Game changing technologies.

[The_Reaper]

As the title suggests, what technologies do you think led to the biggest shifts in history?

Obviously there are some ancient options, such as fire, the wheel, crop cultivation, domestating animals and the like, but I'm thinking more over the past 1000 or so years where the pace of change increased.

Personal 'favorites' would be things like:

The crossbow, which marked the demise of knights as the dominant military force and as a result let to the decline in relative importance/power of the aristocracy in Europe. (yes, longbow moreso perhaps, but crossbow was more widespread).

Steam power. Led to the industrial revolution, and the world hasn't been the same since.

Thoughts, additions?

Wouldn't the decline of the importance/power of the aristocracy in Europe be closer linked to economic development than the crossbow?

 

[Power Raid]

a serious one and one that has liberated women: the pill

 

[pokerspiv]

Not so sure about Oil actually.

I think the 'revolution' came about with coal/steam, with Oil 'merely' being a more efficient version (an evolution) of that.

Oil also gave us plastics, pretty hard to beat.

The development of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser was a pretty big one. World population would still be under 3 billion without it.

 

[little graham]

a serious one and one that has liberated women: the pill

It's ironic. pill is a poison that has effects on future pregnancies and future cancers. Yet it's seen as liberating. I guess all those religious prophecies, like the Greek one about Pandora, were very astute

 

[pokerspiv]

It's ironic. pill is a poison that has effects on future pregnancies and future cancers. Yet it's seen as liberating. I guess all those religious prophecies, like the Greek one about Pandora, were very astute

 

[The_Reaper]

It's ironic. pill is a poison that has effects on future pregnancies and future cancers. Yet it's seen as liberating. I guess all those religious prophecies, like the Greek one about Pandora, were very astute

On the other hand the pill is probably great in terms of getting sustainable population growth.

 

[little graham]

On the other hand the pill is probably great in terms of getting sustainable population growth.

Generally, the biggest population growths since the pill has been available, has been in western nations. Look it up. Unfortunately there is no such thing as sustainable population growth, even if the pill was achieving it, which it isn't. Not even abortion is addressing it.

Mcdonalds,krispy kremes, pizza hut, vaccinations, coca cola ect ect are doing more for combating over population than the pill or abortion. They can be classed as game changing, more than the pill.

This could be a really good conversation if doesn't get hijacked by fundamentalists.

 

[The Speaker]

Generally, the biggest population growths since the pill has been available, has been in western nations. Look it up. Unfortunately there is no such thing as sustainable population growth, even if the pill was achieving it, which it isn't. Not even abortion is addressing it.

Mcdonalds,krispy kremes, pizza hut, vaccinations, coca cola ect ect are doing more for combating over population than the pill or abortion. They can be classed as game changing, more than the pill.

This could be a really good conversation if doesn't get hijacked by fundamentalists.

Please don't bring vaccination conspiracies in here.

But the rest of your post in mostly correct. The wider effect of effective birth control, of which the pill is symbolically central, is potentially game changing, but there are plenty of reasons the west's population is, relatively speaking, at a crawl right now.

 

[little graham]

Please don't bring vaccination conspiracies in here.
.

They been sterilizing threw vaccinations for nearly a century., its a matter of public record.

North Carolina sterilized 7,600 people through its sweeping eugenic sterilization program, but it wasn’t alone. Thirty states had, and enforced, eugenic sterilization laws on the books, initially on the now-discredited theory that preventing the “defective” from reproducing would benefit humanity.

http://www.msnbc.com/all/eugenic-sterilization-victims-belated-justice

Lots of shit on this, including Australian indigenous sterilized without thier consent threw vaccinations.


http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/2.html

One of the various chemical and biological attacks on blacks in South Africa was threw vaccinations.

 

[The Speaker]

They been sterilizing threw vaccinations for nearly a century., its a matter of public record.


http://www.msnbc.com/all/eugenic-sterilization-victims-belated-justice

Lots of shit on this, including Australian indigenous sterilized without thier consent threw vaccinations.


http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/2.html

One of the various chemical and biological attacks on blacks in South Africa was threw vaccinations.

Sterilisation is not vaccination. The articles you've quoted have nothing to do with what you were suggesting.

 

[The Coup]

I am about to begin Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I presume it attempts to discuss this.

It does kind of. Great read either way though.

As far as biggest gamechangers, Penicillin would have to be right up there along with Wifi (both Australian inventions!) out of the ones that haven't been mentioned (you'd all done a pretty damn good job).

 

[Moo]

Gunpowder and all the derivatives that followed it, ultimately transformed warfare to the state that we know it as today.

Gunpowder is fascinating.

Mongols helped the spread of it, and it then played a part in their downfall (part not all)

 

[Moo]

I guess all those religious prophecies, like the Greek one about Pandora, were very astute

The pill and Pandora's box ......must control urge to derail thread

 

[The Coup]

Because religious prophecy and mythology fits perfectly in a thread about scientific technologies that advances the human race.

I'd love to hear more about this 5,000 year old event though.

 

[Admiral Byng]

The Haber process: Allowed for production of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen. Germany used this to great effect in WWI. Naval blockades prevented imports from traditional sources. A new source of ammonia provided fertilisers and explosives crucial to the war effort. The process is still used extensively today.

+1 for the Haber process.

Without which we would have run out of food (and explosives) decades ago, and Malthus would have been right. Prior to that the only source was guano (deposits of bird droppings built up over time), which is a very finite resource. Also interesting how the industries of fertiliser and explosives are so closely related, one doing enormous benefit to humankind, the other it's destruction.

 

[chargers 09]

+1 for the Haber process.

Without which we would have run out of food (and explosives) decades ago, and Malthus would have been right. Prior to that the only source was guano (deposits of bird droppings built up over time), which is a very finite resource. Also interesting how the industries of fertiliser and explosives are so closely related, one doing enormous benefit to humankind, the other it's destruction.

Is this similar to the Green Revolution?

 

[pokerspiv]

Is this similar to the Green Revolution?

Yes, the Haber process is what allows production of synthetic fertilisers. But the green revolution was also about the development of better strains of staple foods that could produce higher yields with lower inputs.

Norman Borlaug was the main driving force behind it and along with agro-technology companies like Monsanto helped to save upwards of 5 billion lives.

 

[The Coup]

Are we including things like metalwork?

Cause the move from Bronze to Iron was pretty staggering. I think the Assyrians were the first to do it?

 

[John]

Are we including things like metalwork?

Cause the move from Bronze to Iron was pretty staggering. I think the Assyrians were the first to do it?

A very slow transition by the fast pace of modern technological change but agree that it is worthy of inclusion.

 

[Mofra]

Mcdonalds,krispy kremes, pizza hut, vaccinations, coca cola ect ect are doing more for combating over population than the pill or abortion. They can be classed as game changing, more than the pill.

The biggest measure that equates to correlation (not implying causation) to lower birth rates is the level of female education within a society.
A lot of the good technologies have been mentioned, but I'll add GPS technology and the release of the mil-spec codes allowing accurate GPS technology to be used by ordinary citizens. Alternate fibrosis also a big one, making air travel much cheaper with the use of (e.g.) carbon-fibres in airframes.

Some big ones look set to arrive in the next few years:
- Stem cell technology incl. abilities to grow synthetic organs
- Synthetic blood
- Nano technology/micro-bots
- Printable solar technology (the grid is already in trouble in Australia)
- Graphene
- 3D printing and the shift in supply chain management
- Medical 3D printing

 

[Power Raid]

abstract concepts but massive social contributions:

- tax
- currency
- social welfare

 

[chargers 09]

The biggest measure that equates to correlation (not implying causation) to lower birth rates is the level of female education within a society.
A lot of the good technologies have been mentioned, but I'll add GPS technology and the release of the mil-spec codes allowing accurate GPS technology to be used by ordinary citizens. Alternate fibrosis also a big one, making air travel much cheaper with the use of (e.g.) carbon-fibres in airframes.

Some big ones look set to arrive in the next few years:
- Stem cell technology incl. abilities to grow synthetic organs
- Synthetic blood
- Nano technology/micro-bots
- Printable solar technology (the grid is already in trouble in Australia)
- Graphene
- 3D printing and the shift in supply chain management
- Medical 3D printing

Stem cells technology will be huge. Is everyone over the "moral" dilemma however?

 

[chargers 09]

The biggest measure that equates to correlation (not implying causation) to lower birth rates is the level of female education within a society.
A lot of the good technologies have been mentioned, but I'll add GPS technology and the release of the mil-spec codes allowing accurate GPS technology to be used by ordinary citizens. Alternate fibrosis also a big one, making air travel much cheaper with the use of (e.g.) carbon-fibres in airframes.

Some big ones look set to arrive in the next few years:
- Stem cell technology incl. abilities to grow synthetic organs
- Synthetic blood
- Nano technology/micro-bots
- Printable solar technology (the grid is already in trouble in Australia)
- Graphene
- 3D printing and the shift in supply chain management
- Medical 3D printing

Certainly some interesting discussion could be pursued with some of these new technologies.

 

[The Coup]

As as aside, how would a clean free energy source rank in comparison to anything on this list?

Say Tessla's cold power generator was real and widely available, would it dwarf every other technology in human history?

edit: I of course meant cold fusion. As much as I do love detergent, cold power was the wrong choice.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

Radar saved England in WW2 in the. Attle of Britain. Probably all speaking German on our European holidays if not for that.