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by OJFord 1430 days ago
It could be a pretty nice 'coffee table book': a walk through history of inventions, with the dependencies of each one listed (to one or maybe two degrees only of course).

You could pick it up anywhere, read forwards; back from something specific (or forward, if you made it a doubly linked list?); or back from whatever 'the end' would be.
2 comments
zehaeva 1429 days ago
You might be interested in James Burke's TV Show Connections!

Which does this sort of thing for like 8 episodes. Go and learn why you can't have cars without swamp gasses!

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TaylorAlexander 1429 days ago
Connections is also a book too!
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BoxOfRain 1430 days ago
It would be interesting to see if there's a way this dependency graph could be captured and saved for future generations in the event of civilisation collapsing. I suspect something like that would rapidly reduce the time it takes for society to rebuild because it wouldn't have to spend energy figuring out what doesn't work all over again as much.
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I-M-S 1430 days ago
Both of you might be interested to check out "How to Invent Everything" [1] - it's even got flowcharts the kind you mention at the end! [2]

[1] https://www.howtoinventeverything.com/ [2] https://mohamadacma.com/content/images/2022/04/825235c6-665f...

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BoxOfRain 1430 days ago
Cheers for this, looks interesting!
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