Post-1750: dentistry.

Wikipedia's world population figures

It boggles the mind in many ways.

World population in 1750: 791,000,000
World population in 1900: 1,650,000,000
World population in 1950: 2,518,629,000
World population today: 6,706,993,000

The REAL smackdown:

During all that time most of the population has been in Asia. Long before 1750, all of Asia contained more people than the US does today. It took all of Europe until 1950 (apx.) to reach all of Asia's population in 1750.

But when you look at where the discoveries took place... the pre-1750 discoveries are mostly eastern, where the people were; but not a single one of the post-1750 discoveries are Asian. When it comes to discoveries per population, Britain in particular was overpulling its weight for a long time; so, too, the US as of recent.

What nature of the cultures drives this? And what if, through globalization, those natures are taught and shared just a little more?

wut abut rumors that ancient egyptions had camel dung batteries

.. or that Baghdad had organic batteries as well. If they did have these advances, what happened to them? Why were they "lost" for so long?

I agree with UT, it takes a certain personality type (on an individual level) and culture (on a larger level) to desire innovation and advancement. I don't know that these technologies were "lost" so much as they were willfully ignored. There is evidence that many Native American tribes understood the concept of the wheel, demonstrated mostly in children's toys. But there were (apparently) no attempts to develop this knowledge into something useful.

WOW. I am completely stunned that no one here realizes exactly how innovative and complex some ancient cultures were, even by our standards today. Jesus. Do you not understand how developed ancient Greece was? Or Rome? Egypt? Mesopotamia? Without those cultures, we would be nothing. They developed astonomy, mathematics, chemistry, indoor plumbing, irrigation, agriculture, writing, philosophy, logic, the arts, weapons, shit, the Chinese invented gun powder over a thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks practiced skilled medicine and surgery, and knew all about anatomy. If something drastic happened and we lost all our "advanced technology," we would be completely lost. I don't believe we could recreate ANY of the pyramids today to the mathematical and atronomical exactness that the ancients built them, if we had to do it without any of our advanced technology. We don't even know HOW they did it. So we have computers and cars and airplanes and Wall Street, big fucking deal.

*shakes head*

Now wait just a minute... I used to have to be annoyed by people locally, but now I can be annoyed by people hundreds of miles away. That's an advance right there, isn't it?

:D :p :p :p

and I'm not that far away... look out your window... wooooooo

Bullshit, they were just the rudimentary beginnings of all those sciences, stuff we teach grade school kids. They were far from developing the sciences we have even though they named them. Their biggest shortcoming is they only shared their knowledge with a few of their fellow noble class students, that's why when the libraries were lost the knowledge was lost, except the stuff people were using.

Today at least the basics are presented to any kid exposed to the school system, and much more for any kid that wants it. Do you think if something "drastic" happened you would forget your trade? Why would anyone else? Public education did more to advance this country than any particular science. Reading, writing, and arithmetic for everyone, made it possible for people to operate a business and to educate themselves in any field that interested them. You know, actually use those libraries.

Oh I don't think so. Especially today. Even some high school graduates don't know what Vietnam was, much less would they be able to understand Plato, or the mathematics involved in the architecture of the pyramids, or the strategic art of war that was developed by Sun Tzu. They probably couldn't even find Greece on a map. Please. It's embarrassing.

I'm not saying the developments we've made aren't important, or extreme, I'm saying, I don't think most of you are giving enough credit where credit is due. The ancient world allowed us to get where we are.

As far as the school system goes, I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but not anymore. We have one of the worst education systems in the free world, and even in the not-so-free world. I know someone who works in the school system here, and it's atrocious. We are like 35th and 29th in math and science in the world. We are behind some developing nations. And english? Forget about it. Have you heard the way kids speak today? And many libraries have lost a lot of their funding. Personally, I think human beings are devolving. Not everyone, but it certainly seems to me that the average person is much denser today than they were 20 years ago. Seriously. They aren't even interested in learning anything important or expanding their knowledge or intelligence. Maybe I'm just jaded, or maybe it's where I live (people out west certainly didn't fit that description), but I'm not kidding.

Looking at a delightful confection, a light sponge cake with frosting and candles, ask yourself which was most important, the flour, the eggs or the sugar?

Duh - the candles :p

The invention of the zero along with the Arabic number system. FTW.


"I've invented the zero!"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing."

-- from Why Man Creates

And what exactly did those batteries supply power to?

Unless the ancients understood electricity - a phenomenon that escaped every genuis during the Rennaissance, then its a safe bet that the relics errantly classified as batteries were not unlike the Peruvian "landing strips" for space ships capable of intergalactic travel but unable to master the nuances of verticle landing and takeoff.

This might be a good time to review Jinx' sig line.

Sigh. The botched landings resulted in the crop circles. Do we have to explain everything?