate of production in Europe increased remarkably just before the Renaissance; that production created tools that were used in the industrial era.<br /><br /><i>"Innovators have been rewarded by their princes for millennia"</i><br />This is quite accurate, but how were innovators rewarded, and which innovations resulted in rewards? <br /><br />Patronage was usually the key driver of innovation (and one imagines princes who lacked a 'court genius' cynically disdaining the whole affair). Yet this is a slow process, as it typically means that only the largest powerbrokers in a feudal system have extra resources to patronize their 'court jesters, dancers, and philosophers.' With each philosopher fighting for a seat at the table (singing for their supper), what would they gain training new philosophers who might surpass them? One might build on the work of someone else, and even write a new book 'adding' to someone else's work, BUT doing so was about defending one's prestige rather than advancing science itself.<br /><br />In pre-Renaissance Europe, just after the Black Death, a relatively weak feudal state emerged in many corners of the continent, esp. Italy. Scholars could find jobs to feed themselves by selling ideas to many different powerbrokers, who each lacked the means to support a crop of experts (the church already took so much...). Simple necessity at work, plus, later on, the printing press making it feasible for many to play this gambit. However, selling secrets to multiple lords meant that scholars could learn your secrets, and contest them - creating the basis for competitive science. <br /><br />The great distinction between Europe and other regions (esp. China and the Middle East) is that no imperial authority united the continent to restore the stultifying patronage system through an entrenched feudal order. Indeed, those corners of Europe that did nominally 'unite' became backwaters of innovation (who controlled printing presses in Hapsburg territory?). donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83158733119709509262016-08-22T17:01:08.392-07:002016-08-22T17:01:08.392-07:00The advance was the awareness of the field of desi...The advance was the awareness of the field of design itself.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44702106429670212392016-08-22T16:22:49.327-07:002016-08-22T16:22:49.327-07:00@Jumper: It is easy for people to talk only about ...@Jumper: It is easy for people to talk only about the parts they know, right? When I used to teach astronomy in college, the texts would skip from Greek material in one chapter straight to Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo in the next. I would always purposely diverge and spend some time with various Arab and Persian contributions in between. Look at images of various astrolabes and you’ll find something neat about the ones used by Arab sailors. Some of them had an alternate coordinate system on them that we would call ecliptic coordinates. One only needs these markings if one takes a multi-century view of instrument making and one wants to account for the precession of the Earth. That is an innovation that took hold among their traders and indirectly enriched them, but one needs a continual flow of such advancements to match what NW Europeans did starting in the 17th century for the Dutch and the 18th century for the English.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82486968954560286912016-08-22T16:11:14.095-07:002016-08-22T16:11:14.095-07:00@A.F. Rey: Indeed. I seem to recall a later rule b...@A.F. Rey: Indeed. I seem to recall a later rule barring the printing of the character that represented the Emperor. Execution awaited those who failed to remember.<br /><br />One need not defend China's history in detail, though, to accept the fact that they were ahead of Europe in many ways for many centuries up until they weren't. That cross-over period is very recent and has a lot to do with whatever odd thing happened in NW Europe.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9415840565412664402016-08-22T15:51:01.807-07:002016-08-22T15:51:01.807-07:00Seems like everyone is forgetting the advances whi...Seems like everyone is forgetting the advances which came from Baghdad, and which, even though it was smashed by the Mongols, its innovations, and the idea that learning produced essentially miracles, took root all over the region, especially Egypt. Not to mention the precursor, the enriching immediately prior to that of Indian math reaching Persian civilization.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82894609996768004512016-08-22T13:47:17.526-07:002016-08-22T13:47:17.526-07:00[quote] For example, China’s (essentially) free-tr...[quote] For example, China’s (essentially) free-trade zone was about the size of Europe and lasted for centuries, thus tariff-free trade was enabled. The Chinese did NOT innovate at the frenzied pace Europe did centuries later, though. If anything, innovation slowed down once China unified. A lot of their most interesting innovations came early… when they were uniting. That suggests coerced unity encourages cooperation, but discourages innovation.[/quote]<br /><br />That may have more to do with the particular coercer than with anything inherent in coerced unity.<br /><br />As I recall, the first Emperor of China had all the scholarly books burnt when he gained control, along with anyone who objected to the burning. This alone would hobble innovation for quite a while.A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-30517417725669258342016-08-22T12:20:18.855-07:002016-08-22T12:20:18.855-07:00@Duncan: And they were NOT considered as zero sum!...@Duncan: <i>And they were NOT considered as zero sum!</i><br /><br />What evidence do you have for that?<br /><br />Obviously trade is ancient. In hindsight we know it wasn’t zero-sum because the people who did it were able to support larger populations and there is plenty of evidence that human population grew from a ‘several’ million at the end of the last glaciation to at least half a billion before industrialization. Our toolkit for agriculture enabled that and every one of those tools is an innovation of some sort.<br /><br />What isn’t obvious is that people thought trade was positive sum. There is decent evidence that many thought it was barely tolerable in the ethical sense. Aristotle said as much. Prudence was the most profane on his list of virtues.<br /><br /><i>Innovators have been rewarded by their princes for millennia</i><br /><br />No. They were not unless the innovation was related to the prince’s need to display courage on the battlefield. In those cases, the innovators weren’t traders. They were boffins.<br /><br />I’m aware of Peter Turchin’s argument and think there is some merit to it, but I haven’t read it in detail. However, getting us all to be cooperators doesn’t necessarily make us accepting of innovation. For example, China’s (essentially) free-trade zone was about the size of Europe and lasted for centuries, thus tariff-free trade was enabled. The Chinese did NOT innovate at the frenzied pace Europe did centuries later, though. If anything, innovation slowed down once China unified. A lot of their most interesting innovations came early… when they were uniting. That suggests coerced unity encourages cooperation, but discourages innovation.<br /><br /><i>We have this idea that societies used to bumble along - with people doing what their fathers and grandfathers did. That is simply wrong - changes kept coming <br />But during the 1600's and 1700's the human toolbox had grown to the extent that positive feedback opened a LOT of new opportunities (and new tools)</i><br /><br />There are two problems with this. If the changes keep coming, they also kept fading. They were often suppressed from above and below. Many thought it was practically sinful to try because it was equivalent to trying to hurt others. Look at how people of the time described merchants to see this.<br /><br />The other issue is that the toolkit was larger in China in 1600 and maybe even 1700. Why no burst of enrichment there? NW Europe did something the Chinese did NOT do.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66383680214565594582016-08-22T08:13:35.313-07:002016-08-22T08:13:35.313-07:00Dr. Brin, I thought you'd be amused someone ha...Dr. Brin, I thought you'd be amused <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/space-flight/nasa-funds-partnership-to-explore-making-space-habitats-out-of-used-rocket-fuel-tanks" rel="nofollow">someone has been reading your science fiction short stories</a> and proposes using second-stage rockets to slowly expand the ISS, or possibly even build new space stations. I'm sure you can see the advantages and even some drawbacks in doing this... and while this might not be the huge tanks that the Space Shuttle used to get into orbit, it does have merit.<br /><br />Though I suppose if this works, it might even result in more large tanks being built, just to send them into orbit to build larger and more complicated stations. :)<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14833892174769382422016-08-22T07:00:58.945-07:002016-08-22T07:00:58.945-07:00Humans used to bumble along. There were many kings...Humans used to bumble along. There were many kings for 6000 years. And enecdotes notwithstanding... the lords and priests mostly got in the woy of progress and suppressed it.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1626929958755001232016-08-22T04:20:56.271-07:002016-08-22T04:20:56.271-07:00Zealotry. Try this instead:
https://www.amazon.com...Zealotry. Try this instead:<br />https://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Forge-Waterwheel-Technology-Invention/dp/0060925817Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.com