Re: retrograde technologies?

EvMick@aol.com
Sat, 29 May 1999 17:04:54 EDT

In a message dated 5/29/99 12:57:18 AM Central Daylight Time, spike66@ibm.net writes: 

>

> The latest Star Wars episode made me wonder: can technology
> go backwards? They seemed to imply technology was going
> violently aft. Can anyone think of an example, now or in any time
> past, where a society had it and later didn't? Descended from
> enlightenment to superstition? Would dark ages Europe qualify? spike
>

I'm not absolutely sure about this..but I think that Japan discovered gunpowder a loooooong time ago. They supressed it. The reasoning was that their culture was based on the Samurai....swordsmen. A swordsman is not much good against a gunman.

Later of course they ran up against a culture which had not suppressed gunpowder and were dogmeat. The moral of the story being survival of the fittest. Fittest being the biggest boys with the biggest toys...

EvMick
Salt Lake City, Utah.