Topic awaiting preservation: electric

Where do you think the world would be if Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, were never born?

Do you think we we be as advanced as we are today? Do you think we would still be living a "1700 and early 1800's era lifestyle?

It is rather amazing how far we have come in 150+ years.
Just 200 years ago we were still hanging pirates and floating across the oceans in wooded ships to delive messages. 200 years is not long at all.

Where have you been? We still hang pirates today, not to mention far nastier punishments . Just ask WebShaman.

Seriously, though, if it wasn't them it would have been someone else. Inventions/discoveries may often be associated with a single person but they are really just a part of the evolution of our culture, and would have found another outlet. I think it would be more interesting to ask how things might have been different if inventions and discoveries had been made in different cultures. How might the balance of power changed, and how would the political map of the world look today? I know there are a lot of variables there (like belief systems, social structures, etc.), but it's still worth a thought.

Unfortunately, I don't really have the time write now to write a treatise on the subject . I was just kind of stopping by and this caught my eye. Well, it will be interesting to see what everyone else has to say.

[Edit: I thought a link to WS's cell would be appropriate ]



Cell 270

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 05-28-2002).]

Come one, come all...bring the beer and the 'shrooms.

But to the topic...well, that's all good and fine, but alot of the things they 'discovered' would have found their way (in different forms, maybe) into the mainstream...in this, I agree with suho...however, when one begins to talk about Tesla, for example...maybe that would have been different...he is really the one who put the word electricity on the map, and made it usable as a power source...

So actually, the question is quite good. Remove the discoverers, and then what happens? I think that not only would that change political 'power' balances, etc, but could also have the effect of being replaced by other inventions, discoveries...maybe someone would have discovered nuclear energy then...skipping electricity? Or something else? Electricity has been around (for humans) for a loooong time...ancient 'batteries' that the Egyptians had, for example...so the 'discovery of electricity really wasn't that 'earth-shaking'...not until Tesla showed the world what could be done with it...

Sooner or later humanity will cure all diseases and it'll be like watching StarTrek only out the window.

Things happen. If one person doesn't do it, odds are in favor of another person doing it.

-Jestah
Cell 277

Hmm... that's a good point WS. I guess we assume that the way our culture unfolded is pretty much the only way it could unfold, but that's not necessarily true. I used to like to play Civilization, and that had a "technology tree" that allowed you to make discoveries that would advance your civilization. I always concentrated on political systems early, and I generally skipped right over monarchy and went to a republic. However, there were certain parts of the tree that had to be completed before other parts. For example, nuclear fission was not possible without electricity. It's difficult to imagine nuclear energy being discovered before (or even instead of) electricity, but I suppose that's because it's the only way we know.

Wow, this is some real interesting stuff. I just wish I wasn't on the brink of insanity so I could actually ponder this stuff for a while. But things are drawing to a conclusion, and by early next week I will either be finished or dead of exhaustion. I'm kind of hoping for the former.

where would be? same place, different time... although i do not doubt paralel evolution would have created the same theories using other names


hmmm, sounds like a childish type of question..... how old be you?

~this is not a signature~

[This message has been edited by Arthemis (edited 05-28-2002).]

Does my age matter?

If I state my age, and it is not the number you have already imagined, would that change the outcome of your answer? Would it shed a new light on the question? And make your answer all the more different?

I doubt it.

If my question has in some way, made you think about how adolescent I am, I am sorry for misleading you.

I do not know you, and wish no quarrel, but I do have to say, to imagine an alternate reality based on a few missing persons, is healthy, but to judge the integrity of ones question, by a guess of a persons age, is, in fact a bit childish.

If you want, we can discuss alternate subjects. How about super-luminal loop holes in physics?

Take it to mail, if it is personal...no need to start a flame war here..

I like the question, actually. Thinking about how things could have developed differently if x or y hadn't have occured, is always interesting IMHO.

For example, what would have happened if Ghengis Khan hadn't of been defeated in his battle for Europe? What if Einstein had been born in the new americas as an indian? Love thinking about such stuff....Chief Mushroom Cloud...hehe...