600 years ago, if you told someone - anyone - one day people could fly, set foot on the moon, talk with a friend on the other side of the planet by use of a little box, and have the power to instantaneously destroy the whole planet…they would laugh so hard on your face their guts might burst through. And who could blame them?
Afterall, to them a reliable means of transportation - an efficient one - consisted of a horse or a chariot, or a boat. Navigating in the seas was the ultimate challenge. Half the world was still waiting to be discoverd - the Americas were still unknown to the Europeans. Heck, they only had a ‘suspicion’ that maybe there is another continent westwards. But it was just a fable.
The average lifespan was much shorter.Most people still didnt even know how to write a simple sentence, lest be educated on things like health or fitness.
It’s AMAZING how MUCH and how FAST we’ve accomplished all we did. We’ve been around, as a species, for millions of years - yet in the last couple centuries we’ve made unbelievable progress. Scientists now believe by 2070 - and that’s a very conservative estimate to them - we’ll be able to extend our lifespan MUCH longer…they say soon we’ll be able to, if we wanted it, extend our lifespan indefinitely, or at least for great lengths of time. All because of the progress that was made in these last few centuries.
Stephen Hawkings, a very well-known Physicist, is of the firm belief that all misteries of Physics will be known before the end of this next century. Scientists believe eventually travel NEAR speed of light will become a reality - or at leat we’ll have the capability to do it.
Well, for the next century alone, it seems we have quite a few accomplishments planned out.
What precipitated all this unbelievable development in the last few centuries? Was it the competition in the seas - when Portugal, Spain, France, England were competing to for colonies and spice markets? Maybe culture? Afterall Greece and Italy did go through an era that valued a very rich culture that included all arts and sciences - I dont believe we’d have otherwise seen Michael Angelo or Leonardo Dicaprio’s accopmlishments.
It seems that competition between civilizations was the main motivator here. Civilizations were going extinct because another had devloped far superior weapons, means of transportation, soldiers. This would lead other civilizations to compete for the very best technology around, in order to ensure their existence. Remember the Incas, and other similar civilizations that went extinct?
However, we didnt all of a sudden get more competitive in the last millenium, and we certainly didnt get any smarter in the last millenium.
Maybe a certain number of factoirs were present at exactly the right time and precipitated all this. But it just seems hard to believe that if someone can notice that steam can produce power, thus leading to invention of trains and powered machinery, that NO ONE ELSE would reach the same conclusion in the very lengthy existence we’ve had. Ancient civilizations are known to have been very cultural. At the very least, the Egiptians could have reached a similar conclusion since they were so cultural.
I dont know, it just boggles me.
