why didn’t humanity advance technologically for thousands of years when it comes to things like electricity and other electrical power devices like WIFI, but now humanity is advancing rather rapidly?

1.02K views

why didn’t humanity advance technologically for thousands of years when it comes to things like electricity and other electrical power devices like WIFI, but now humanity is advancing rather rapidly?

In: 23

25 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because we didn’t have the scientific method. Now that we have knowledge, it makes it easier to get more knowledge which makes it easier to get even more knowledge, and with knowledge we can make stuff. It’s basically like a snow ball. The bigger it gets the more snow it accumulates which in turn causes it to become even bigger.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The invention of mechanized methods of mass production in the late 18th and early 19th century created great wealth and a huge incentive to continue to innovate. Technological innovation has accelerated ever since.

Unfortunately it wasn’t all good. Industrialization has also created problems, including the present climate crisis.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I hope someone gives you a better answer than the one I’m about too….

There have been many factors working against a lot of technological advances over the last couple of thousand years, big ones being religion, war and lacking of organised education has been a big holdback also….

Long periods of relative peace and stability tend to allow people the time and ability to learn and study their environments and to work out ways to make life better, easier and new methods and equipment gets developed. The Greeks and Romans were great innovators in their time, yet they and their technology fell to violent invaders and lots was lost, sometimes due to religious people objecting to what the pre-scientists were doing and getting the civil authorities to burn them for witchcraft….

There were similar series of events in many other parts of the world that saw innovative people get the stuffing kicked out of them and their hard work and knowledge lost. Technology advances very slowly most of the time, then a discovery will be made that starts a chain reaction of often rapid advances before slowing again. The Bessemer process of the 1850’s allowed for the creation of steel in a cost effective manner, steels properties allowed for much stronger things, like boilers for steam engines, rails

For electrical devices, as your example, there are a huge number of knowledge and practical discoveries that needed to be made first, for the theory, metallurgical and design phases, each had many subcategories where knowledge needed to be gained first. Each element of an electric motor required someone to think up how to get the stuff it’s made from, and how to put it all together to make it work. For example, the same dudes that were casting the bronze for the weapons of the Ancient Greeks contributed to the theories that ended up powering a Tesla. As did the guys designing Roman plumbing in Rome….

Anonymous 0 Comments

The ability to produce excess stuff allowed more human resources to be focused on new technology and methods. This further increases productivity (since we started at a low level) and this frees up even more human resources to do new stuff.

Prior to the industrialization, most (say around 80-90%) of the world’s population had to work in agriculture (or very nearby occupations – transportation, etc) simply to feed societies. This kind of economic system is very sensitive to weather etc and things like hunger, disease and famine were not uncommon. Basically the vast majority of human effort went to provide the basics like food and shelter – education, science etc were restricted to a small elite.

The industrial revolution meant that transportation became much easier, things like cloth became easier to produce, labor moved from farms to cities. Cities are a great form of organization for human interaction and innovation.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nearly all technology is based upon an early step forward, without the initial step subsequent step can’t be made, but once the barriers are removed progress flows forward.

Anonymous 0 Comments

There was a show froma while back called “Connections” and “The Day The Universe Changed” – both hosted by the same guy (something Burke)… He chronicles the history of science and technological advancements – sometimes small and seemingly unimportant discoveries, but when these little advancements come together, everything changes – literally the whole world (err universe) changes.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Education is a huge factor.

For most of human exsitence only a tiny petcentage of people could read. During the last century that number has shot up.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is a huge question but one answer is that humans are now connected and live longer. Imagine a human born with a genius brain, who lived in the Middle Ages. Chances are they would have died illiterate and in their forties. All their thoughts and insight would have died with them. Now, such people can read, study, and share their brains with the whole world in an instant.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Exponential growth. Knowledge and technology lets us develop knowledge and technology faster.

It also allowed us to rapidly increase our population size due to improved economics and devote larger percentages of our population to technology.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s the advancement of information sharing. If you wanted to invent an electric toothbrush 10,000 years ago, first you had to discover electricity, then you had to invent the electric motor, then you had to invent a battery… not to mention the toothbrush. If you wanted to invent something similar today, you could build on what others have done and just taken the next step.

The biggest steps in human history start with the invention of written language. Before that, no human accomplishment could take more than one lifetime, because you couldn’t (accurately) pass down knowledge to the next generation.

The next big step was the invention of the printing press. This allowed written language to be available to the masses, and not just an elite few.

We are currently living in the next big leap in information sharing, and I’m hoping that historians similarly look back at this age as one of equal magnitude to the invention of the printing press and written language.