this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

My Great Grandfather lived that change. He went from walking, horses and buggies, steam engines, with no telephones or electricity, to sitting on a couch next to me and watching the first Apollo moon landing. He saw more insane changes to this world than we will ever probably see. But.....

It took 2 world wars and millions of dead to drive all that change in that time period of one life. War is the great driver of technological leaps. I'm not sure I feel the need to drive tech advances that fast at the cost of all those lives. Slow and steady might be a better path to travel.

Still, within my lifetime, which much like my Great Grandfather I'm nearing the end of, there have been great changes that everyone just takes for granted. The internet has caused a great disruption in the world. You have access to nearly all the information this world has in an instant. No matter where you are. No more going to a library to look up outdated information in a card catalogue. You can talk to nearly anyone on this planet at any time. When I grew up, we had a party line we shared with 5 other families. And using that phone was expensive. You got billed for each phone call for the duration of that call. You can do business with almost every business on this planet directly. Or Amazon/Walmart/Temu yourself to death if you want. All we had as the Sears or Wards catalogue to mail order from. And then you waited a month to get your order.

You can affordably travel to London, Paris, Tokyo, and nearly everywhere else in a matter of hours. There are re-usable space rockets now. And while the stars might still be just out of reach, there is nowhere in the solar system we can't go if we really want to. The planets are ours for the taking as soon as we want them. Even true self driving cars are a solid possibility now.

Those are just a few of the things I've seen change. And there are many more. But we seldom notice and just take them for granted.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 0 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

War is the great driver of technological leaps

Maybe for capitalist countries because an external threat is the only motive that will get the bourgeois to fund science instead of consolidating power, but the USSR and Chinas rise were during peaceful times.

[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Even their technology was driven by war. No human civilization has been immune that. Maybe in story books, but never in the real world.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 0 points 3 hours ago

Technical development in non-capitalist societies is suppressed by war. Kalashnikov wanted to design farm equipment. Instead he designed weapons. Ask any scientist if they're working so they can develop X before , let alone as part of a war effort, 99% of them will say no. Ask the politicians why they are funding that research, and you will get a very different answer.