Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE
Alice Grove MCDLT - July 2016
sitnspin:
Technological and cultural advancement usually evolve to fill a need, be it more resources, more safety, whatever. I think if you research those cultures that still most operate on stone age technical and cultural levels you'll find that they primarily exist in areas where food is plentiful and safety is not a major concern. They continued the same basic lifestyle because it functions adequately and no major shifts have been necessary to sustain the society. If the post-Blink world supplies everything the people need in terms of food, safety, and health/longevity, then it's entirely reasonable that no major technological advances have thus far been made.
jheartney:
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 22 Jul 2016, 12:41 ---If the post-Blink world supplies everything the people need in terms of food, safety, and health/longevity, then it's entirely reasonable that no major technological advances have thus far been made.
--- End quote ---
Add to that the higher tech just doesn't work, apparently.
Now, electricity must work on some level, or there'd be no point to the windmill we met Alice on. No sign of internal or external combustion engines, though. Nor any sign of a communications net; not even telegraphs. I haven't even seen signs of moveable type. All those are things any civilization would immediately adopt, once invented.
hedgie:
Telegraphs, even "line of sight" things like the Clacks in Discworld require a group powerful and wealthy enough to not only create them, but keep others from breaking them down. The dig site certainly has the technological means to create such things, and may even be able to communicate point to point with certain other groups, but almost certainly has no means to project the power needed for any communications network beyond what sneakernet chocobos struthis are capable of doing.
retrosteve:
500 years of technological stasis, aided by guardians with magic powers, I could buy.
5000, no way. 5000 years ago, Proto-Indo-European tribes, in groups about as large as Alice's village, were inventing the wheel. Within a few centuries, the chariot had spread across Europe, and tribes who had them were victorious, starting a few millennia of territorial war and expansion partly driven by increasingly clever technology. China was inventing silk. Greece was developing bronze.
Within 2500 years we had the Roman Empire, the Zhou dynasty, the development of writing and accounting. Things just accelerated after that. I don't think it's because of need -- it is just with that much time, things keep on changing.
Undrneath:
Actually the wheel probably came into existence more like 12000 years ago if not earlier in a simplified form. Egypt was in its early stages of discovery about 7000 years ago. It isn't until the last 150 years that progress has been at ridiculous speed.
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