Every invention or discovery sped up our development. We wasted hundreds of thousands of years chasing prey and foraging for food with little to no time or energy to spare for anything else. Agriculture gave us excess time and energy to pursue other things than bare survival. Writing allowed us to better record and share ideas and knowledge. Mathematics allowed us to better understand the world. Fertilizer allowed us to boost our food production and population, which meant more brains to figure things out. Computers allowed us to almost instantly solve problems that would have taken centuries to do by hand, further speeding up our technological development. All of it has been exponential so far.
The hunter-gatherer cultures we see today actually seem to have a lot of free time. Seems like technological and cultural progress has different mechanics.
I’d say agriculture’s influence is that it’s a big incentive for people to stay in one place and develop relative dense communities, that density is what is actually speeding up progress.
Every invention or discovery sped up our development. We wasted hundreds of thousands of years chasing prey and foraging for food with little to no time or energy to spare for anything else. Agriculture gave us excess time and energy to pursue other things than bare survival. Writing allowed us to better record and share ideas and knowledge. Mathematics allowed us to better understand the world. Fertilizer allowed us to boost our food production and population, which meant more brains to figure things out. Computers allowed us to almost instantly solve problems that would have taken centuries to do by hand, further speeding up our technological development. All of it has been exponential so far.
The hunter-gatherer cultures we see today actually seem to have a lot of free time. Seems like technological and cultural progress has different mechanics.
I’d say agriculture’s influence is that it’s a big incentive for people to stay in one place and develop relative dense communities, that density is what is actually speeding up progress.
Now if only our technology can speed up the biggest scientific problems of our day without politics getting in the way of progress.
Oh we’re speeding up the problems alright
Nooooo! Not like this :´(