07-16-2009, 01:59 AM
Thudz Wrote:We have mapped the human genome, we are on the verge of creating human life from the most basic of human materials. We have the ability to replicate the environment only before known to our own sun here on Earth and harness it. We are unlocking more secrets of quantum physics everyday like being able to teleport subatomic particals from one point to another instaneously. We have broke the Petaflop barrier. Just in my lifetime we have seen our technology advance more then in the past one hundred lifetimes combined. It can't continue to advance at this rate without our own tools doing more and more of the work. Eventually it will not be us making these advancements at all but our tools making them on their own.
Pluck a 6 month old child from 3000 BC and he can be tought to do all of the things humans do today. Better tools and learning how things work around us doesn't equate to humans changing.
I would dispute that humans have advanced in your lifetime more then the 100 generations before you. That is a misnomer. Making a machine that is 100 times better then 25 years ago doesn't equate to a 100 times greater advancement. That is your computer self talking.
The basic principles that lead to the advancements in this century go back before the 20th century. The greatest advancements in human history came between the 15th and 19th century. We live in an age where we can finally apply the things that were done pre 20th century but their are very few non medical advancements in the last 50 years that could be considered true advancements. Refined yes. true advancements, very few.
Let me name a few
*Issac Newton and Leibniz- with out calculas you can forget going to moon let alone the world of physics.
*Tesla- The godfather of electricity.
*Internal Combustion Engine- Same damn engine in todays car's that were in use in 1830. Different fuel, same engine. Da Vinci actually worked this out in 1509.
*Tsiolkovsky and Von Braun- They knew how to go to the moon by 1932. If not for WWII man might have stepped on the moon by the mid 1940's.
*Edison, Loomis and Orsted- They had radio and television down before the 20th century. This allowed people like Randolf Hearst to have cable radio by 1915. He could listen to any of his radio stations across the country via cable with the touch of a button.
*Telephone- Another 19th century idea. See Edison above.
*Analog computers have been around since the 1920's. Punch card computers long before that.
*Flight- Principles of Aerodynamics have changed very little since the 1920's.
*Physics- Most of the biggest break throughs came before 1950.
*Splitting the atom- We succeeded in 1945. We knew we could do it by 1920.
My point is math, the engine, the phone, television, radio, electricity, computers, flight, rocket science, atomic power and principles of industry dwarf the advancements that have happened in the last 50 years. We have refined them, made them smaller, made them more complicated but we haven't really changed them. We have made some medical advancements but that is pretty much it.
If you can name 100 more advancements that are more important then the ones I listed above that came about during your lifetime then I will buy into your theory.
Vllad