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[Sergarr]

Rocketry and transistors are nineteen forties tech, so is atomic energy.

and obviously none of these things have been radically improved upon since that period

oh wait

they were

[NullForceOmega]

Improvement is not development, it is refinement, similar but not the same.

[Teneb]

Improvement is not development, it is refinement, similar but not the same.

Uh. Yes it is. You need to develop the improvements, thus it is development.

[TheBiggerFish]

Improvement is not development, it is refinement, similar but not the same.

Uh. Yes it is. You need to develop the improvements, thus it is development.

This.

[NullForceOmega]

Making something you already have better is not 'developing' it is 'iterating'.  Development calls for entirely new concepts and systems.

But if you want to get bogged down in semantics that's cool, I have other shit to do.

[Frumple]

Making something you already have better is literally one of the definitions of development, null.

[Teneb]

Making something you already have better is not 'developing' it is 'iterating'.  Development calls for entirely new concepts and systems.

Then I suppose that by this logic we never developed anything after learning how to sharpen stones, talk and count to ten.

[Sergarr]

Improvement is not development, it is refinement, similar but not the same.

...

oh so we're now playing word games to avoid the fact that since 1950 there has been an untold amount of technological and cultural progress aren't we

why did you even put rocketry at 1940

it's clearly a 400 AC tech since chinese used some rockets

and developing orbital-capable rockets from these ones is obviously just "refinement"

OBVIOUSLY

[NullForceOmega]

Making something you already have better is not 'developing' it is 'iterating'.  Development calls for entirely new concepts and systems.

Then I suppose that by this logic we never developed anything after learning how to sharpen stones, talk and count to ten.

A sharpened stone is an axe, spear, or knife, all axes, spears, knives and related tools are improvements on that technology, but they are fundamentally the exact same thing.  Metalworking is a technology, ceramics is a technology, fission power is a technology.  A camera is a camera even when it is interfaced with a human optic nerve.

[NJW2000]

While there have been a lot of advancements which decreased the need for humans to do a certain thing and thus overall raised the standard of living, we're slightly getting to the stage where we're running out of things, at least in first world countries, for humans to actually do, while still using a capitalist system.

In an ideal world, computers could man cashiers so people could spend their entire lives writing novels or whatever, but we don't have any way to get from where we are now to there. Or at least, no way without huge numbers of unemployed, thus either huge decrease in standard of living, or huge population on benefits (pressure on government/economy, lower standard of living) or both.

So there are some pretty good arguments against using computerised labour for everything we can.

[Frumple]

... yeeaaaah, if you're going to call a steam engine and a maglev fundamentally identical things, there's not much left to say. You're welcome to continue viewing human development as stagnant, NFO. Me, I'll be watching the ridiculous strides we're continuing to make on pretty much all fronts. We're doing some crazy stuff these days.

[NullForceOmega]

A maglev is an electromagnetic linear-induction motor, it is fundamentally the same as every other electromagnetic motor technology, it just moves in a different direction.  Nowhere did I liken two fundamentally different technologies to each other, only YOU have been doing that.  Further, and this may surprise you, but that electromagnetic motor tech?  It is over a hundred years old, not nearly as old as that steam tech, that originated in ancient Greece.

[TheBiggerFish]

Okay, but why is a molten-salt reactor no different from Chernobyl?

[Shadowlord]

A camera is a camera even when it is interfaced with a human optic nerve.

[NullForceOmega]

Just went and looked that up, exactly the same kind of fission devices, just a different cooling methodology.

And ALL CAMERAS FUNCTION ON THE SAME PRINCIPLES THE EXACT METHOD OF CAPTURING THE LIGHT IS IRRELEVANT.  IT IS STILL BASIC OPTICS.