I was inspired to post this by seeing a piece of bread fall out of a bread bag and then onto my kitchen floor. I thought to myself, "Bread is cool. I don't know what I'd do without it."

I wonder how many great things like bread that never existed could have. They say wheat was made by a cross of two grass varieties. This new grass grew in a little spot. Eventually, people found it and started cultivating it.

Let's say instead of people finding it, a herd of hungry goats found it and ate the whole damn spot, roots and all, and then wheat was never domesticated. Makes me think about how big of an impact that would've made on history. Then, I wonder what other wild cross of grass was in fact eaten by goats, or otherwise eliminated.

I wonder if we could have had a food source superior to wheat, but by random chance, just missed out on it.

The same thing could be true to any invention, discovery, or innovation. And I still think Christianity prevented an industrial revolution in the 1200s. I could be exercising on a holodeck right now...Bastards.

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

Actually, most things arrive in their own time. Calculus, for example, was discovered by Newton and some other chap on the other side of the globe at about the same time. It was just "time" for Calculus. Knowledge had simply gotten to that point in general, and if you killed Newton, another would have taken his place. Likewise, Hitler wasn't so much the cause of all evil as was Germany simply ready for such a person. And so it is with wheat--the details might have been altered, but the fundamentals remain pretty constant.

Enjoy.

teller said:

Wonderful answer.

My pleasure...and I didn't even beat you over the head! LOL...sorry...these posts will go down in recent history as "teller's drunken hubris." Edit: Well, not these posts.
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[This message was edited Sun Nov 10 6:25:16 PST 2002 by teller]

teller said:

You have to have certain conditions present before advancement can take place.

But I wonder how many time you've had all those conditions present, but for some reason, the new advancement was delayed.

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

Indeed! It could happen...Calculus could have been delayed for decades. But when you zoom out you'll find that the industrial revolution didn't depend on any one single individual.

teller said:

You're point is fairly sound in that any invention is simply a matter of "standing on the shoulder of giants". In that an invention of any nature is mostly taking one idea and expanding it.
However, I think the illustration of Hitler is wrong. Germany at the time was reeling from the Depression and needed stronger politicians than it had. But to go further than that is just wrong. Hitler was evil and managed to manipulate the state around his madness as a direct result of the populations very understandable insecurities. That doesn't shift the blame from him, and nor should it. Ever.

teller said:

Wasn't it more based on social conditions which promoted factory labor? An overabundance of population?

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

Not at all...it was based on the sudden appearance of property rights, only available in America. Factory labor was one side-effect. Had there not been a place like America where businesses could thrive, you'd have another 1,000 years of the dark ages where even the Kings and Queens really didn't know what caused the creation of wealth.

teller said:

True, but didn't those property rights begin in England? I was thinking that's why the industrial revolution began there like 100 years before it started in the U.S. I assumed it had to do with higher population densities, but I'm sure property rights had a lot to do with it as well...

Great I have to be drunk to finally start catching up with the people with brains on this site LOL
But I do beleave that things do happen when they are "needed" or something akin to that at least when they will benifit the "enviorment" or force some sort of development around them ...
God I am too drunk to explain that one but perhaps someone with more than one workin brain cell will understand that ... lol

dewmass said:

Well I don't want to remove blame from Hitler, but the political atmosphere in Germany at that time was turning decidedly Fascist. Hitler was popular, and that was no accident. True, if he had never existed, perhaps things would have been better...who can say...?

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

England did turn decidedly capitalistic as the period of the Enlightenment cast a fine glow across the world for a time. Libertarian ideas about freedom were taking hold, and England had a head-start on the United States. But the U.S. was more free as it didn't have the baggage of the past, and it quickly outpaced Europe.

But it didn't stick...the 20th century will be remembered as a wrong turn.

Money is a big reason...governments STILL don't understand how to create stable money, and inflation leads to war. Deflation is just as bad, as the Great Depression shows, as well as the current deflation and it's accompanying economic down-turn.