Exponential growth. That first 195,000 years was every tribe figuring out super basic stuff we take for granted, then gradually building upon that with other basic stuff we take for granted. Even before agriculture, pottery, metallurgy, herbal medicine, the basic knowledge these were built from took millennia to work out and pass down.
The real secret sauce was communication. Once tribes started sharing knowledge, suddenly the base of knowledge to built on got higher, and broader. Written language, better means of travel, this sped up the process. Electronic communication has made that knowledge base pretty much universally accessible and combinable.
Progress is faster when you’re not limited to what your direct tribal ancestors figured out and passed down.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 9 months ago
It is actually wild to think about the progress humanity has made in the last hundred years or so, we went from the Wright brothers to walking on the moon in a human lifetime.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
The only thing separating modern man from caveman is education, and that explains an awful lot about the world.
GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
Writing is hella OP. Please nerf.
GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Technological progress is exponential.
sinkingship@mander.xyz 9 months ago
I think that’s true for only a planet with indefinite resources. We haven’t really hit many caps yet, but I believe things will start to slow down within a lifetime.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
That word implies a positive growth. Technological advancement seems like a better fit. Although we did that, and many tinkering with productivity, our life standarts was not consistent with that.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I would like you to look at the relative populations of slaves to free people, the rate of death by starvation, the rate of death by malaria, the rate of death in childbirth (both parent and child), and tell me we haven’t made significant positive growth.
nonailsleft@lemm.ee 9 months ago
And Bezos got to ride his penisrocket to the edge of space
cybersandwich@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Not even just the moon. Landing ships on other planets, landing craft on asteroids and returning to earth with samples, and having a craft beyond our solar system. That is nuts.