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Comment by itsarnavb | Hacker News Reader

Now I'm imagining what history would have looked like if the alchemists had indeed stumbled upon a floating lead apatite sample a few centuries ago...

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Good idea! They wouldn't have been able to do any applications without a voltaic cell, and it would have been a novelty. Like gunpowder in ancient China.

The force of tradition is amazing. Imagine centuries knowing how to make something that explodes violently, and using it for entertainment instead of weapons.

Just like how Mesoamerican civilizations invented the wheel, but only used it on children toys and not for transportation. There were no draft animals in the region, but they didn't even make wheelbarrows.

https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/the-concept-of-the-...

Is there a name for this kind of effect?

The "untyped languages are just fine" effect :P

"The road not taken" is a Science Fiction trope that generally explores that idea.

I always call this a "local maximum" problem. Once you've optimized the crap out of your tech, any change makes it worse (e.g., replacing crossbows with primitive guns). But if you do switch, then optimizing that technology takes you to an even higher maximum.

The problem is that you have to go backwards to go forwards, and you can't always predict (or convince the powers-that-be) that the end result will be better.

Extremely relevant to electric cars. Looks like we are close to electric > ICE, (or past that point, whatever), but it was a long painful time of hyping subpar cars by those who believed in the potential of the technology.

Agreed! I also believe that once we flip (EV > ICE) the momentum goes the other way.

For example, let's say that 50% of cars on the road are EVs. Now gas stations have a problem. You can't survive with half your customers gone, so maybe half the gas stations go out of business. But that means your nearest gas station is much further away, so now the incentive for EV goes up.

In California (and the Bay Area, particularly), I bet we'll see this relatively soon.

Keep in mind, the Chinese were using bombs, granades, and rockets in warfare. Cannons were slowly being incorporated during the Ming.

It’s just that, the Chinese also had standardized crossbows capable of punching through armor, and allowed for long range sniping, centuries before gunpowder. The Manchus who founded the Qing dynasty valued archery, and were slower to adopt firearms. The mid and late Qing period saw firearm military units, with bows and arrows evolved for powerful short range attacks, ceding long range to firearms.

Even so, it looks like Chinese generals were interested in fielding firearms, and found them effective.

Wikipedia has a list of theories on why gun development stagnated, and the leading theory is that Chinese fortification were more resistant to cannon fire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_weapons_in_the_Min...

As far as Mesoamericans and wheels, I’m not sure the hilly terrain and dense jungle would make wheeled transports that easy. They seemed to be able to create step pyramids with stone just fine.

Even in the west, firearms took centuries of evolution and constant peer-level warfare to evolve into the primary weapon.

The Mesoamerican civilizations did not have copper, bronze, or iron metallurgy which is a prerequisite for making the metal rims needed for transportation wheels. A wooden wheel without a metal rim is too fragile for transportation.

Without the wheel, humans are actually relatively comparable to other pack animals in carrying efficiency. It is the wheel that makes moving larger loads more efficient which makes it advantageous to domesticate pack animals that can exert greater force.

Bronze was extremely common in Mesoamerica for household goods like needles and fishhooks. Copper was also common, but mainly for ceremonial and ornamental objects like bells.

As for wooden wheels being too fragile, you can build a perfectly good wheel without metal bands. It's simply going to be heavy and annoying if you're trying to run a wagon to Oregon.

Another example that I read about once and have never been able to verify (or it may be completely made up) is that the because the Chinese invented porcelain first (which was more sturdy than glass or something) they never bothered with glass, which meant they missed out on all the cool astronomical discoveries (which then has implications on their development of mathematics and physics).

Again, no idea if there is any validity to this or just something completely made up.

The Chinese invented cannons about the time they invented gun power. However by coincidence their forts used stone walls thick enough to resist cannon fire and so it was not really better than the various catapult systems they also had (which also couldn't breach their fort walls).

https://acoup.blog/2021/12/17/collections-fortification-part... Goes into this in more detail for a couple paragraphs.

Shooting in steep trajectory, howitzer style, would still be valuable.

You have to know it’s possible, and be able to aim at useful internal targets despite this being well before aerial surveillance photographs and calculus.

My guess is there’s probably a whole bunch of neat things we could build with existing manufacturing tools, that we don’t yet know are even possible, and which the future will have similar discussions about.

The introduction of counterweight trebuchet from the Mongol empire in Persia for the seige of the Southern Sung city of Xiangyang is well documented here:

https://deremilitari.org/2014/05/the-mongol-siege-of-xiangya...

I like the idea of pausing a seige in China to send a message to some experts in Mosul, wait for them to ride back, then build their novel device, and win.

The ring of solomon was a curious mix of metals with a magnet in it. Its inventors were definitely up to something.

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