10,000 years ago we were cavemen who lived off the land. We only had what was accesible in nature. Now we have cars, iPhones, and computers. I’m assuming everything we have now is composed of the same matter cavemen had access to. How did we get all this stuff?

Question

Apologies if this is a repost.

I just don’t get how the Earth went from being entirely nature to having the iPhone I’m typing this on. And like where did we get the internet? And how do we take pictures?

ETA: A lot of great answers but I’m not really asking about people. More about the stuff. When I picture the Earth 10,000 years ago I don’t see anything that could make my phone.

In: 0

Answer 1

Understanding multiplied by fossil fuels…

For most of time, humans were limited by the economics of hunting and gathering. Right around 10,000 y.a… humanity figured out how to gain a surplus (agriculture) which allowed specialization…

We were bottlenecked, then, by fuel, namely, wood (also fat / grease / blubber).

Once we figured out how to dry pit mines using pumps, we had access to a much more energy-dense fuel source: coal.

(first steam engines were for pumping water out of mines to allow access to otherwise flooded coal)…

After that, industrial revolution was just more of that… more understanding leads to more access to the universe, more access to the universe leads to more understanding… and so on.