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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

(news.asu.edu)
273 points geox | 4 comments | 17 Jun 24 21:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kazinator ◴[18 Jun 24 02:09 UTC] No.40713419[source]▶
Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge around the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press.

The farther back we go, the more we have to use tongue-in-cheek definitions of "rapidly".

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gavindean90 ◴[18 Jun 24 02:33 UTC] No.40713533[source]▶
But like China had the printing press and gun powder and plenty of other things that went on to be repurposed in the Renaissance. I feel like the narrative of the modern technological exponential growth curve kicking off with the Renaissance is rather Eurocentric and misses that the left end of that graph is likely so shallow as to be hard to differentiate the “before” and the “after”.
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1. Roadeo ◴[18 Jun 24 06:10 UTC] No.40714542[source]▶
Slightly unrelated, but James Burke explains this really well in Connections[1] S01E03.

Basically he says one of the reasons China didn't experience the rapid growth Europe went through during the Renaissance was because Chinese society during those times had a strict hierarchy. You weren't allowed to rise through the ranks with your inventions or technologies, no matter how revolutionary they were. "No incentive, no change."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...

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2. edflsafoiewq ◴[18 Jun 24 07:17 UTC] No.40714961[source]▶
Was the Renaissance driven by concerns of social mobility? Galileo's telescope was not calculated to improve his rank in society.
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3. Chris2048 ◴[18 Jun 24 07:28 UTC] No.40715020[source]▶
I suppose there are more ways to be paid: fame / rank, money, or even piety.
4. graemep ◴[18 Jun 24 07:44 UTC] No.40715116[source]▶
It certainly was, and initially did improve his reputation.

If you look at what happened he could have benefited hugely if he was not obnoxious and had not gone out of his was to annoy people. He mocked the powerful, and he insisted that the Copernican cosmology (the sun is the centre of the universe) was not just a theory, but had been proven true.