Recently on twitter an e/acc-aligned person posted some techno-optimist propaganda to the effect of “if primitive societies could see our existing technology, rockets, supercomputers, semiconductor fabs etc, they would see us as gods rather than human beings” (paraphrasing).
Someone else leapt in to provide a number of very interesting accounts in which isolated tribes e.g. Inuit, aborigine, etc had actually been taken to marvel at advanced western technology - cars, skyscrapers etc. These were obviously cherry-picked accounts but it was nonetheless thought-provoking and very funny to me to read about these guys being deeply unimpressed with our shit. “You mean you have to feed this mechanical horse with dinosaur bones and you have to work all day to pay for the dinosaur bones? My horse feeds itself” type of stuff.
I love an enthusiastic MIT student project as much as the next man but I think it’s really nice to sometimes view stuff like this through the lens of an ancient master craftsman. I accept that some open-minded farrier from the Middle ages, when shown this contraption, might be impressed, but I also think a decent fraction might be shaking their heads in dismay :)
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Recently on twitter an e/acc-aligned person posted some techno-optimist propaganda to the effect of “if primitive societies could see our existing technology, rockets, supercomputers, semiconductor fabs etc, they would see us as gods rather than human beings” (paraphrasing).
Someone else leapt in to provide a number of very interesting accounts in which isolated tribes e.g. Inuit, aborigine, etc had actually been taken to marvel at advanced western technology - cars, skyscrapers etc. These were obviously cherry-picked accounts but it was nonetheless thought-provoking and very funny to me to read about these guys being deeply unimpressed with our shit. “You mean you have to feed this mechanical horse with dinosaur bones and you have to work all day to pay for the dinosaur bones? My horse feeds itself” type of stuff.
I love an enthusiastic MIT student project as much as the next man but I think it’s really nice to sometimes view stuff like this through the lens of an ancient master craftsman. I accept that some open-minded farrier from the Middle ages, when shown this contraption, might be impressed, but I also think a decent fraction might be shaking their heads in dismay :)