Wow, that was great. I've always been fond of Braudel. I find his materialism refreshing.
One invention from the 13th century revolution not mentioned, the chimney fireplace with its ability to create a draft and produce hotter and more efficient fires. This benefited northern Europe in a lot of ways. Just being able to keep warm and cook with less wood is revolutionary. Even now one runs into articles on technologies to get third world people a better way to cook than using an open wood or dung fire.
If you've done work in industrial intelligence, you develop a sense that inventions are only meaningful in an ecology. Wheels are only useful if you have roads, a relatively gentle topography, draft animals and a need to travel places without good water routes. It's like a game of Tetris. It is nearly impossible to build a tall, skinny tower. One has to fill in the layers one by one. Our technology base is broad and deep. I once took a course where we discussed why the ancient Romans couldn't make integrated circuits circa 1971, so we didn't need to imagine Romans firing lasers at molten tin droplets. Still, we had a lot to discuss.
Edison's breakthrough wasn't the light bulb, it was the electrical utility and house wiring. Morse's breakthrough wasn't his code or the telegraph, but an insulated wire suitable for use outdoors. Tesla's breakthrough wasn't his electric car. It was his network of charging stations. He even gave early adopters free charging like Straus subsidizing pasteurized milk to encourage its adoption.
It's one thing to build a simple steam engine to open a heavy door. That's a one shot demo. If you wanted to adopt steam powered doors for ordinary use, you'd run into issues of energy efficiency, standby power, control and safety and architectural modifications. Then there's the why would one want such a thing. Mines in the ancient world rarely ran deep. It is only when one has developed deep rock mining technology that the issue of pumping water out of deep mines emerges. There has to be an ecology with push and pull.
O-Ring theory sounds interesting. It's not the only theory that deals with the benefits of concentrated skills. Didn't you point out a paper some time ago describing the innovative benefits of urbanization in that it allows skills to aggregate as cities encourage communication between skilled people? I wonder what O-Ring theory says about subcontracting important components of one's business to other companies since the corporate barrier prevents skill levels from concentrating.
Skill concentration seems to have pre-economic roots. There was recently an article in Science about how "Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics" which looks at the way skills are transmitted. I love one particular line, re: Micronesian navigational skills, "Few aspirants, however, succeeded in being initiated as masters because some of the most important skills were nonintuitive, difficult to learn, and unforgiving of mediocrity ...."
Wow, that was great. I've always been fond of Braudel. I find his materialism refreshing.
One invention from the 13th century revolution not mentioned, the chimney fireplace with its ability to create a draft and produce hotter and more efficient fires. This benefited northern Europe in a lot of ways. Just being able to keep warm and cook with less wood is revolutionary. Even now one runs into articles on technologies to get third world people a better way to cook than using an open wood or dung fire.
If you've done work in industrial intelligence, you develop a sense that inventions are only meaningful in an ecology. Wheels are only useful if you have roads, a relatively gentle topography, draft animals and a need to travel places without good water routes. It's like a game of Tetris. It is nearly impossible to build a tall, skinny tower. One has to fill in the layers one by one. Our technology base is broad and deep. I once took a course where we discussed why the ancient Romans couldn't make integrated circuits circa 1971, so we didn't need to imagine Romans firing lasers at molten tin droplets. Still, we had a lot to discuss.
Edison's breakthrough wasn't the light bulb, it was the electrical utility and house wiring. Morse's breakthrough wasn't his code or the telegraph, but an insulated wire suitable for use outdoors. Tesla's breakthrough wasn't his electric car. It was his network of charging stations. He even gave early adopters free charging like Straus subsidizing pasteurized milk to encourage its adoption.
It's one thing to build a simple steam engine to open a heavy door. That's a one shot demo. If you wanted to adopt steam powered doors for ordinary use, you'd run into issues of energy efficiency, standby power, control and safety and architectural modifications. Then there's the why would one want such a thing. Mines in the ancient world rarely ran deep. It is only when one has developed deep rock mining technology that the issue of pumping water out of deep mines emerges. There has to be an ecology with push and pull.
O-Ring theory sounds interesting. It's not the only theory that deals with the benefits of concentrated skills. Didn't you point out a paper some time ago describing the innovative benefits of urbanization in that it allows skills to aggregate as cities encourage communication between skilled people? I wonder what O-Ring theory says about subcontracting important components of one's business to other companies since the corporate barrier prevents skill levels from concentrating.
Skill concentration seems to have pre-economic roots. There was recently an article in Science about how "Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics" which looks at the way skills are transmitted. I love one particular line, re: Micronesian navigational skills, "Few aspirants, however, succeeded in being initiated as masters because some of the most important skills were nonintuitive, difficult to learn, and unforgiving of mediocrity ...."