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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 4655701" data-attributes="member: 57939">Okay then, which kind of technology is superior: agricultural technology that produces an extremely high yield, but requires a large amount of fossil fuels to support its production, or agricultural technology that produces lower yields, but is extremely energy efficient. As another example, which computer is superior: one that has incredibly high processor speed, but is extremely expensive because it relies on complex internal cooling, or a computer that is far inferior in processing power and memory, but is cheap and reliable enough to be commonly available to everyone. By your definition, it is impossible to directly compare these technologies. After all, a machine designed for efficiency, and one designed for power, even if they are the same kind of machine, possess different "intended functions". There is another problem as well. Let's consider a knife, and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. If you were to ask someone which one was more technologically advanced, most people would say the handgun. At 60 feet away, the gun has a distinct advantage. But if your target is right in your face, the knife becomes the superior weapon. To continue the same analogy, lets look at the case where in the early Vietnam war, American jets were not armed with machine guns. Military designers had written them off as obsolete in the face of the rise of missile technology which could shoot down an enemy at extreme long range. But in a close quarters dogfighting, those American jets were at a significant disadvantage since their enemies had guns and they didn't. Military experts were forced to admit that machine guns still had a role. These cases prove that changes in situation can effect the "superiority" of a technology.Now then, if the relative effectiveness of a technology is highly dependent on situation, and if even the same technology can be developed based on varying intended functions, how can we really say that it is easy to measure the "superiority" of technology? Okay, what are "measurable stages of development"? In my studies, I have not seen any two societies travel along the same course of development. The roads that all civilizations on Earth have traveled to reach the place where they are now is unique. If you do think there are "measurable stages of development", could you name them?Based on your comments here and earlier in the thread, it seems to me that you have been taken in by the historical theory put forward by Karl Marx, who segregated society into four types: the early Slave-based societies like that of ancient Rome, the feudal societies of the Middle Ages, the capitalist societies of Industrialized Europe that he lived in, and the unchanging, static Asiatic societies. However, if you look closely at his theory, three of his types of society are economic in nature, and put forward as a set progression that history will follow. The fourth however, Asiatic, is geographic in nature. Marx's division of civilizations into those four catagories really speaks of how little he knew about the so-called "Asiatic" civilizations. Any Historian who has actually studied Asian history knows that the civilizations of India, China, and so on underwent significant change and development across the course of history. Marx wrote them off as "static" Asiatic civilizations because he didn't know all that much about Asian history, and those societies didn't fit into the neat categories of his theory. Instead of studying those societies more and adapting his theory to fit them, he just ignored them.The problem of simple ignorance is a big one. The reason Ydars wrote off Japan as "culturally stagnant" was because the only thing he knew about Edo-period Japanese technology was that they were still using 200 year old muskets. Unfortunately, it is hard to get around this problem. Even my History professors were susceptible to it. For example, one of my Japanese history teachers once argued that Japanese samurai armor was superior to Medieval knight's armor because of its lighter weight. He used the example of how a knight couldn't get up off the ground without assistance if he fell off his horse. I had to roll my eyes at that. Thanks to my involvement in reading D&D boards, I have picked up that a knight in properly fitted plate armor was actually very mobile. My Japanese history professor simply didn't  know much about European history, and thus relied on "common knowledge" facts, which is the most dangerous thing a historian can possible do.</blockquote>

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