Game changing technologies.

[iluvparis]

Just like in Civilization - get flight first = instant win!

 

[Handsuper47]

I don't know if there's a proper term for it but the transition of using fire to electricity.

 

[Power Raid]

the smart phone and associated apps has been a game changing technology.

the computer changed the way we do business but the smart phone has changed the way people communicate, socialise and live.

 

[little graham]

So of all those who have studied the military history of this continent, what would you say was the defining technology?

 

[Power Raid]

So of all those who have studied the military history of this continent, what would you say was the defining technology?

Monash's blitz Krieg

 

[little graham]

Monash's blitz Krieg

He taught Rommel well, didn't he? However he was just in the right place at right time doing the right thing.

 

[Theseventhhamster]

Just like in Civilization - get flight first = instant win!

Cavalry>>>>>>

 

[John]

The abilty to exploit fire.

 

[medusala]

Russians and the Americans saved Britain.

From what? Germany couldnt even launch Sea Lion and gave up.

Yeah I agree.
The airfields in the southeast were certainly under huge pressure, but that's only the forward airfields. Rendering those unusable was not a guaranteed ticket to air superiority over English soil.

Agreed. Poms had heaps of airfields and it was hardly unknown to use grass runways.

.........

Back on thread, no love for the discovery of longitude? (let alone Watts and other English scientists) Fascinating story behind it as well.

The abilty to exploit fire.

Greek fire - the lost technology! And maybe Archimedes mirror?

 

[little graham]

From what? Germany couldnt even launch Sea Lion and gave up.

That properganda went out before the flat earth theory.

 

[little graham]

The abilty to exploit fire.

For what?

Fire was used by the earths first peoples to combat the arctic conditions found in tasmania thousands of years ago..

 

[John]

For what?

See below for examples.

Fire was used by the earths first peoples to combat the arctic conditions found in tasmania thousands of years ago..

 

[medusala]

For what?

Fire was used by the earths first peoples to combat the arctic conditions found in tasmania thousands of years ago..

Slightly controversial is that not? Has it not always been commonly accepted that Tasmanian aborigines had a very limited ability to exploit fire?

The abilty to exploit fire.

IIRC there is an argument that fire and the cooking of red meat was a key element in human evolution. Cant remember the specifics though.

 

[little graham]

Has it not always been commonly accepted that Tasmanian aborigines had a very limited ability to exploit fire?

According to the British gov study done by Charles Darwin. A study designed to avoid the new anti slave laws. Laws aimed at economically crippling America, as she takes her first tentative steps as a nation, while inheriting the war against the Indians.

 

[medusala]

According to the British gov study done by Charles Darwin.

IIRC Jared Diamond, Tim Flannery and many others have expressed the same opinion.

 

[Ruck Machine]

The Biggest Game Changers IMO
Bow and Arrow
Agriculture
The Wheel
Gun Powder
Steam Engine
Internal Combustion Engine
Penicilin
Air Travel
Nuclear Power
Computers & Robotics

... The next big things (I hope)
Fusion
Artitificial Intellegence

... Wishful thinking
Teleportation
Mass Effect Tech.

 

[John]

Slightly controversial is that not? Has it not always been commonly accepted that Tasmanian aborigines had a very limited ability to exploit fire?

Been internet searching on this. Not a lot of info but what little I can find I suspect it is not that controversial anywhere on the planet that fire, once "tamed" was used for various purposes.... ......and with that leads to........

IIRC there is an argument that fire and the cooking of red meat was a key element in human evolution. Cant remember the specifics though.

I many many unread books but one that I thought of when you made this post was A Brief History of Science by Thomas Crump. I had a look and he devotes a couple of pages to fire and follows up with a page on ceramicist that he rates as a massive game changer in human history.

Fire was used not only for warmth but defence against predators. He quotes Darwin in that it's discovery may have been "possibly the greatest ever made by man, except language". With it man would have noticed new growth appear, relevant to our knowledge of this continent pre Europeans I would have thought. With it the knowledge that combustible material was vital to the ever present hearth back in the dawns of time so therefore primitive transport was required as the fire was kept alight at all time where able. He goes onto say that this need even lead to the invention of the match after the discovery of phosphorus in 1669. Prior to that charcoal should also be considered a major technological advance.

This leads to ceramics/pottery and Crump says and I quote "It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of pottery......." as it's first use was in cooking followed by storage. He says it was used for the cooking of grains by boiling as opposed to roasting. It's material is almost universal in supply. It one major weakness is it is easily breakable but cheap to replace generally. Archaeologists love it for that. Has allowed them to advance our knowledge of the past for all the obvious reasons such as dating etc.

That brings about human evolution and red meat. Why not I say. Once fire was tamed it seems the world was Homo Sapiens oyster so IMO evolution makes sense and with that advance in the abilty to eat both meat and grain lending to the technological revolution that was ceramics/pottery.

 

[medusala]

Been internet searching on this. Not a lot of info but what little I can find I suspect it is not that controversial anywhere on the planet that fire, once "tamed" was used for various purposes.... ......and with that leads to........ .

I don't disagree at all. Just that oddly enough in Tasmania it is possible/ probable that the aborigines only had access to fire via lightning.

I many many unread books but one that I thought of when you made this post was A Brief History of Science by Thomas Crump. I had a look and he devotes a couple of pages to fire and follows up with a page on ceramicist that he rates as a massive game changer in human history.

Have many unread books? Ha, I am a sucker for Euro history, struggle to walk past a bookshop without grabbing something and putting it on the unread pile.

Physiological changes too supposedly re fire / eating meat

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

 

[John]

Have many unread books? Ha, I am a sucker for Euro history, struggle to walk past a bookshop without grabbing something and putting it on the unread pile.

Physiological changes too supposedly re fire / eating meat

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

211 to read. I pathetically keep a record. I tend to have 1 to 3 on the go. Think I will carry on with the Crump book as it is impressive so far. An area I have not read much about. Love book shops and their slow demise is an utter tragedy.
Vast majority is euro history too though the "discovery" of China /Japan recently has been an eye opener. Tend to like English history as I lived there in my teens, massive admirer of Francis Pryor and have read a lot on the Civil War/3 Kingdoms plus the Stewart's. Euro history tends to be French and German with a like of The Reformation. 30 Year War is fascinating. Has a massive hold on the German psyche even to this day and that is little understood by others who only read on the WW's.

Good link. Well worth reading and very informative. You will always get a good discussion on History and the books/items that go with it from me. I am happy to read nearly all points of view. Heck I have read Velikovsky!

Interesting comment in that item. "Many tubers are poisonous unless cooked, so cooking opened up new food sources." This to my mind brings home fire as maybe the ultimate game changer in human history be it evolution and our abilty to make change via technology.

Another part reads "When cooking increased the supply of calories, females were able to grow to a larger size. At the same time, a decrease in the male-female size difference signalled a change in mating systems.
"Highly polygynous mating systems, such as the harem system of gorillas or the promiscuous mating of chimps, are typically associated with males being much larger than females," said Laden. "When male and female mammals are close in size, pair bonding is the rule. So this change about 1.9 million years ago is probably best explained as a change in mating practices." Again this leads to the use of fire. Again the ultimate game changer even in mating habits.

And further on ""We propose that cooking opens the door for theft, so among cooking hominids, there would have been cause to cooperate in new ways," said Laden. Females would have been vulnerable to theft by much larger males. This would have resulted in evolutionary pressure for females to form bonds with males, basing their choice on male willingness to cooperate in defending food stores rather than on male size. Laden and his colleagues believe this might have led to an important evolutionary novelty of humans: female sexual attractiveness."

 

[medusala]

211 to read. I pathetically keep a record. I tend to have 1 to 3 on the go. Think I will carry on with the Crump book as it is impressive so far. An area I have not read much about. Love book shops and their slow demise is an utter tragedy.
Vast majority is euro history too though the "discovery" of China /Japan recently has been an eye opener. Tend to like English history as I lived there in my teens, massive admirer of Francis Pryor and have read a lot on the Civil War/3 Kingdoms plus the Stewart's. Euro history tends to be French and German with a like of The Reformation. 30 Year War is fascinating. Has a massive hold on the German psyche even to this day and that is little understood by others who only read on the WW's.

211 is way ahead of me! I am a fraction of that - maybe 20ish at most.

re 30 years war, I think I will get the below this week.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christendom...istory-ebook/dp/B00IX6745W/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

 

[John]

211 is way ahead of me! I am a fraction of that - maybe 20ish at most.

re 30 years war, I think I will get the below this week.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christendom...istory-ebook/dp/B00IX6745W/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Should be good. Looks to cover the reformation through to the end of the Thirty Year War. If you get past this and want to read more on the 30 Year War Wedgwoods tome is supposed to be top of the shelve, (and sitting on my top shelf waiting to be read), but I do personally recommend Europe's tragedy by Wilson. A knowledge of the reformation is vital IMO prior to getting into the later tragedy.

I quote from Wilson.....""Public opinion surveys carried out in the 1960s revealed that Germans placed the Thirty Years War as their country's greatest disaster ahead of both world wars, the Holocaust and the Black Death."

Having read many books and viewed many docos on Germany and the devastating effects of WW2 this statement caught me off guard. Having taken the subject of Germany during the Reformation, 30 Year War and through to various modern conflicts it is now not a surprise. In fact I read that it took the advent of TV to finally be in every home in the mid 60's for the German public at large to understand that the devastation wrought on them in WW2 was probably worse than some may have comprehended. If the knowledge of the 30 year war was ingrained in the psyche centuries after, but it took modern communications to still make some realise the consequences of WW2, in my mind the devastation of the 30 year war is not to be underestimated. Worth your time delving into and way of thread topic. Sorry all.

 

[medusala]

I quote from Wilson.....""Public opinion surveys carried out in the 1960s revealed that Germans placed the Thirty Years War as their country's greatest disaster ahead of both world wars, the Holocaust and the Black Death."

Having read many books and viewed many docos on Germany and the devastating effects of WW2 this statement caught me off guard.

Often quoted that up to 1/3 of the German population perished. That is rather staggering.

 

[clogged]

Thirty Years war was a disaster for more than just Germany. The distrust the Czech people have for religion is traced back to that event (and Jan Hus). People forget just how evil Catholicism was.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

Thirty Years war was a disaster for more than just Germany. The distrust the Czech people have for religion is traced back to that event (and Jan Hus). People forget just how evil Catholicism was?.

 

[clogged]

.

They're less evil now, if only because they have little power.

Still evil though.