Formaldehead Posted October 6, 2003 Posted October 6, 2003 "I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons." -The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell , Act III of Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, 1902. Quote
scrambler Posted October 7, 2003 Posted October 7, 2003 Formaldehead said: "I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons." -The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell , Act III of Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, 1902. In the realm of biology, some scientists have proposed that one of the drivers in evolutionary innovation has been predator-prey interaction. Selective pressure and adaptation occur in prey species to include camouflage, evasive behavior, development of the senses, and intelligence. Evolution in predators has also occurred in similar developments, almost in lockstep. In cultural evolution, war has forced innovation too. The development of computers is closely linked to cryptography (codes) which developed largely in military campaigns. Look at the developments in space science. There's a strong military component to that. You could probably list many more innovations and such that resulted from research in military applications. On a personal level, war sucks but from a historical perspective, it seems to be the leading edge of innovation. Quote
cracked Posted October 7, 2003 Posted October 7, 2003 scrambler said: Formaldehead said: "I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons." -The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell , Act III of Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, 1902. In the realm of biology, some scientists have proposed that one of the drivers in evolutionary innovation has been predator-prey interaction. Selective pressure and adaptation occur in prey species to include camouflage, evasive behavior, development of the senses, and intelligence. Evolution in predators has also occurred in similar developments, almost in lockstep. In cultural evolution, war has forced innovation too. The development of computers is closely linked to cryptography (codes) which developed largely in military campaigns. Look at the developments in space science. There's a strong military component to that. You could probably list many more innovations and such that resulted from research in military applications. On a personal level, war sucks but from a historical perspective, it seems to be the leading edge of innovation. Duh. Quote
cracked Posted October 7, 2003 Posted October 7, 2003 scrambler said: Duh, what? Mofo. Sayin that if guys like j_b had their way, innovation was be stifled in a big way. Quote
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