Triforce! - Triforce! Bonus #4 - Best Technology

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Triforce Bonus #4! We're going through all of human history to rank the best technological advancements (based on Civ 5) from fire to the internet! Go to http://auraframes.com/triforce to get up to $30 off Aura’s best-selling frames. Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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19 and over and physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See casino.draftkings.com for details. Please play responsibly. pick the best of the things? Yeah. Well, we're not historians, anthropologists, educated. We are not educated, mate. Speak for yourself, mate. Speak for yourself. And hence, without any qualification or knowledge, we intend now to sort

a list of things into which is the best and which are the rest. And also solve a lot of problems along the way, am I right? Oh, hell yeah. That's the dream. God, we are gonna put the world right. And by right, I mean mean far right if you know what i mean is that our secret agenda all along on this podcast can we get a z pile can we get a couple of z piles oh my well we are three white guys so i suppose it's true it's true let's start so

today i wanted to go through what the best this is a suggestion from someone by the way michael yes yeah michael someone now it's actually his last name um but please if you do have ideas do send them in do mailbag them in yeah that's another podcast we do arguably a better one but but this is this is one too we want to do this anyway yeah this is we we we really want to do this so what i've got here is a list of the civilization 5 technologies oh from civilization 5 of course yeah i i know some some people might question using civ 5 as our source but it's this is merely the inspiration and i think it is to be honest with you a nice concise

list that we understand but we're not going to discuss it in sieve terms we're going to discuss no and it's also broken down by these kind of nebulous eras right yeah yeah and so it's convenient we can go to pick one from each era and then we can fight them at the end you know i think that's a good way to do it all right so let's start at the earliest thing we should start at the beginning of time let's do let's do ancient era the wheel now there is something clearly missing oh the wheel we'll start with the wheel okay yeah what is it you think is missing on the wheel no no michael mcintyre is the wheel so just just to be clear the list is pottery animal husbandry mining sailing astrology irrigation writing archery masonry bronze working in the wheel yeah what about uh like uh what about

like the invention of uh penicillin what about the invention that wasn't in the ancient era was yeah i know but i mean come on this is important't jump ahead. That's like a much later era. We'll definitely write that on the list. We'll come to that. We'll get to that. Pasteurization. Really important as well. That would again be later. Yes.

So let's just deal with what we have before us. They invented the wheel and then the day after there's like, whoa, pasteurization. What's this mold growing on here? Holy crap. And then the music starts playing because you're having a click click the link in discord sips so that you're looking at the same list as us because you're just shouting technologies now and we're saying we've got to go via the list but okay i think we can immediately disregard archery honestly take archery out

because whilst it is important in civ i don't think archery whilst it was definitely a you know a military advance and all the rest of it yeah for a start it had been around a lot longer than the ancient world i think a very long time archery had been around for yeah i'm pretty sure uh like uh native people would have of course done some archery i would suspect that it predates the wheel to be honest with you. Let's go back to the very beginning, right? Well, how do you know? We would be remiss if we didn't mention something much earlier, okay?

What's that? At the very beginning. The internet. Fire. Fire, yeah, of course. You want to say fire. Well, no, but I was going to say fire. The discovery of fire or being able to wield to wield fire right it's to make fire

yeah the ability to and on demand make make a fire is now arguably without that nothing nothing yeah that it was the og and therefore everything follows right but there's also some arguments had that humanity didn't really even invent fire fire was kind of invented by our or discovered by our our earlier ancestors our earlier homo erectus and these neanderthals you know there's some evidence to show that that we wouldn't have actually even evolved as a species and have these big brains if fire didn't wasn't used by our pre yeah right mostly to cook food right they cooked food well that's one of the reasons apparently like by our pre... Yeah, right. It's just impossible. You can't get by without it. Mostly to cook food, right? They cooked food?

Well, that's one of the reasons apparently even our brains are this big is that because we can consume cooked food. Because when you heat things, they expand. I get where you get. You get a lot more nutrition out of something that's being cooked. You get more juice. Advanced.

So, yeah, we won't... So, maybe we won't do fire. I just wanted to give it a little nod as a... Well, like fire is something that like yeah sure they figured out how to how to you know create the spark to light a fire or whatever but they would have seen fire before that as well right naturally in the in the world like if they were because yeah that's a dry summer or whatever yeah like uh lightning storms would have lightning storms or whatever. Lightning storms would have created fire. I mean, for vegans, for example, animal husbandry. Great requires for humanity.

Terrible time for animals. So, you know, pottery. Everybody hates pots, don't they? I don't know. I think there's a lot of pottery enjoyers out there, for sure. Yeah, I love them. Of course. I actually love pots.

I've got a couple of pots that I've bought off like instagram pot makers right you can definitely buy pot on the internet as well yeah even today there's people nowadays it's a lot easier yeah so just just to go back to fire let's ignore fire because it's too obviously we don't exist. We ignore caves. We ignore rock hitting people with rock. Rock hitting hitman or thing with rock. We'll take all that out. We're going to get rid of any like primitive tribalism. So let's clarify something here. The technology, whilst you could say that making firewalls technology is so fundamental

that we're going to move on to things like the wheel. Right. Yeah. The reason the wheel didn't come around until we'd advanced to a certain point, probably once we'd settled down and started farming, is what the fuck do you need a wheel for if you're living as a hunter-gatherer? Right.

Is my point. Like, yes, you could build a little cart, I suppose, but in order to do that, you'd probably need to have a place where you could settle down and make a wheel and build a wagon and all the rest of it, and I can't imagine that They had little wagons that they pulled along behind them. I think they they just carried what they needed

They didn't need to bring much with them and they just gathered every day didn't take long There's bountiful food animals around you know, there weren't many people It's not like it's all getting harvested up and nothing was owned And I think when the food runs out you just walk down the trail a little bit and get some more down there so i don't think that that any of this technology existed i wonder what the first wheel looked like you know like when you watch cartoons they always have this massive wheel like fred flint's tires it's huge it's like the size of a person but i guess the first wheel probably was just like a little like like one of those little back tires on a tricycle

you know like really small well what do we think it would have been made out of because i stone i think it would have been stone for sure right it would have been just yeah probably that's quite hard to work stone uh well i think they had a lot of time back then and if they would have had uh some chisels or some some primitive tools they could have done it you know somebody's just being really bored sitting around is round yeah and if you cut it and you just cut a section out what are you cutting it with you're not using a laser things no yeah they didn't have a saw back then what are you talking about they had primitive axes and sharpened stones i see what you mean yeah but the natural shape of it is it would have been lumpy as shit though though. It wouldn't have been perfectly cut. What, and the rock is going to be good?

You take a rock and you're going to take off the whole rock? You have a better chance at potentially smoothing out a rock over a long period of time than you do cutting down a big tree. No, no, no. I think Pyrrhon is absolutely right. I think the ancient people were cutting down trees. I think the bark was just coming off. Because when you take the bark off some of those trees it's nice and smooth inside i reckon they were quite circular they were rolling around i don't think the wheel was even discovered i think

it was just like people were like you're already using logs to roll stuff around of course that's how they got like they moved stonehenge that's how they got stonehenge over there wasn't it apparently with a load of because on the flintstones the wheels are are made of stone and then they have we should really use that as a well that's an interesting point professor the only visual i got they didn't have tick tock back then or reddit so what else am i supposed to base anything on yeah we don't have a we don't have a clear evidence of the wheel. I think if you have a log that you're using to roll things, the natural evolution of a log, instead of having a whole log...

How are you rolling things on a log, though? Because you put a log down, and then you put another log and another log, and then as you pull things, the logs spin, and then you take one from the back and move it to the front. So you're making more of a conve conveyor belt with somebody obviously said you have conveyor belt let's put that in modern era yeah yeah right so you've got all your logs laid out and it would be a natural evolution of thinking to say well I don't want to have to move this log what if we used one of these logs

which spin when when when like talk is applied to them and put two bigger circles on either end and just rested something on the wood jesus imagine that conversation yeah and someone would be like that's a fucking it's so clear now thank you i don't even try to get my attention you're like that was the invention of the wheel conversation right there sorry so loosely translated it's uh because it's like it's quite it's quite a complex thing you guys are describing. I'm just wondering how these guys really sat down and had a good old conversation about how to go forward with it all. You know what I mean? Well, we don't know when language first came about.

It was certainly when they were doing the wheel and stuff like that, they could talk. I mean, I'm pretty sure we've been able to speak for some time. It would be fundamental, wouldn't it it to be able to convey meaning yeah and even with a lot of it was with uh you know hand gestures and symbolism and stuff i'm sure they had a language there must have been some really frustrating times though right like trying to explain especially if you bumped into some it needs to fucking roll it has to roll it's about talk for god's sake i think i think with these early ancient technologies the first one really is agriculture right that's that was the the point of which nomadic at least in my understanding humanity

sort of started to settle down and you could see how that would be kind of an evolutionary process right agriculture and then and husbandry probably around the same time coming back to the same place if we combine animal husbandry and irrigation then to cover and pottery to cover farming the advance towards an agrarian agrarian and sort of more agricultural and farming based permanent structures follow i mean this is obviously a key element of of humanity the beginning of modern humanity right because previous to that there was a very long time hundreds of thousands of years when humanity was kind of not making any progress relatively speaking by being nomadic by wandering around by not being permanent by living kind of on a whim and it wasn't until permanent settlements were

established that humanity got a lot worse in a sense like we got a lot more disease we got a lot more problems health problems and other issues started to think about territory and we started to think about uh borders and war and who's in charge and that kind of stuff yeah because if you just did still happen when you were nomadic life was brutal humanity humanity bands of humanity coming across each other will kill each other. And, you know, the death rates were...

We don't know that. Oh, yeah, absolutely, though. We do. Or you just bump into another tribe, you auto-fight. Yes, tribal humans were very, very violent,

very prepared. Worse than us. Scared. Oh, yeah. Hundreds of times, thousands of times worse than us. I don't see how they could be.

We've been fighting wars for thousands of years. They were really scared back then. The amount of people who die in our wars, even World War II was like half a percent of the population or something of one of the countries involved. It was not a lot of, it was not like, you know, the death rates were not at these levels when we were tribal. Tribal humanity was incredibly violent.

There's this idea that you know tribes are this tranquil glade of wonderful untouched fairy people who are beautiful to each other and swimming in pools but actually they're very kind of they're they're like you see the behavior in chimps though too that are very violent to each other and what's the evidence for that is that they just found loads of people their heads stoved in by a rock sort of thing yeah i think so there's a lot of books about it i mean i think i've read about it so okay again take it with a pinch of salt but as far as i understand i'm just thinking if i can remember any actual violence in the flintstones um i know i know fred every once in a while would like bonk barney on the head uh you know with uh

with the rock or whatever frustration fly around when he was uh dazed not a little yeah little tiny terry pterodactyls yeah so look i think what we have here that's we need to move on before we get too stuck in the ancient era but farming i think we have farming we have bronze working which obviously was important the the invention of a calendar which was again these are sort of evolutionary things where you you can you can imagine no one really sat down and thought about it like too much whereas they just noticed that there was seasons happening i feel like and then it gets hot i feel like when we start writing that down when we think of the invent these inventions though we're thinking of how we sort of receive

new stuff right like when the calendar was invented like one person used it for like decades before other people were like oh hang on actually that is maybe kind of useful now that i've you know started doing something else but i also when it was first invented i don't think anyone gave a shit at all no but no but not i don't think so like writing okay i think writing was co-invented by lots of different people across lots of different places on the planet at the same time right and that's why there's so many different types of of writing even now right like it's through people making the same innovation because because of necessity it makes sense if you've burned a stick it makes it makes a sign on the

ground and you can turn that into an arrow you can use that to communicate and it's so natural that process right that it almost wasn't like like the iphone germy no one actually or or i don't know doing it here's a couple of questions every technology is like that too right all science is incremental right yes very incremental consider this consider this the the need for writing the need for a calendar the need for a wheel the need for sailing the need for writing, the need for a calendar, the need for a wheel, the need for sailing, the need for mining only came about once we had settled down. And that was dependent on farming. So we didn't need to write stuff down. We didn't need to masonry.

We didn't need astrology until we had settled areas where we were all planning to live for some time. And we would have to plant our crops according to the calendar that would tell us this is the good time this is when you harvest this is when it gets cold yeah not written down as january february march but literally just a record of some kind that says when the sun is here get ready to fucking harvest and stuff like that so none of this stuff really happens or if it does it's it's ephemeral it just disappears because it's not it's not persistent without farming none of this happens. So do you think that farming was when we started to become modern humans? I just want to give a shout out to writing

because the important thing about writing is that it allowed people to transfer information down the ages. But the point is you didn't have anything that you needed to before farming. Oh, right. Okay. All right. Yeah. And writing would be things like for example if you settle down in a village recording how much you got and or who's married to who or who's in charge you know shit like that writing came about from that because if you're just saying wake up in the morning pick some berries kill a rabbit get on with my day you

don't need to write that shit down but some forms of writing would have would have potentially existed before that though because i think a big push for writing would have been uh religion and organized religion right but again that doesn't come about until you settle down i don't know though i think there would have been some sort of like record of of what people were were doing in terms of like religion potentially before that like uh like because because we're talking writing like uh like like look at like like cave symbols and stuff is it's kind of writing isn't it it's it's using it's using something to describe or create some imagery around which would have come way before farming right but so they have discovered there was this

guy this was in a story a couple of weeks ago who looked at these ancient cave paintings and saw these markings on there that are some kind of number system yeah and it was either to do with how many of that animal they had killed or what is the good month to to hunt this animal yeah i could kill four saber tooth tiger this month in april in april alone best month on record i'll have my score bumper month right best month ever only killed two buffalo paint picture of mog with pile of dead bison and put four in month four job done best ever so that that form of writing that was super basic yeah but that was whether that was because they were traveling around it's like ugg's tinder tinder profile i get what you're saying i think i think i think like the writing you're describing i agree would have come after people were more settled and uh and there and there were more reasons to write things down or

whatever but there's definitely there's definitely got to be some push from religion far before any of this. I don't think religion even came out. I disagree. Early forms of description or scripture or something like that. I think that was like a bit later. But I think also, I mean, what we're talking about here is people who are really barely modern humans, right? They're very automatic right i mean using you know sort of setting down these civilizations are like the oldest ones right we're talking about

here is is this as you know that don't really we don't have good records for anymore because they're so ancient they don't really have any but you even look at sort of like the the medieval and maybe pre-medieval ages writing wasn't something that everybody did writing was something that like one or two people but they relied on it that's the thing yes they needed it i i still think that religion didn't happen until we start to settle down because that's when you start to bury your dead in a way in a minute all right i don't know i think it's been i think in in one form or another it's been around for it's like one of the first things like shamanism and just like but that's animism and basically um i'll eat these herbs and berries it's been around for it's like one of the first things like shamanism and just like

but that's animism and basically um i'll eat these herbs and berries it's almost like a sort of you know mystic witch doctor rather than talking about some great creation but that stuff does evolve into what we know it today mysticism is commonly one that we that is like this ancient idea i don't know why it's not in Civ. Again, you're bringing up a good one that's not here, Sips. Mysticism. Because that is a thing that humanity discovered and it affected us. And it also sort of provided people together more.

Well, it was the earliest kind of communication and also the earliest kind of moral code. So in earlier Civs, prior to 5, there was a tech called ceremonial burial. I mean, they thought that the act of burying a body and sensing that this body has some connection to something beyond death, that it needs to be honored, was a big step. Rather than just leaving them where they lay

and saying, well, we'll move on. You bury them. And having a ceremony around that was the start of rituals and religion comes from that. Because then you have someone saying, what happens to him after he dies? And then you need some kind of priest to say,

uh, and come up with something, right? And then where did we come from? And questions like that come about. Burying a body is not something that animals do, to the best of my knowledge. I know ants have a little ant graveyard so they might be next they might be at the start of the tech tree i think they just dump dead ones outside the nest or take them away so they don't go moldy or whatever if you were looking at us

you might say the same thing they just dig a hole and put them in the ground well i think but that is a big deal i think you've got to understand that these pre these humans were our same species they did feel sad when someone, they cared. And we evolved with emotions, right? These are important parts of our condition, right? Right, but codifying it, codifying it is religion. We look after each other. We are sad when one of us dies.

And I think that that innate part of our genetic code, right, has obviously led to this idea of you know sadness and loss and wanting to remember someone and wanting to revere someone who's helped or done good or you know right i think that in turn leads to this idea of of of mystic sort of thought you know but religion needs consistency or it's not a religion so that's why you need things like writing and a permanent society even a small one yeah that's what i'm yeah that's what i'm saying though i think that i think that earlier forms of writing were probably to do with religion in some way shape or form right because it requires it to be handed down

and for people to follow it so what's your vote for the ancient era? Let's move on. For me, it's farming. I think none of this happens without farming, but that's just me. Well, I think farming is super important for sure. I would agree with farming, but I just had questions around the sequencing and stuff. No, no, it's good to have a discussion. Let's move on to the classical era.

So this is when people started to greeks and the egyptians and all actually build things that we recognize yeah the egyptians the greeks the kind of large-scale constructions the pyramids and walls and and and bricks houses iron working you know wars yeah currency is obviously a huge one with with with you know being able to exchange a token for your labor and get that back when you want it rather than bartering. It's sort of the beginnings of civilization as well. The Greeks had amphitheaters. They had drama. They had poetry.

They had stories. They had philosophy. Absolutely. With the great Greek philosophers really lining down a very ethical code of conduct, you know, and, you know, how to believe, how to feel. I mean, honestly, it was also how to think. Like, how do we think about things? And some of the stuff they said, like Euclid and guys like that, was so fundamental that it seems obvious,

but nobody had said this stuff in Codafighter before. And that was, like, what they did in this era. But this was all built on the fact that now you had time to have lads whose entire job was wearing a toga and talking bollocks all day i mean we are the absolute extreme of that because we spend our time sitting around playing video games yeah or recording a fucking place togo with bathrobe and uh replace pajamas in my case and we're away yeah i mean exactly we are able to do this shit because there are other people out there as part of our wider society doing all the other jobs like making electricity come to my house making water go to all this shit so the the growth of

society these guys were at the start of it and even then they had time to have people whose whole job was thinking about maths like that's how quickly we advanced because of farming and the ability to settle down in permanent places not have to move to get food and then currency came about because we found out there were other people who had shit and we were like how are we going to trade with them i don't want to have to ship a million sheep over here and get 10 billion bushels of corn over here how about we give them money and then we can just buy shit from each other pretty pretty interesting vital to trade interesting it's this sort of era again i think a lot of people look at this era as some i mean it's still a still a long time ago and it kind of it seems glowing like in

terms of how we look at it right we imagine roman greece as these places with clean streets you know white white panel buildings but and then it sort of goes worse in a sense right it gets worse it goes all medieval and plaguey and everyone goes back to knights and fighting and crusading and stuff like this and you know it goes all kind of strange in the medieval era and the dark ages well they call it the dark ages but apparently that's not the the done thing now you mustn't call it the dark ages it's a out of date term for that era yes and i think it was because a lot of historians when they came up with the term were in love with ancient rome and ancient greece and saw it like you said as this ideal society i mean yes all conquering in the case of the romans you know they just fucking took places over but essentially what they achieved was unbelievable but it's funny that we look at

rome and greece as these amazing things but the egyptians were around for like 3 000 years being a civilization and building amazing things like the pyramids and having all of this shit and people don't really think about these great egyptian thinkers so my question is what happened in egypt and if i have no idea ancient egypt is a mystery to me it's more it's as ancient to the romans as the romans are to us yeah quite famously like that that's how ancient the pyramids were so when they look at the pyramids they were like that was the ancient world to them and the romans and the greeks were like this is the modern age now but to the egyptians were like the first major fucking civilization that stood the test of time i mean they would have won sieve they were they were around for 3 000 years yeah they had a lot of emperors so many that we're

discovering new ones even now because you know they're they're didn't they just discover one like recently like it's like gold-plated mummy or something like that in one at one of the tombs like this is like a couple of days ago schisms didn't they and as you as you could imagine when a new one comes along he wants to undo the last one he was unpopular or whatever or wipe him from the history books and so they they did tend to did tend to try and forget some of them. But yeah, this is a time that's not well documented. I think that's also an element of the Dark Ages. It didn't feel like there was like a lot of well-documented stuff.

You kind of had to figure it out by piecing bits of crap that you find in the ground together rather than having it written out for you, right? Maybe, yeah. But the dark ages was after rome what are these what are these core oh yeah it was in in the dark ages was like the early like uh hundreds a.d yeah like really really medieval where do you think we have what do you think of the big things from this time i mean obviously construction currency

drama i think engineering and mathematics have got to be the big the big ones i think i'd go with maths yeah i mean if you look at mathematics celestial navigation is big yeah i'll just read them out by the way because we didn't do that so it's still navigation currency horseback riding iron working shipbuilding maths construction and engineering. I mean, construction relies on engineering, essentially. Mathematics is the foundation for both. Yeah. Because if you're going to be building something, you need to have an understanding of sizes. So you'd need to make sure, for example, if you're building a house, that all four walls are the same height.

Yeah. The roof has a certain angle and all these things. And whilst you could definitely do that by eye, and I'm sure early huts and things they didn't say oh well mog your mud hut two fingers lower on left side oh embarrassing so i think early on of course that kind of those kind of houses you just stuck sticks in the ground and you know put your thatched roof on and covered it in shit and you were away with it but once you start building parthenons and pyramids yeah you need maths you do yeah aqueducts and all that shit yeah maths I think it's a good one let's go with maths math and um and we'll move on we just

skipping classical era we've just said maths let's go i think it's got to be the most the most important thing it stands out doesn't it i think philosophy and these things you're right like they're important and drama and poetry too like just kind but i think they are a continuation of what went before in in whereas maths feels like i don't know it feels like such a game changer yeah you know for humanity to understand there's these hidden rules behind the physical world and it's the same for everybody if you showed anybody maths it's like the it is the first universal language we've created it's saying it doesn't matter what language we speak one and one is two yeah that's it i mean you might have a different name for it

but these rules that we've come up with for things like trigonometry and all this kind of stuff is 100% true across the world for everybody. Yeah. And that's big. That's a big understanding leap that there are some fundamental rules to things. And from that, you get all sciences, I think, would probably come from mathematics. Absolutely. I would say maths is the root. However, one interesting thing.

What do you think about horses? Because without horses fuck all happens i think i think we relied so much on horses for so much so long that to ignore them would be kind of silly i think discovering the discovering um the usefulness of horses would have just happened no matter what whereas discovering mathematics was maybe less likely than the usefulness of horses you know what i mean well look if we talk about this there's got to be some sort of idea of a bottleneck right where a civilization can't advance beyond a certain level because they didn't have horses and i wouldn't necessarily think that horses were were were the

stumbling block no of human would have blocked up humanity getting to where it is right if horses didn't exist on the planet or you know some sort of you know would we still be here i think i don't think we would i don't think we'd be where we are without horses genuinely well but somebody would have somebody would have ridden a horse at some point had it not been the exact one person who did it. No, if there was no horses, that's a different thing. So the question is we're not talking about technology so much as the chance that horses, these incredibly useful animals, exist. We can't really rely on that.

We're just talking about people realizing that they can use something that does exist. Well, I think it's kind of a primitive. So this is where machinery comes in. So in the medieval era, we started to make machines. that they can use something right that does exist well i think it's it's kind of a primitive so this is where machinery comes in so many the media we even we started to make machines we obviously had some we had like levers and and screws and like wells and things like this right where you'd have the ability to make like like things that human labor or animal labor couldn't manage on its own right so you know like a crossbow is the classic example in civ where or a lumber mill where they have these big big pieces of machinery set up to

do something that a human or a horse can't pull you know yeah yeah so are we saying that necessity being the mother of invention if we didn't have horses we would have come up with something else which is why fred flintstone had the car prior to the domestication of horses that's right we'd never domesticate horses we'd all be right no no because back then they domesticated dinosaurs uh dinosaurs were they weren't riding them they could i'm sure i saw bam bam riding around on dino a couple of times maybe as a joke but they had fun yeah but Yeah, but maybe the first person who ever rode a horse just did it as a joke. Oh, Jean-Pierre, you're hilarious.

Get off of that steed. But no, Jean-Luc, look what I can do. I can plow a field. Try to catch me. Why don't you make me? I can pull a plow through the field now, idiot, stupid idiot.

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That's A-U-R-A Frames dot com. Check it out. So now we're jumping to the medieval era. Yeah, I think we need to move this on a bit because I think so much important stuff comes later. But we've got our choices here. I mean, the chivalry, of course. So we've got military tactics, the buttress, apprenticeship, stirrups, machinery, education, military engineering, and castles.

I got to say that for me me it's education in this list uh like because i think again it's it you know actually formalizing uh education and and sort of setting a like a baseline for some sort of education is probably more uh important for the long term uh over like a lot of the the sort of immediate things right like the like a like the code of chivalry i don't think is that is is huge long reach i agree i agree i mean it was definitely in the realm there are people who still practice that code today look at all the people that are willing to help you with gold and uh doing quests and wow and stuff especially males to females you know what i mean like uh there's still a lot of chivalry around today yeah you're right i see chivalry anymore no no they

don't really it's a i think a lot of these things are extensions of existing technology like stirrups for example machinery yeah yes very important but comes about because of engineering and mathematics and stuff like that yeah education they definitely had education in the past yeah so but but i think this is a more formalized idea of having specific buildings where you didn't just have to be a mate of plato's or whatever to get an education no this was more like people were becoming more educated even then they were probably still not very educated at the time but i think this leads more than they ever were maybe yeah i think it's the idea of of yeah of schooling and universities for the masses right for i mean not

then but it leads to it doesn't it it's leading on to the removal of this idea of of peasants and lords you know yeah that's the sort of feudal image isn't it of of of 99 of the populace being uneducated serfs and the one percent that we hear about you know the henry the eighths of the world yeah you know imagine a world where just one percent of the people owned everything and we're the rich ones unbelievable that's unreal those crazy medieval it's crazy isn't it to think that that was the case but it was back then like there was a very small proportion of the educated class who were the decision makers the the writers the history people the people who really kept civilization rolling and and most people were kind of living fairly

still agrarian i mean i would like to just point out that not much has changed in that regard we just know it's happening a little bit in the past the world i'm sure it's still the same so yeah i, the medieval era is an interesting one to think about because, as we've said, it feels like there wasn't a major turning point that seems obvious, right? Yeah. It's always

depicted as being so fucking dreary though, the medieval. It is. It feels like a pretty grim time, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Castles though. No castles, no kingdoms because you need castles castles are cool for sure and the fact that a lot of them are still more or less around shows that like they knew what they were doing to some extent they apparently did i mean people started to discover physics as well and these sort of other sciences and and also alchemy the quest to turn base matter into gold also sort of the beginnings of real

trade to like proper trade yeah between places on long distances like the silk road and and you know places like like guilds coming up and and merchant the merchant classes you know as a as an important part of civilization yeah right that started to become a thing here where there was a lot of that going on and i know like the it leads into the kind of i guess into the next era too like the renaissance which is which is our next era huge so what are we saying for medieval i think we're kind of i think we said education i think that was a good show you want machinery or education i think education i think education i think we're kind of i think we said education i think that was a good show you want machinery or education i think education i think education i think education is pretty good yeah i think machinery is a very good one and does lead into things for sure but i think that education

leads to things like the industrial revolution i think i think machinery is a bit vague as well because there was so much i guess you could treat every single machine like the lever and, you know, there's different types of. Yeah. I think it's not until we get to like steam power that we really have a big change. Like epoch defining change was the industrial era machinery. I think changed things more. But hey, what do we know? Renaissance era.

We got cartography, mass production, banking, gunpowder, printing, square rigging, astronomy, metal casting, and siege tactics. Holy crap. But there is one as well in this era which is very standout, which isn't on that list, which is the printing press. Printing is on there. It is on there. Oh, it actually says printing. It says printing. I didn't hear you say it.

Printing press. I might have missed it. I'm sorry. Actually, on the list fully is on there. Oh, it actually says printing. It says printing. I didn't hear you say that. Printing press. I might have missed it. I'm sorry. Actually, on the list, fully says printing press. Just saying. So the thing is, right, mass production,

that did make a difference. Yeah. If you've ever got the chance to watch The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski, Professor Bronowski, which was a TV show in the 70s on the BBC.

I have it on DVD. Unfortunately, my computer doesn't have a DVD player, otherwise I'd be watching it. He talks about what a difference mass production of things made. And one of the lines that he says really has always stuck with me. He said that the good life is not found in material decency, but the good life is based on material decency. So being able to have things like plates,

furniture, cutlery, clothing, that you can rely on to give you material decency leads to a better life for most people. And I thought mass production was really a part of that. Because rather than have to go to Steve the pot maker and get a pot from Steve, you could buy mass produced pots that were much cheaper because of it. So now everyday people certainly maybe in the Renaissance era,

but certainly as we come into the industrial era, the industrial revolution, everybody, whether rich or poor was able to at least have some level of material decency in these countries. I think so that was a big change in the way people lived. But that's just an early shout. Because cartography, of course, changed the face of the world. Having maps, if you look at medieval maps, they're fucking dog shit. Yeah, they are.

Having a good way, because we've got these ships, and we know there's stuff out there, so sailing around and conquering everything yeah because the renaissance era is kind of around the time where like the colonies like colonization of north america and stuff was happening yeah like proper not just turning up and conquistadoring everything but actually building a new nation yeah um in these places and being able to get there consistently and international trade and all the things that we were bringing back from those spaces like potatoes and tobacco and rubber and things like that. Spices and furs and all the important stuff. Without a good map, you're fucked.

You're just casting yourself into the ocean and hoping you hit the West Indies in America. the ocean and hoping you hit the west indies um this is true in america and of course this is all linked to astronomy too in the the age of you know looking at looking out of earth looking at the stars using the stars to navigate becoming celestial navigation was last era by the way we kind of skipped over yeah yeah but astronomy probably um becomes yeah astronomy leads to that yeah yeah so the other element that you sorry go on what was no i was just gonna say these top Probably becomes a bigger deal. But so banking as well. Sorry, go on. What was the next one? No, I was just going to say,

these top three are all really kind of super important. They're powerful. And then also remember gunpowder. Yeah, gunpowder changed everything. That's a big one, yeah. Banking in the Renaissance era is like the bank in Mary Poppins though, right? It's like that. It's not like the banking we know today it's it's it's important enough but i don't think

it's the most important thing in the in the era but it is kind of what it leads to because once you have banking you can start to have big companies yeah that can do things like run up debts and credits. And it does lead to... Yeah, but think about things like East India Company and stuff like that. Without banking, a lot of these big, big companies, how does that all work? How does it hang together? You need banking. And also leads to this merchant class having something to do with their money,

somewhere to keep it safe. You move away from just keeping it in a fucking vault like a dragon to having an organized system of finance is pretty pretty important for them growing the big companies that would go on to to drive the industrial revolution i think but yeah i mean i think you get these i think that what really happens is though i think we got science that drives things you know i think you can always say our chemistry physics these these these these fields drive innovation right like without chemistry and gunpowder we wouldn't have had the steam engine and this sort of thing right and the idea of outsourcing gunpowder i think was outsourcing killing to a machine kind of thing yeah and also the idea that you can take things from the ground and use that energy in lieu of your physical energy right like you

don't have to pump a thing manually you can you can burn something to get the energy out of it right and have that impact and i think i think that means that you can do more you can be more productive with your time these are obviously things that are important but i think the mass production element and also the printing press i think people will say, is one of the biggest breakthroughs because it was so crucial to mass. I mean, I guess it is part of the mass production element, right? The idea that you can share information widely, quickly with huge amounts of people and have it last for a long time. I mean, also, I think that the other thing about printing is, and the printing press, is if you think about what followed after this era, we had French Revolution, American Revolution

as two of the biggest of the time. And the ability now, if you start a printing press, more people are going to be reading, because there's something to read. So the printing press almost encourages people to learn to read because now you can read the news, you can read the things that they put on the boards, the proclamations are all printed and disseminated.

So you almost, because of printing, you empower people and that's how you have organized movements like revolutions and things like that. And if you have to ride around on a horse and say, Oi, village, are you guys ready for the revolution you'd be like what revolution you know i think we haven't been keeping up with humanity is a exponential sort of thing right where initially there were very small amounts of intellectual people doing intellectual things and making progress right and we've got millions of people on the planet who could be helping with this, right? Before the printing press, there were only 100 books in Cambridge University Library.

And the average cost of a book was more than the average worker made in a year. So books were, you know, astonishingly rare comparatively. And within 60 years, there were, you know, newspapers rare comparatively and within 60 years there were you know newspapers being spread across england and it was so much you know common people could have the bible in their heart in their house and it was a real game changer in terms of just increasing the intelligence of the planet and and at that point really that was such a turning point for everyone else getting involved and so many more people being able to contribute to advancements and invention and become you know push the human species forward right yeah it wasn't limited to the to the few people in their

monasteries or manor houses who had time and luxury to think um or make their lives easier right yeah everyone was able to start applying it to their own lives and do small inventions that that improve stuff which you still see today you know people are able to 3d print stuff now to to like just you know make a make in like microscopic changes in their lives you know invention is is just helped by more people so yeah mass production like you said i think i think they're part of the same thing really actually pflax that the idea that because that is what it is it's really interesting so i i must my vote mass production mass production mass production actually i think it's an interesting one i certainly think i mean when we

look at yeah the thing is if you look at gunpowder and stuff like that it's it's mass production of rifles it's mass production of cannons it's like producing the same thing that's going to work identically, perform identically, regardless of which one you've got. It's not like, it's the uniformity of things. And I think mass production leads to that, these processes that mean if I buy this musket a thousand times for a thousand guys, it's the same musket. So without mass production, you don't have gunpowder having an impact if everybody's got to fucking make their own.

Yeah. Or you go to your local musket maker. So in a way, mass production leads to reliability and uniformity, and I think that would be kind of important. A lot of the war stuff like sieges and cannons and gunpowder changed the way we fight, i don't think it it didn't change it sufficiently for me that it can it was a game changer yeah because we've had wars for thousands of years i don't think gunpowder changed the day-to-day lives of most people

they're going to be killed by a cannon or a shot instead of being killed by an arrow or spear they're still dead it ain't changing much you know what i mean i mean i'm sure it did change the way we fight but in terms of our day-to-day life i don't know though it again it allowed more peasants to become fighters right like you didn't have to train for years with a bow or be muscular or be you know or have to learn how to fight with a sword you just pointed a stick at someone and pressed a button you know pull the trigger so in a way it was a terrible advance you can only just any old lad stick a musket in his hand and suddenly you've got a soldier yeah yeah and i think that's where certainly the napoleonic wars came from it the wars shifted to this idea where of total war somewhere in the sort of yes i think it was the napoleon here but where basically

it went from you know major powers fighting with 5 000 or 10 000 people to fighting with hundreds of thousands of people and really just giving everyone in that anyone was now a soldier right and they didn't have to they didn't have this this specific sort of soldier in class or they didn't have to recruit the local lords and men at arms and all this right yeah just anyone just galvanizing the entire population to war but since everybody's doing that it's like an escalation of arms where it's all still equal it's definitely linked to the idea of this idea of mass production yeah which i think i'm still on board what do you think six yeah i think if you're going to say mass production? I'm still on board. What do you think, Sips? Yeah, I think if you're going to say mass production, which I could agree with, but I think industrial is done then. Because if you're saying mass production, then in the industrial area, you just have to take industrialization, right?

Over anything else. Well, we'll see. We'll see what there is. There's industrialization. There's electricity as well. So we're moving on to the industrial area. Industrialization, scientific theory, which is a big one. Biology. I'm going to

ignore electricity and military science because i think that's still an extension of what we had before we had steam power sanitation really shouldn't be there i think sanitation is a weird one to put there because the romans had some idea of sanitation but this idea of cleaning your hands before treating somebody that sewage was bad obviously that's important for sure and saved countless lives but really it's weird that i think industrial era medicine would be a better way of saying sanitation economics is pretty crazy important as well like this was this was such a huge era changing the the landscape of the world even now we feel the effects of course um yeah i mean industrialization is absolutely massive

shaped our country let's just talk about the uk the the uk was entirely defined by industrialization in terms of why cities are where they are what their specialties were shipbuilding coal mining factories mass production of things in industrial settings Industrialization is still how we live. Essentially, we live in industrialized societies. So industrialization, surely. But we then have scientific theory, the actual foundation of how we got most of the modern technology we've got is because of a consistent and rigorous scientific method that did away with a whole bunch of crap that we took for granted and considered fact and so well actually we need a a formal way of investigating the natural world and scientific theory did that i mean it was huge beginning not really in the industrial area but beginning with with isaac newton and people like that of formalizing science and without that i

don't think we get most of the other things that we've got on the list probably not yeah this is i mean the two the three big ones from here are as you said steam power the idea that you know you can put this put coal into something and it does the work of a hundred horses like what you were saying about gunpowder maybe discovering that you can burn this thing and it produces more energy than you put in it feels like that then steam power is like if we just heat this up this water will do the work of a thousand horses yeah and it's compact too so it's you know you can transport it where you need that energy i think a lot of people still argue about this and this is linked to electricity right electricity is obviously again a huge like tool that is that that makes things work right you can transfer electricity across hundreds of miles

you know and and nowadays anyway and and and it enables you to i think a lot of people measure the current global product productivity based on energy use. And that might well be the amount of coal burned, the amount of electricity used, whatever. And it's kind of a clever metric to use rather than gross domestic products or any of these sort of financial models. If you actually just look at how much resources are being burned to make other things, that kind of gives you an idea of the productivity of the planet. And it always seems to be going up too so here's a question though because our electricity still essentially relies on steam and turbines yeah a nuclear power plant is essentially a very efficient steam engine yeah you you heat water the water pushes a turbine and you generate electricity. So steam power is at the root of electricity.

And I mean, electricity as a thing wouldn't be as useful as it is if we couldn't mass produce it and ship it out to houses like the one that we all live in, that I live in here, that is recording this fucking podcast, Relying on Electricity, generated somewhere by steam. So in a way way steam power is is uh if we hadn't figured that out fuck electricity who gives a shit it's a novelty electricity is definitely towards the late end of this sort of thing i mean you get steam power

then you get electricity later and i mean also you've got elements of of other things like other bits like like medicine i think medicine is the other major thing that we should consider that isn't necessarily listed in this list well. Yeah, I think sanitation would be the best way to put it, even though it should really say early medicine. Medicine, pasteurization, penicillin. Yeah, all of that stuff. I mean, antibiotics weren't until this, you know,

the 1928 was penicillin was discovered but it wasn't really widely adopted until after world war ii or at least during world war ii so it's vaccines i mean we'd have to put vaccines in there amongst sanitation as well because all of a sudden you could have huge bustling cities where people didn't just all fucking die of smallpox or whatever uh you know because we we were immune to disease, allowed the industrialized world to expand the way it has urban centers to grow much denser without just saying, well, this is just a fucking cholera outbreak waiting to happen. You know, we had the elimination of diseases start to come in to the point where now we obviously we've just had COVID and it's relatively topical to talk about diseases in cities. I get that. had covered and it's it's relatively topical to talk about diseases and cities i get that but the point is the reason that everything up for us and we were all so shaken by it it's because

that doesn't happen these kind of things don't happen anymore no i mean you go back 150 years or whatever and this kind of stuff was or 200 years and it was everywhere people dying disease all the time and all kinds of dumb we don't die from now. So I think this was the start of modern medicine, really. I think people lived in fear of unknown stuff. It was kind of bad luck, you know, and sometimes, you know, the head of the family would be knocked off due to consumption or something, which obviously we now know is tuberculosis. And, you know, all of these other things that they were surrounded by death,

really, of this specter of disease. All the time, yeah. And kids and kids as well so many of them unbelievable could bump you off yeah and i think that again that modern medicine has led to this incredible spike in global population yeah infant mortality was the big one that kind of kept the population of the earth not constant but but lower than it is now for a long time and that's one of the reasons why you know in the last hundred years we've seen this growth you know almost exponential of of people on the planet and it's because medicine came in stopped all the babies dying but didn't change any other systems and so people were still having big families

because they knew that a couple of them would die it was a cultural thing right like we need we need to have these big families to work the fields or to to for our you know our clan or just custom you know these families have this also to look after you when you get old there's no pensions and shit like that's true yeah you need big families but so so from this list i think there there are probably there are four which is kind of tricky. Industrialization, scientific theory, sanitation, and steam power. I think industrialization moves into the mass production of the previous era. I think that scientific theory is important, but again, we can't just pick broad sciences because science is so incremental.

I think the invention of steam was a turning point, and the invention of electricity was something that was a very a real invention i think invent it's like steam power and electricity feel like those things were invented right um and discovered and you know and then kind of paved the way for industrialization after yeah as much as we think about things being gradual and everyone could have you know everyone can invent things i've already sort of said that but electricity was invented by very smart people at a time and used and really kind of it was i guess just feels so crucial right yeah to what went on i mean yes steam power was was important and everything builds upon each other but i don't know it just it's got that it's got that oh that element of just so so so necessary right it smoothed everything electricity and having it allowed us to have replace candles and burning oil you know in a

sense like imagine like if you if we killed all the whales earlier and no one had whale oil to burn would humanity have you know petered out right without you know you know if we'd had if we invented different things at different times i think this is an interesting idea to think about with other other it's that thing in in i can't remember what it's called where the um there's like these these barriers which civilizations have to overcome to to grow to go into space or whatever right and the idea is that the great the great um filters they're called yeah i think it's the great filter yeah so there's this idea that that the why why it's a fermi paradox here go so why

when we listen to space do we not hear any alien life right when millions of years has gone by and there should be some signals coming to us right because our signals are going out there now and sure they won't be there for you know tens of thousands of years but we should be hearing alien noise and the fact that we're not means that it's a bit unusual right like aliens haven't visited earth we haven't found any evidence of them visiting earth or the moon in them in the hundreds of millions if not billions of years that earth has been going around the sun so where is alien life and the idea is that there's these great filters which stop civilizations from growing now some of those we may have passed this is this is an interesting idea that there's some technologies or some things that humans might have done or

might not have barriers that we might not have been able to get over to that stopped us and and has that been is that where the other aliens yeah what if we're just the most advanced civilization in the galaxy it's possible yeah oh my god just through sheer luck i hope we are serendipity i hope we are yeah you want to be you don't want to be the least advanced to the galaxy that's for sure i played enough stellaris to know that so what are you going to go for you want to go for sanitation on any of this but i wonder like if what which of these technologies that seem simple in a sense now that we know them would or seem cultural too like you know all right so all right let's narrow this down to which do we suppose did the most good in terms of saving lives because that's generally what we've gone for is or what i've certainly been

thinking of is what has improved the life of the average person? Because if we're going to measure it based on military science, for example, probably not. But do we want to say, do we want to put medicine in here as well? I think we'll call sanitation, and it's listed as sanitation on the list, but it really should be the start of modern medicine. So the idea of medicine as a science, not just something some quack comes up with. But the idea of that being a science that leads just something some quack comes up with but if the idea of that being a science that leads to things like vaccines and stuff yeah i think i think probably that

honestly i like i i think it it's got to be the the most important thing right like and and and probably the basis for a lot of the important things that happen too right without it without it you don't you don't have a lot yeah you don't have a lot of the stuff that comes out of it. That's what I think, anyway. Modern era. We've got, yeah, medicine, we go medicine. Modern era. Flight.

Oh, my God, we still have so many more eras to go. Yeah, I know. There's only two more eras. Flight, replaceable parts, steel, refining, electricity, radio, chemistry, and combustion. Oh, my God. There's so many good ones in modern. It's crazy. Yeah.

Flight is pretty insane. Combustion is kind of nuts. Electronics is kind of nuts. Flight is kind of nuts. I mean, steel obviously is vital because of the things we could build with it. But in a way, that's building on Iron Age and Bronze Age and all the rest of it. So that's not sort of a brand new idea that we use metal to make things but steel being as strong as it is yeah meant we

could build an awful lot more because if you if you don't have steel there's a lot of stuff that we can't do that we're never able to build but electricity which leads to radio radio is huge right being able to communicate with people instantaneously and not just like the telegraph, but literally people's voices, music, and then that leads to television and all that. Yeah, well, I think the thing is though, radio, television, all filters into mass media,

which was apparently removed in Gods and Kings. So I don't think it's important. It wasn't important enough because they removed it in Gods and kings so i don't think it's important it wasn't important enough because they removed it in gods and kings so yeah they removed so i think everything that you just said is actually cancelled out i think radio is really cool though like and it is refrigeration though it's got to be got to be a big one too right that's later i think isn't it no it's modern true i don't see it in modern era So Sips and I are looking at the Civ 5 list You're looking at the Civ 6 list

I clicked the one that you sent And I opened that List of technologies in Civ 5 I'm clicking on the link I'm looking at the list of technologies in Civ 5 as well I don't know how you ended up on the wrong one I don't know how I did either I'm looking at it though

This is a simpler list That other one is a fucking nightmare i haven't brought it up earlier because i i it was good your list slightly different yeah we end up we have a different we get more we get more info how has it taken us an hour to realize this well we're not the smartest people all right sorry about this so i mean replaceable parts is an extension of mass production i think the idea that something can you can make something and just slot out some bits that that's like an extension of that very important of course but i feel like what about flight right flight is huge flight is huge it is it is it is big but i don't know if it's if it's like uh like honestly a bigger deal than refrigeration

like maybe you guys will think i'm nuts but i think refrigeration is no no i i think you are a hundred percent right because refrigeration don't don't don't forget that refrigeration is important for not only preserving uh and and and lengtheningening the freshness of food, right? But it's also used in medical applications. It's also used in industrial applications. Like there's a ton of different things that you would use refrigeration for. Modern life would not be without air con. Don't even get me started.

Honestly, I think you're right. I mean, especially if we put something like, say, canning foods in amongst refrigeration. So the preservation of food past just a field-to-plate sort of mechanical, keeping grain in a silo and hoping for the best. Being able to preserve things absolutely led to the industrialization of food as you can just ship it in a fucking refrigerated container and now i get my avocado on toast every morning no problem so yeah changed modern life for sure i think refrigeration is a very good yeah it is but but is it more important than electronics

yeah it is for sure because i'm on the as as electronics are, and there's no denying that they are important, they are massively important. I think refrigeration is something that improves the quality of our health and lives, right? More so than electronics. Oh, I'm not saying it doesn't. I mean, electronics in medicine, obviously, for modern medicine is a huge thing too. But if you're thinking of electronics in a day-to-day sense there's a lot of electronics we could just having access to twitter and social media really doesn't actually help our else whereas refrigeration keeps us alive i think it does however however bear in mind that we're

talking about this in terms of the convenience and how good it is. I mean, refrigeration has preserved Walt Disney for all these years as well. So like in terms of actually fully keeping people going. But just consider the damage that the ability to refrigerate meat and ship it from, say, Brazil has done. Like if we want to talk about the harmful effect of some of this technology, that gets very difficult because then oil refining has not been great for the planet but has been incredible in every other regards oil is is a fantastic you would not yeah you would not have dildos without

it like it's you wouldn't know right then it would be made of baker light and they'd fall apart yeah yeah you'd have to use like old corncob or something, and nobody wants it. It's disgusting. That's what they used to have to use back in the day, right? No thanks. I mean, oil is massive. That gives us

plastics, which are ridiculously fucking useful, but also have an enormous cost. So it's weird because a lot of these technologies, as you move on, the more incredible they are, the more damaging, in a way, and harmful they've been as well. So it is kind of a tricky one.

I mean, combustion, you know, now we're getting into things like the atomic era, and now we've got the ability to destroy our planet instantly. nuclear fission penicillin radar rocketry yeah i mean these are all big ones these are i still for me it's penicillin on there though like i think anything that that improves health or prolongs life or whatever has got to be the the standout for it for any era right i'd say for for for nuclear fission you could argue that uh it does as well because it's um because because coming back to what we're saying about energy and energy powering everything heating heating homes uh providing you with a means to actually uh cook your your food and prepare your food and and and and and therefore prolong your your life and be uh food and and and and and therefore prolong your your life and be uh hopefully healthier and stuff like that i i would put up there too but i think

penicillin is just such a such a is that on the list yeah in the atomic era it's got its own one on this it's got its own it's got its own one in the atomic era i think the um sort of modern era what are we saying i think for modern era i think you've got to think for me it's refrigeration modern era but i think that that that means you have to say electricity yeah because you don't have refrigeration without electricity you can have refrigeration though without electricity well i'm not all right i've played rimworld as well yes you can make those fucking cool yeah and you can have like uh you can have a around for a very long time as well come on right or the ice house that they like of course where they just stuck a bunch of ice in an underground i think electricity has to be the most important

for how it's changed our lives nearly fucking destroyed the planet when we were destroying the ozone layer with all those yeah but like i the modern stuff has contributed but no no electricity no nothing really none of this fucking stuff works without electricity all right well let's say electricity back on let's put it even though it wasn't discovered in the world let's switch it back on widespread use let's get let's get the let's get the lights back on right so next up we have for atomic era atomic for me it's got to be penicillin right it has to be well we've already done the easy one would be computers because we're all sitting in front of one right now and probably we'll be spending the rest of our day at one

as well but i think computers absolutely has to be considered the most important advance that we've made in a way because it's that they have enabled I mean what we're talking about previously about horses doing the work that a person can't and then gunpowder and now my graphics card does all the work of mining bitcoins and stuff so I mean the computer can do stuff that would take us centuries and thousands of years to figure out and it can do it so the computer has advanced us that much all right sorry penicillin you had your chance but computers have won again with medicine well no penicillin's already on the list it's under medicine okay we said that the origins of

modern medicine led to penicillin like and vaccines so we're saying computers which is going to lead into the information age yeah so it So it's got to be the internet, right? Let's just quickly go over the couple that we haven't done to do with like... The internet is only available in the Brave New World expansion pack, though. I just want to say. So if you don't have the Brave New World expansion pack, you're not allowed to vote. No computer for you. Yeah.

No internet for you. You can have the computer, but you just won't be able to do as much with it. Yeah. It'll be like the 80s many of these technologies now are nebulous in a sense right these modern information era ones we've obviously we've skipped the the idea of atomic theory and nuclear weapons of things which was obviously a huge a huge technological advancement whether or not it's actually good for the planet god knows i suppose some people think that actually with nuclear stuff it's it's it was convenient we discovered it when it was discovered

right and so what happened was we we discovered it there was a war it was used during the war and then like we um we kind of saw how awful it was immediately right and we it i mean sure we had the cold war which is a terrible time where there was this death hanging over the whole of civilization this idea of apocalypse the first time humanity really could have destroyed itself right that's the argument filter right there not nuking ourselves yet absolutely like this is definitely one of those the ideas that that it could have easily gone and it still could could. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Like, there's this terrifying specter, really. It's not disease that we're scared of now.

It's idiots with a button. Yeah. But beyond that, like, we have this idea of future technology. You know, this rocketry sending stuff into space, all the modern ideas of genetic manipulation, nanotechnology, robotics, satellites. The internet, I think, is obviously something more. You know, I think it is a step up, right? Whereas personal computers, you know, were just good.

They were like typewriters and, you know, calculators all in one. I think the internet your phone without the internet for example i mean phones are obviously a huge huge thing but but your phone without the internet is really not as impressive right yeah yeah now we've got the internet everything prior to it looks dog shit quite honestly that's the problem is that the the access to knowledge the the access for communication is insane to have at your fingertips and it's completely changed the way we we do a lot of things for good and ill so i i my money's on the internet as being like the idea

of the entire fucking planet being able to talk to one another is insane yeah that is kind of what i like being able to see satellites on there satellites of course have changed an awful lot and and we're very are very very important without them all of this fucking shit falls down the internet and all the rest of it so satellites absolutely vital but a lot of that stuff is supporting a base infrastructure which is global telecommunications and the internet yeah and the fact that i could email anybody anywhere voice chat with anybody anywhere zoom calls whatever you want with anybody anywhere on the fucking planet access to computer is absolutely bonkers hey i got an email just this morning from the prince

of nigeria okay and i've never even been there before in my life so exactly and he needs help he wanted 300 bucks for some reason. I would have thought that he probably would have had enough, but I guess maybe, you know, Did you not read the email?

I didn't have time because I got emails from other people as well. I'm a busy guy. Wow. Like the Prince of Azerbaijan. Yeah.

Somewhere else. Azerbaijan. Wow. Wow. Yes. I mean, I think if we, if we look at telecommunications,

telecommunications, telecommunications, the internet, if you took anything that we have nowadays and went back 200 years, that would probably be the one that blows their mind the most. The idea that, you know, you could call someone up on the other side of the planet and have an instantaneous conversation.

This has happened during our lifetime too, right? Like when I was a kid growing up, the idea that you could voice call someone with your face right on the screen and you could have you could have a phone call with someone face to face that was the future that was yeah it was pure star trek that was that was that we couldn't fathom that you would be able to to do that right in our lifetimes really and it happened you know and suddenly you're able to voice chat with people online and it's it's happened in 20 years like yeah yeah it's amazing it's actually like crazy changes and think about things like amazon and and all that shit that's completely changed the way we shop

and everything has been affected by the internet um so yeah and the way we behave and who knows how it's going to change us change language absolutely and change so you're going to take the internet over stealth you're a brave man stealth technology i am and and composite materials i'm taking it over composite materials as well so yeah i'm happy to go with that i mean robotics and all the rest of the yes but i don't think robotics really whilst it has has had a big effect i think the the true effect of robotics will be in the next century or two that as more and more things start to be robotized and the internet is obviously i think linked to that and without the internet we don't really have the advances in ai that we've had lately

and all that kind of stuff so i think the internet has to be the one for this era. It's yeah. For the information era, for sure. I think as much as I keep saying this, like, you know, humanity, we are the same organisms that were tribes howling at the moon, fighting,

you know, saber tooth tigers. Well, okay. Not, not them, but you're joking me. We,

we were the same, we were the same, Ugg and Mog, you know, you know, struggling to survive in caves. Ugg get ratioed real bad. But things have changed.

We have got, you know, this modern living, and it's easy to forget the background support that we have that keeps us going. You know, the clean water the the medicine you know the we got there we covered all that yeah they a lot a lot of the stuff that we we live and i think this this i know we're ranking what the best technologies are and i think it's it's obviously we're also arguing in this podcast about what constitutes best right like is it best for humanity is it best for our current is it, is it best for humanity? Is it best for our current, is it convenience? Is it best for the most people?

Because, you know, I think that that is hard to quantify. Certainly medicine was this hugely important thing for so many people, stopped so much suffering, you know, in the world. And so I think if you're, it's going to be hard to, anyway, let's go down the list of things we've written. All right, go on then because i'm glad you've written it down i didn't write it down so i made a mental note so

refrigeration um in the ancient era we had penicillin in there too we had farming agriculture animal hospital the general idea of settling down uh but farming really, and discovering that you could stay in one place. In the classical era, we had education, schooling, I guess. In the medieval era, we had the idea of mass production, kind of blended with the printing press, because that was at the same time. The Renaissance era has medicine in its modern form of uh sanitation but uh i suppose eventually leading to vaccination and pens in as well which will lump together in medicine i know it's not quite the same time but we don't we don't study germs we're not looking under microscopes and all the rest of it so i think that absolutely what was the start of all that yeah yeah and then the

industrial era has electricity and electronics um into modern era, the idea of the starting thing. And this leads us into the atomic era of computing and the personal computer, followed by the information age. And certainly what it looks like is in the last 200 years, we have basically said electricity, electronics, computers, the the internet and then what sips would also want to add which is refrigeration and stealth as well i think because just so fucking cool just get it in there you know just it is honorable mention let's say you know what since it didn't make it to the list let's do big ups to stealth this week come on like that's fucking awesome forget about the wheel don't forget about the wheel you know we talked about the wheel for a good 20 minutes it's true um we

did talk about the wheel for a good 20 minutes well i think that ancient stuff was is really interesting to think about we can see and feel the effect of the internet i still feel though my only understanding of it all is uh it really is the Flintstones. So, like, I can't get past the visual. I did get that impression. It's the visual, you know? Yeah. And I guess the future version of that would be like Futurama. You know, that's where we're going.

Yeah. We're not covering anything in the future. Star Trek, maybe. Yeah. We're not going to speculate. We're not going to speculate. No. Well, we're not going to speculate forward.

We're going to speculate backwards. We're going to speculate all over the place. Yeah. I mean, like, thinking about the future just quickly as well like if we're getting into if we're looking at future tech and we're looking at like say the holodeck a lot of the stuff that we've added on the list but also the the thing we added to to our big up of the week as well are all important for those things because without say uh computers and without say like the internet you could argue the holodeck would never be created.

But then also, without stealth, Geordi LaForge would have never been able to almost sexually assault Deanna Troi in the holodeck either. So, you know what I mean? Like, it all in a roundabout way came together. He's right. Yeah, it's a big circle. Yes. It turns out. Right.

Well, what's your pick of these then just i want you to pick one off the list sips as in of all of them which is the most what's your one that you're gonna pick i gotta go with the net guys i gotta go with the internet for me it's the internet for sure man i love the internet like i hate it and i love it at the same time but like i can't imagine like what a day of my life would be without the internet honestly like it is just it is the best it's a pretty good invention congrats to old um what's his name al gore don't say tim burner's fucking lead please don't let me get into this about this the other day i had a rant about this the other day. The internet was not one person's thing.

It was Al Gore's thing. It was not Al fucking Gore either. It was, and then he had an affair with Larry David's wife after he invented the internet. Yes, it's true. Oh, my goodness. My personal pick is farming, because without that, I don't think any of this happens. Wow, so you picked the first one, so let's pick the last one. I was going to pick medicine.

All right, well, good for you, nerd. Good choice. I'm willing to switch to the internet. Yeah, the internet, come on. Let's have a unanimous internet. I think the internet deserves it. No, no. As the greatest technological invention of all time.

Yeah, where the heck would we be? Like, our lives are short. Living in a cave without farming. Our lives right now are short, right? Like, we're- Not relatively speaking. Fairly, though. In the grand scheme of things-

Relative to humanity. You get to the end of your current life right now, you're going to look back and you're going to say that the thing that- I spend too much time online is what i'm gonna you will but it's also uh it was also the the the thing that enabled you to have the the life that you've lived right like it like a relatively comfortable what do you eat life do you eat yeah the internet yeah well i eat food that i buy with money that i made from being on the internet the only reason there's food for you to buy with the money you made from the internet is because someone invented fucking farming

sure otherwise you got to grow that shit yourself and we have to constantly be on the moon i got a garden i could grow some it's laptop only i don't think it would last me a year all right well i tried i tried well do you know what that swayeded me, P-Flex. I agree. Farming. I'll fuck you both. I'll go back to farming. I'll fuck both of you. Enjoy your field. I'll be sitting here in my garage playing games on the internet. No, you won't.

You've got to keep on the move. You've got to keep on the move. You can't have a garage. I'm not on the fucking move. Yeah, you have to be. There's no food. You've got to go find some, bud. I'll just buy some.

Go foraging. From who? I'm just going to order some. The supermarket has been invented It's around Berries Berries for sale One bushel please

It's almost like he's farmed those berries And now he's selling them to you He's onto something We're starting it We're starting civilization But we're ending this podcast That're starting civilization, finally. Holy crap. That was a bit longer than we expected. But I had fun talking about history for an hour.

I hope you did too. Thank you for joining us and please don't write to us about how wrong we are. I don't want to hear about this one. Please do not email us. Please do not email us. Please do not email us.

Do not. Thank you. We'll see you guys next time. Bye.