What's the lowest level of technology you would be happy to live with?
- Thread starter Brainaddict
- Start date
Electricity only arrived at my home when I was nine years old, and it was only when I was fifteen, and went to work, that a television first made its appearance in my family. I remember clockwork as being vital.
fudgefactorfive
New Member
Crispy said:
Until they get the Windows Blue Screen of Death appearing in their tiny minds and reduce the entire planet to a featureless grey billiard ball.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Techno303 said:
Sultan's Elephant stylee - I loved all the levers and stuff you could see the assistants pulling, and on the lilttle girl's scooter and stuff...trés cool...
But that's the point - at the moment we're still mired in this modernist 'form follows function' business...let's get form back to decorative mebbe...
brahaminda
...of the Mind
Dubversion said:
Isn't that Klingon?
dilute micro
esse quam videri
Seriously, I can do without almost everything. I've come to hate people's dependence on technology.
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
That, and music, is why I picked present technology levels. I could easily live pre-Ford otherwise.onemonkey said:
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
They may have looked 80, but they were probably 40.moon said:
lol
This is a poem writen by Thomas Tusser in around 1500 which talks of the ages of man from age 1 to 84
Man's age divided here ye have,
By 'prenticeships, from birth to grave.
7. The first seven years bring up as a child:
14. The next, to learning, for waxing too wild.
21. The next, keep under Sir Hobbard de Hoy:
28. The next, a man, no longer a boy.
35. The next, let Lusty lay wisely to wive:
42. The next, lay now, or else never, to thrive.
49. The next, make sure, for term of thy life:
56. The next, save somewhat for children and wife.
63. The next, be stayed; give over thy lust:
70. The next, think hourly whither thou must.
77. The next, get chair and crutches to stay;
84. The next, to heaven God send us the way.
Who loseth their youth, shall rue it in age:
Who hateth the truth, in sorrow shall rage.
it proves that at that time at least people lived till 84!
This is a poem writen by Thomas Tusser in around 1500 which talks of the ages of man from age 1 to 84
Man's age divided here ye have,
By 'prenticeships, from birth to grave.
7. The first seven years bring up as a child:
14. The next, to learning, for waxing too wild.
21. The next, keep under Sir Hobbard de Hoy:
28. The next, a man, no longer a boy.
35. The next, let Lusty lay wisely to wive:
42. The next, lay now, or else never, to thrive.
49. The next, make sure, for term of thy life:
56. The next, save somewhat for children and wife.
63. The next, be stayed; give over thy lust:
70. The next, think hourly whither thou must.
77. The next, get chair and crutches to stay;
84. The next, to heaven God send us the way.
Who loseth their youth, shall rue it in age:
Who hateth the truth, in sorrow shall rage.
it proves that at that time at least people lived till 84!
brahaminda
...of the Mind
moon said:
What happens is the figures get skewed by the huge number of infant deaths, pushing the average age down to 35-40.
Stigmata
sexual tyrannosaurus
brahaminda said:
Took the words out of my mouth there. Plus I don't think any number of herbal remedies can compensate for the lack of antibiotics and vaccination. You always get some who live a long time- I think Theodore of Tarsus survived into his 90s- but they're the exception, and they are always in a better position to survive than the peasant masses.
fudgefactorfive
New Member
Surely antibiotics are not dependent on most other technologies. If we'd stayed at base agriculture level for another few tens of thousands of years - far enough advanced to invent bread - we might well have discovered penicillin anyway.
brahaminda
...of the Mind
fudgefactorfive said:
Not without centrifuges, microscopes, petri dishes etc...
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
moon said:
You got stats or a study to back that up?
There might have been no heart disease but there sure as shit was stuff like leprosy, smallpox, dyptheria, typhoid, cholera and a whole host of other fun and exciting ways to get sick...
fudgefactorfive
New Member
brahaminda said:
Centrifuges and petri dishes, or equivalents, aren't outside the realms of primitive technology, surely. I agree that microscopes are a bit of a leap.
And now we have antibiotic-resistant superbugs. MRSA isn't exactly a barrel of laughs.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
How would you make a 10,000 RPM centrifuge out of basic materials then fudge?
brahaminda
...of the Mind
fudgefactorfive said:
No but the underlying assumptions of how they work ie gravity, microbiology etc are highly complex, and themselves rely on high technology.
The leap from mouldy bread to amoxicillin is quite big one in terms of world views, let alone technology
fudgefactorfive
New Member
brahaminda said:
OK - work with me here because I'm ignorant on the topic - but while they are reliant on high technology in our world, is it at least possible (no matter how unlikely) that we could have had some form of apparently "primitive" but actually quite sophisticated society with a good understanding of biology, without absolutely all of the other lines of technology developing in the same way? We "understood" gravity before we had steam engines, no? (Yes, I'm aware we still don't really "understand" gravity.)
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
In theory I suppose you could have a technologically simple society that was philosophically advanced enough to recognise the idea of empiricism etc and that wasn't wedded to mystical thinking.
Can't see how tho - the mindset that allows us to understand (or at least identify) gravity is one that comes along with technology and the desire to see how things work rather than just accepting that it happens.
Can't see how tho - the mindset that allows us to understand (or at least identify) gravity is one that comes along with technology and the desire to see how things work rather than just accepting that it happens.
brahaminda
...of the Mind
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Ever see that film: "The Village"? What I'd give to live like that. Of course, it was totally flawed as they didn't have the resources to supply the materials they had and worked with, but something on those lines would be idyllic.
I spent the greater part of my life chasing technology in the hope to propser and be happier. It is only now that I realize that the way forward is many steps backward.
I spent the greater part of my life chasing technology in the hope to propser and be happier. It is only now that I realize that the way forward is many steps backward.
dilute micro
esse quam videri
This is stupid. I'm the only one that picked late medieval/renaissance?
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