BUILDING ON THE ROMANS ? 3

[C2it]

This section of the forum has been a bit quiet recently.

Having just visited Rome, it's fascinating to speculate where civilisation might now be, if development continued following the Egyptian, Grecian and Roman Empires, rather than declining into the dark ages.

Steam power was there in Hero's time. Nothing really changed until mine dewatering was needed. Could there have been major steam power and subsequent industrial revolution around AD 0 since all the necessary technology was there ? Materials science could have developed along with strong materials, semiconductors ... why not ?

If that pace continued without interruption, where might we be now ? Could Newton and Leonardo have been even more inventive ? What about Einstein ?

Hydrocarbon fuels would have been here and gone. Could there have been a place for the Sinclair C5 ? No, there are limits after all.

 

[drawoh]

IRstuff,

Pointy sticks are the primary weapon for most massed infantry. Swords are expensive, and usually used by nobles of some sort.

Don't forget Shaka Zulu's rule. If you have a spear and you see a person you do not like and you throw your spear at him and miss, the person you do not like has your spear. Javelins and arrows are effective hunting weapons. They have serious limiations against nasty humans. Most traditional military weapons are for close quarters.

JHG

 

[KENAT]

Well, if your capacity to manufacture ballistic warheads is such that you can only issue a couple to each combatant then yes, their value is somewhat diminished.

However, if you can manufacture enough of them that they become effectively expendable (at least temporarily till you get to collect them at the end of the battle) then they can be very useful. Also, if you can make them 'single shot' devices as many since the Roman javelin have been, they can be useful even in limited quantities.

Also has a lot to do with tactical application. If you can issue enough ballistic warheads to a proportion of your troops that they can keep a much larger body of the enemy pinned down, then you have the advantage in tactical mobility.

The kind of wisdom you mention is situation-ally dependent.

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[btrueblood]

Gotta like the references provided by Nic and Mike. LPS for both.

 

[MTPipeliner]

Has anyone else watched the recent episodes about aliens visiting earth thousands of years ago on the History Channel?

The one I watched discussed the pyramids and some of the other major stone ruins as well as the possibility of gliders or other flying machines. They also talked about the possibility of a nucular powerer machine.

They asked the question "are we really re-discovering some of these technologies that were somehow lost along the way?"

I can't say that I really buy into the whole thing, but they do make some interesting points.

 

[FeX32]

lol. Ancient nukes. That's a good one.


Fe

 

[drawoh]

PatrickR,

Read The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp. It explains a lot of this stuff. Basically, ancient people like the Egyptians and the Incas had time, all sorts of cheap labour, and no gliders.

Remember Occam's Razor.

JHG

 

[MTPipeliner]

The nucular part of the story was definately the most unbelievable.

They made some interesting points, but I find it hard to believe that someone could misplace technology as cool as a flying carpet.

 

[IRstuff]

It's obviously a suppressed technology, suppressed by the ancestors of today's car companies. That's the LONG view...

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Debaser]

It's obviously a suppressed technology, suppressed by the ancestors of today's car companies. That's the LONG view...

As a fully sworn in 78th level member of the Illuminati and part-time NWO henchman (pays for those nice extras...know what I mean) I can tell you you wouldn't believe the periods of time over which we plan. Safe to say, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will just about be seeing the first faint signs of the fruits of our labour...if they live to be over 100.

 

[FeX32]

wa?


Fe

 

[TheTick]

Lots of Fox Mulders out there who really want to believe.

 

[Debaser]

wa?

Sorry, too much time spent lurking on the JREF forum. Some people out there would pooh-pooh the idea of aliens giving us/suppressing ancient technology as absurd and then seriously substitute Bigfoot as Earth's top brain, responsible for all its built wonders, instead.

Weird...

 

[FeX32]

That's a interesting perspective Debaser. Somehow very logical.
My confusion lay mostly in the terminology you used.


Fe

 

[Debaser]

That's a interesting perspective Debaser. Somehow very logical.
My confusion lay mostly in the terminology you used.

To derail a little further, there's some odd byways out there on t'interweb.

Places you'll get called a sheeple, disinfo agent or government shill for having the temerity to suggest that yer actual plain old-fashioned Homo Sapiens Sapiens can be responsible for on the one hand creating the pyramids, and on the other creating lawyers. Both the alpha and omega, the zenith and nadir, as it were, in a single creature.

 

[BigInch]

Native Americans made use of small quantities of native copper. They may not have had the need for mixing in tin to get harder surfaces for weapons, farming tools, processing heavy building materials and other resources, not having to many large competing civilizations trying to move in on them and remaining basically a low population density, hunter-gatherering society with relatively vast and easily exploited resources they needed. They also seem to have relatively little use for excessive wealth building by overexploiting their environment and selling the proceeds off to neighboring tribes.

I subscribe to the sustainable growth theories. Rapid advancement at an ever increasing pace can't (or doesn't need to) be sustained. Periods of rapid advancement by one civilization must be compenstated by periods of little, or actual reverses in progress, while the wider implications of the technology are distributed, accepted and digested by the general population of that civilization and those surrounding them. After all, when one civilization moves too far ahead of another, it seems like they can't resist the urge to put their own development on hold and immediately exploit their advantage over their neighbors.

The rapid advancement of civilization before the dark ages, could not have been followed by anything but the dark ages, because it created a condition in the macro scale in the greater region that would eventually become unstable.

"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com

 

[KENAT]

Weren't the dark ages as such linked in part to climate change?

Cooler weather led to lower crop yields, led to more competition for available resources, movement of tribes...

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[BigInch]

Some think there is a link to a final decline of Rome and a presumed Krakatoa eruption of 535 AD that left the sun darker for 18 months and may have had a longer influence on global climate. I'd be hard pressed to consider that climate change per say, at least long term. It would also have been the 6th century, so would seem to be a little early for the 9th century beginning of the Dark Ages.

"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com

 

[drawoh]

BigInch,

If the dark ages began any time, it began in the sixth century. Modern historians seem to classify the period of 500CE to 1500CE in Europe as Medieval. There is no abrupt transition out of the dark ages.

I do not see how even a major volcanic catastrophe would cause the fall of the Roman Empire. If the Roman food supply is messed up, the barbarian food supply is messed up. The people who win out are the ones who have food stored for emergencies.

Was there an overall population decrease in Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire? Most Europeans of the sixth century lived by subsistence agriculture. Roman government did not support agriculture the way Mesopotamian and Egyptian governments did. A replacement of Roman government by lean, tough barbarians probably resulted in lower taxes.

Rome itself suffered a reduced population. As the centre of the empire, it was able to suck up agricultural resources from north Africa and support way more people than local Italian farms could have. The loss of power and communications caused a die-off, all reported by the chattering classes who leave most of the written records we have. We know little about the north Africans who, presumably, had more food to eat.

JHG

 

[BJC]

Some Roman stone structures have not been duplicated to this time.

 

[BigInch]

OK, back to building on Rome,

Technological Advance

Alfa Romeo
Ferrari
Lamborghini
Maserati

followed by Technological Decline
Gucci
Prada
Armani
Dolce & Gabbana

"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com