[WalterBright]

Initial technological progress was agonizingly slow. Presuming that man then was just as smart as today, why would that be so?

I suspect it is because the thought of what might be possible just never entered their minds.

For example, Edison invented the idea of the invention development laboratory. Very, very recently. The Wright Bros were the first to come up with the idea of a research and development laboratory - just over a century ago.

[Eisenstein]

More likely it was because the systems didn't exist that incentivized figuring out solutions to the problems which technology solves. Agriculture, animal husbandry, arts, warfare, engineering were all very sophisticated, limited by the materials science available (firearms, for instance, need very strong metals not to explode).

The scientists that existed before the industrial age in the West were upper class, bored and educated men who did it for their own amusement.

It wasn't until the abandonment of the economic system which worked on the assumption that international economics was zero sum and capitalism (and imperialism) took hold that the incentive structure for creating novel technologies could exist.

This is all recollection based on various histories I have consumed and may not be entirely correct, but I'm pretty sure the idea is solid.

[WalterBright]

> More likely it was because the systems didn't exist that incentivized figuring out solutions to the problems which technology solves.

That is partially true. There is no incentive, for example, for slaves to make any improvements. I cannot think of any technology developed by slaves. That meant the few people in power were not enough to think of much new stuff.

You could say free markets were the greatest invention, because it incentivized everyone to be a creator.

The evolution of guns is an interesting topic. So is the evolution of sailing ships. The latter occurred over thousands of years. Very very slow!

You might want to investigate James Burke's "Connections" book and series. It's an entertaining overview of the history of invention.

[Eisenstein]

> That is partially true. There is no incentive, for example, for slaves to make any improvements. I cannot think of any technology developed by slaves. That meant the few people in power were not enough to think of much new stuff.

You can't think of any technology developed by slaves because they wouldn't get credit for it. I am sure all sorts of useful things have been invented by slaves, but if you yourself are property I don't know how you expect credit for your intellectual property.

> You could say free markets were the greatest invention, because it incentivized everyone to be a creator.

The free markets are about efficient allocation and exploitation of resources. People are incentivized to create things that help with that. The byproduct of such efficiency is free time and access to those resources.

> The latter occurred over thousands of years. Very very slow!

Well, it isn't exactly easy to invent a lightbulb when you don't have access to vacuum pumps, transparent glass, filaments, and electric generators. I'm sure if you had a hunk of ore and a hearth you would be making machined parts within a fortnight but our ancestors had to wait for crucial inventions and materials science advances before they move from sails to steam.

[WalterBright]

> You can't think of any technology developed by slaves because they wouldn't get credit for it.

Can you think of any in the US Confederacy? Any at all? The cotton gin comes to mind, but that was invented by Eli Whitney in the north.

Can you imagine this?

slave: "Boss, how about if we do it this way, we can be more productive?"

boss: "shut up and do what I told you to."

Slaves had every incentive to do as little as possible, not improve production.

[Eisenstein]

If you can't come up with a scenario where a slave would improve their life by innovating the tools and objects they had available to them, or a scenario in which a master is not a one dimensional caricature, or a scenario where a slave is not a stupid pack animal that can only follow orders, then the burden is not on history to convince you otherwise.

[WalterBright]

History shows us that free men produce far more innovations than unfree ones.

[drewcoo]

> I cannot think of any technology developed by slaves.

No thinking needed. A quick search turns this up:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/with-patents-or-wi...

[WalterBright]

It does indeed mention 3 inventions by slaves, and then a number of inventions by free men. For some perspective, here's an accounting of the number of patents by year:

https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.h...

[Eisenstein]

The whole point is that such evidence would not exist in the first place, so 3 examples are actually statistically significant and indicate that there are a whole lot more than that.

[card_zero]

I am tickled by a theory I heard that a lot of ancient creativity went into preventing change. Like that's the original value of creativity, maintaining stability by stopping other people from innovating.

[WalterBright]

I've heard that, too. Innovation happened in societies that had a much more flexible social structure.

[Cthulhu_]

Wasn't Da Vinci also a researcher running an innovation lab in the modern day definitions of the phrase, or is that the popular video game adaptation version of him?

Going back further, the Islamic world had a lot of science going on which is often ignored or omitted by the western world when it comes to discussing the origins of science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islami...