Just finished watching the one on the Romans. The thing that struck me is the loss of basic knowledge by the majority of people in such a short period of time.
At one point most people pretty much knew how to do almost everything. For sure, there were specialists in various things - usually construction - but all in all your average punter could feed, house, and provide for themselves with nothing really but a few tools and a wealth of knowledge passed on through the ages. Now, within less than 100 years your average punter couldn't effectively hunt, build long term shelter, make fire, bread, or even store things without the assistance of technology.
Bizarre, and sad.
Tech always helps us and hinders us in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteBut in exchange for this specialisation we have the ability as a spieces to do so much. The pleasure ans sorrows of work by Alain De Botton examise this cost.
ReplyDeleteI get that the one thing that has stayed consistent throughout history is that societies come and go but the tech lives on. Probably excluding the ancient Egyptians and Aztecs and such, but that was probably more to do with the "us and them" philosophy of how they functioned. A minority had most of the knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I see with us these days is that knowledge is shared and you can easily learn whatever but are we setting ourselves up for something similar to the Aztecs and Egyptians because of our reliance on technology doing things for us?.
I appreciate the scare mongering with the potential for oil running out, but what happens to us if it actually does?.