
Why didn't the Romans have hot air balloons? - aoeuid
http://chronopause.com/index.php/2011/02/07/67/
======
iwwr
Fascinating article, with just one quip I'd have:

Plutonium-238, the material in nuclear batteries is very different from
Plutonium-239, a material for nuclear weapons. There is great stigma against
Plutonium, but mainly because of Pu-239. If you remember some of the news
around the launch of the Cassini probe, there was opposition because of the
Pu-238 pellet powering the RTG.

Compared to Pu-239, Pu-238 is non-fissile and also produces a lot of heat
(which is the point, really). Pu-238 poses almost no proliferation risk. Even
the radioactivity is in the form of alpha radiation, which needs very little
shielding (hardly even penetrating the skin). The only problem with Pu-238
right now is that it's very expensive to produce and also very scarce. If
Pu-238 were abundant, it could find many applications and pose very little
security risk; building a dirty bomb out of it won't really work (as a matter
a fact, neither making one out of Pu-239).

In general, our civilization has an irrational fear of nuclear energy. Even
more egregious since there is a variant of nuclear technology that's almost
completely proliferation-free, namely the thorium cycle.

~~~
wazoox
> _building a dirty bomb out of it won't really work (as a matter a fact,
> neither making one out of Pu-239)._

Plutonium is chemically extremely toxic. Even throwing some powdered plutonium
in air somewhere would cause serious harm.

Edit : In fact it's not :)

~~~
Symmetry
Thats actually an urban legend (though one thats often repeated in the media).
See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity>
[http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-
sheets/pl...](http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-
sheets/plutonium.html)

The radiological toxicity of plutonium is _way_ higher than the chemical
toxicity.

~~~
wazoox
I stand corrected. In fact, I just checked and it seems like even Uranium
isn't actually extremely toxic.

~~~
Symmetry
I remember my 8th grade science teacher telling us all about Plutonium's
toxicity and I believed it for many years, so I don't blame you. Apparently
some researchers had a "Hot Particle" theory that said that because of the way
plutonium was taken in by the body it was much more dangerous than just
looking at its radioactivity would lead you to believe - concentrating in
certain areas of the lungs. Its not surprising that media figures like Nader
confused this with chemical toxicity, or didn't notice when experiments
contradicted this theory.

EDIT: Edited for horrible grammar caused by rewriting something without
proofreading after.

------
jasonkester
_In hindsight, it seems clear that if humanity had decided in 1939 to colonize
space, instead of expending ~$17 trillion and ~74 million human lives on war
and destruction, we would have reached the moon in a robust and durable way by
no later than the mid-1950s_

He kinda gives away the answer to this earlier in the article, while
explaining why the cool edge-case technologies the Romans had never took off:

 _the truth is that all technological advances are dependent upon a complex
mix of social, political and environmental factors which we still do not
understand, and thus cannot predict_

The implication then is that, had WWII not happened, 1950 would have looked a
lot like 1939. Instead, the world saw nearly 10 years of rapid technological
advances, with nations inventing amazing new things as though their life
depended on it.

Plot the rise and fall of the Space Program alongside the Cold War, and you
can see the pattern again.

~~~
Charuru
Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-
history that's largely been discredited. Competition invites advancement,
blowing up your competitors does nothing.

~~~
masklinn
> Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-
> history that's largely been discredited.

That is not quite entirely true, war -- especially long-term -- results in
huge funds being funnelled towards things that can blow up the other guy,
which can then move into more peaceful realms. Not to mention the requirements
for research safety and grants are often quite different.

Without WWII, would we have operational jets in the early 40s? What about
rockets? All of rocket science from the late 40s and early 50s came from WWII
germany. Likewise for fission and fusion research, how much longer would it
have taken without Los Alamos?

> Competition invites advancement, blowing up your competitors does nothing.

That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. Inventors generally
don't need motivation, only funds (of time, of money, of equipment, of
relations). And the reason for those funds and where they come from is the
lowest of worry, as long as they are provided. Competition is irrelevant to
invention and advancement.

~~~
Charuru
No... just no. :S

If you want to debate, please sign up for <http://arguex.com/> I'm not going
to do it here.

~~~
JanezStupar
Are you just trolling? Or are you trying to promote the service? In either
case I guess you are doing it wrong - flagged.

Also - I signed up for the service - I love the idea, but if you expect me to
sign up to Facebook just to start using your service - then forget it.

------
WalterBright
The Romans did not have the printing press. The press produced a sharp
exponential increase in technological progress.

Without the press, the spread of new ideas and techniques is extremely slow,
and there isn't much cross-pollination of technologies. Worse, an awful lot
gets forgotten.

~~~
Gormo
This is begging the question in a way, though. Why didn't the Romans have the
printing press? Like the hot-air balloon, the concept of printing is clear and
simple, and the technological prerequisites are minimal - you just need
metallurgy, which the Romans had in abundance.

The printing press ended up being developed in a culture that was in many ways
less technically sophisticated than the Romans'.

~~~
EdiX
I vaguely remember that this has to do with more with the paper than with
printing technology, the paper being very expensive until recently.

~~~
katovatzschyn
I cannot find the source but I remember the same also. As well, "printing
press like" techniques were used early in clay pot design and marking, again
can't find source, which is the essence of the idea. Only it could not expand
to the scale required of modern printing press standards.

------
nitrogen
The informative first half of the article was fascinating, but it slowly
deteriorated from there as I read the argumentative second half. In my view,
things took a drastic turn for the worse around this sentence:

 _Mature genetic engineering, nanotechnology, strong artificial intelligence,
and quantum computing, to name but a few, each hold many times the potential
for systemic harm to, or destruction of our civilization; and they do so
absent the inherent check on their proliferation that was present in the case
of nuclear energy..._

The suggestion that strong artificial intelligence and quantum computing are
more likely destroyers of civilization than nuclear energy seems laughable
without further argument. As with nuclear weapons, problems only arise in the
application of technology by humans, not in the concepts themselves, and I see
far more potential for physical and societal devastation in the application of
nuclear weapons than in AI or QC.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
With nuclear tech, humans have to be the ones pushing the buttons, making pure
accidents quite unlikely. If moore's law holds and we make a strong AI, it
might theoretically be possible for it to "go FOOM" -- use most of it's
thinking power to make itself exponentially smarter, hitting the ultimate
physical limits of computing in a relatively short time. If that happens, and
the ultimate physical limits of computing are sufficiently far away, the
entire human race no longer has any say on it's future -- whatever happens
from then on is decided by a singleton entity.

A good overview of the arguments from both sides can be found from the Hanson
- Yudkowsky debate on the subject: [http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Hanson-
Yudkowsky_AI-Foom_...](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Hanson-Yudkowsky_AI-
Foom_Debate)

Disclaimer: I have not studied the issue deeply enough to be on either side.

~~~
nitrogen
Even with a rapidly-developing strong AI, though, humans have to give the
initial machine the ability to limitlessly acquire resources and alter its own
hardware. Despite the likelihood that a highly intelligent AI could easily
convince some humans to do its bidding, the resource acquisition limitation
gives me some measure of confidence that strong AI will not be the downfall of
our civilization.

I would be more concerned about unexpected emergent behavior in our existing
networks as more and more intelligence is added to various systems than a
purpose-built self-modifying AI.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Assuming it starts at human-level or slightly above, internet access would
probably be enough.

Plenty of people make a lot of money over the Internet, and identity theft
isn't exactly rare. Anything that's considerably smarter than humans would
probably be running on AWS after the first week, without any overt co-
operation from it's creators.

I do not hold this to be particularly likely, because I think that the
software side of making a mind capable of recursive self-improvement is likely
orders of magnitude harder than people seem to think it is. However, if we do
succeed in making one, the argument "it needs help from it's creators" is a
very weak one -- even a human level one with access to any networking would
likely be able to _take_ the ability to improve itself.

------
meric
The article mentioned:

"The Montgolfier brothers came up with the idea while lying beside a fire and
watching hot ash and embers float upwards – and they thought about this in a
military context – namely how to take Gibraltar from the British."

And later

"However, Hero of Alexandria (10–70 CE) was well known for constructing
complex automata, had powered a pipe organ using his wind-wheel (windmill) and
developed a variety of steam driven devices using his aeolipile; a primitive
turbine type steam engine with surprising motive capacity."

From wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_balloon> "Unmanned hot
air balloons are popular in Chinese history. Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han
kingdom, in the Three Kingdoms era (220–80 AD) used airborne lanterns for
military signaling."

"In fact, von Braun was engaged in designing and building the V-2, and much
more sophisticated rockets, solely because he wanted to achieve the
exploration of space; both personally and for the human species."

In each example above where technologies were invented / discovered, you can
see that these innovations were driven by individuals and their purpose. In
the case of the automata and the hot air balloon, both were invented by a
leader of their own respective society - "Hero of Alexandria" and "Zhuge
Liang" - the chinese military genius. Von Braun wanted to invent rockets for
the purpose of space exploration... but his effort was redirected into war and
destruction.

Comparing to innovations we've made in the past, say, 30 years, you can see
the same. Bill Gates commoditized hardware and brought computers onto many
desks cheaply. And Steve Jobs... you know the rest.

Each story of humans' invention seems to just as much be a story of the
individual who led its discovery, rather than the environment surrounding
him/her, and when the environment is taking into account, it seems it does
more to stifle innovation than to foster it.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
What you are ignoring is that while the individual is definitely the catalyst
for the innovation, the environment is equally important.

Considered another way, there are countless people around the world with the
intelligence and drive of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but they live in
impoverished villages in India and Africa and struggle just to stay alive.
They may do better than their neighbors, but without the support of a
technologically and financially advanced society, what they can accomplish is
severely limited.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Even people living in affluent societies may be steered from the path we
imagine them to take. Bill Gates was very lucky to have access to a computer
at an early age. If he'd lived in, say, San Antonio, would have have achieved
what he did?

------
fendrak
"Such rapid and direct application of biomedical advances to humans is now
inconceivable, not only in the US, but virtually anywhere in the world."

This is true, but for one very simple reason: at the time of these inventions,
there was _no other option_. If someone needed a heart operation that required
stopping the heart, they would die. If someone needed dialysis after kidney
failure, they died. Rapid applications come in the face of dire consequences.
In these cases, almost _anything_ was better than death.

~~~
aoeuid
The guy who wrote this post used to be president of Alcor
(<http://alcor.org>), one of the two cryonics organizations in the US.
Cryonics is in fact certainly a procedure where people will definitely die if
they don't get it, particularly because it can only be done after 'legal
death'.

Its efficacy can't be established conclusively right now, but it's certainly
more likely you'll be revived if you undergo cryopreservation than if you are
cremated or buried underground.

But because of various mostly psychosocial factors, practically nobody gets
cryopreserved. I think this is the specific example he was trying to point
out.

~~~
dennisgorelik
The main reason why practically nobody gets cryopreserved is that Cryonics is
a form of scientific scam.

It sells people confidence that their mind can be preserved by freezing it.

<http://aidevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/cryonics.html>

That said, the author seems to be a true believer in Cryonics (however that
does not make Cryonics legitimate).

The article has interesting points, but cannot really be trusted, because of
multiple outrageous statements.

For example, the author states: "In hindsight, it seems clear that if humanity
had decided in 1939 to colonize space, instead of ... war [WW2], we would have
... very likely self-sustaining outposts on the moon and Mars."

As of today, the humanity does not have self-sustaining outposts even in
Antarctica. Self-sustaining outposts on Mars are totally unrealistic in the
next 100 years. Not only because of technological impossibility, but mostly
because of no need for that.

The bottom line: the author is unrealistic dreamer. His ideas might be unusual
(which is good), but it's better to be very skeptical and not to trust these
ideas by default.

~~~
adrianN
I don't think (mostly) self sustaining outposts on the Moon and Mars are
technologically infeasible. See for example the studies Robert Zubrin did for
NASA.

Whether there are sufficient economic incentives to actually build them is
unfortunately a different question.

~~~
dennisgorelik
It's technologically feasible to send a mission to Mars.

It's unfeasible to have self-sustaining colony on Mars.

Mars Direct proposal does not even try to cover self-sustaining part.

~~~
adrianN
Actually it does, at least as outlined in his book.

------
api
" _Transhumanists must come to realize that in order to control history, and
thus their own destinies, they must leverage their way into a position of
control over the ideology, morality and direction of this civilization. To
fail to do so at this juncture in time is to accede to the end of our history
– not by the practical abolition of death, but rather by its universal
application to humankind, and perhaps to all life on earth._ "

The followers of hate, fear, and superstition spend virtually every waking
hour attempting to leverage such control. Why not visionaries?

But there is a counterpoint too. The ideology of _some_ sectors of the
transhumanist/visionary community is uncomfortably reminiscent of superstition
itself. I am referring to Ray Kurzweil and his Singularity University cult,
and others. It looks very much like a religious movement reminiscent of
Scientology or flying saucer contactees in the 1950s. It doesn't strike me as
being much more rational than many other superstitious religious movements.

~~~
Unseelie
If we work on the assumption that the majority of people aren't rational
scientists, then harnessing the superstition towards such things as progress
and invention rather than conservatism seems a very brilliant move by those
persons trying to leverage political discourse. Its likely much easier to
convert the followers of hate, fear, and superstition on their terms than to
convince them that rational science is better.

~~~
api
You have a point, but what I'd really like to see is something more "meta."

First a little background.

I had a discussion with a business guru around MIT once about marketing. He
related a story (possibly apocryphal) about Larry Ellison of Oracle and how he
would run into meetings of Oracle's sales guys in the early days and berate
them for _not lying enough_. "If you don't lie nobody will believe you!"

Anyway, this guy was saying that this is exactly true. If you don't lie people
won't believe you.

I've kind of seen it myself in the business world. I also think that it
explains much of what we see in the world with regard to religion, political
ideologies, superstition, etc.

The problem is that the primate social part of our brain interprets
uncertainty, skepticism, doubt, and even caution as signifiers of low primate
social status. Huge, gargantuan claims, boldness (even if wrong), and
certainty are seen as signifiers of alpha status.

Thus a certain-of-themselves idiot or nutjob is of higher social status than a
cautious, skeptical, rational person.

Salesmen exploit this by intentionally telling audacious lies (of a sort) in
order to elevate themselves socially in the perception of potential buyers.
People buy from alphas, not betas.

What I want to see is a detailed neurological and psychological deconstruction
of this. I want to see it hacked, targeted, dismantled. That would be
progress.

To give an example, a spray-on pheromone that fucked with this subsystem of
the brain in some way would be awesome. (Not sure if that's possible since
humans might not react this way, but just an example of the sort of thing I'd
like to see.)

------
elptacek
There's a somewhat negative cast towards the end of this article where the
author discusses "the fundamental inability of most humans to handle such
technology responsibly" and how "psychosocial factors" retard progress. And
then you have some dire, terminal outlook for humanity. This reads like
correspondence bias to me. At first, it seemed contradictory to the first
paragraphs of the article, which seemed to be leading up to, "this is another
engineering problem and we must analyze it for a solution before we can
continue to progress technologically." So I reread the whole thing... and it
seems that was just my own bias inserting itself between the lines.

And I still don't understand why the political components of the dynamics of
social and technological progress cannot be approached as an engineering
problem.

~~~
dkarl
Engineering requires some coherence of vision. Coherence of vision in society
is hard to achieve and probably undesirable -- the best systems of government,
in my opinion, are the ones that protect difference and function in spite of
it. In other words, if you successfully solve the engineering problem of
designing a system of government, the resulting society will not be amenable
to social engineering. If society and politics are amenable to engineering,
then the system of government is almost certainly poorly designed. In a
democratic society you can only achieve coherence through perceived ethnic and
cultural uniformity, but that perception is manufactured at great cost to
everyone who doesn't fit the imposed national identity.

~~~
elptacek
All governments appear historically do have been designed by a small group of
people with coherence of vision. All of these systems, based on idealism, fail
to account for the complex requirements of administrating a functional
society. As a result, our "democracy" is incessantly patching itself -- ask
any law student. Despite being currently the most popular ideal, democracy is
a terrible design. The result is that countries like the United States are
definitionally socialist, despite what we prefer to beleive.

I have no criticisms of any form of government. Criticisms have the net effect
of polarizing people, which is counterproductive at best. Unfortunately, any
discussion of the political component of any dynamic is perceived as
criticism, if not an outright attack. The intensity of the reaction to
perceived criticism varies greatly from culture to culture. This is horribly
unfortunate, because it discourages critical thinking and contributes to these
'psychosocial factors' that retard progress.

Of course, the author assumes that his concept of progress is what is desired.
There are a thousand ways one could pick this article apart.

------
gohat
I don't think this question is as profound as it seems. Basically, it is
asking: If a civilization had access to the resources to create a technology,
why didn't they?

Take perspective, or drawing things so that they look real. Closer things are
bigger, further things smaller. Until it was invented around the Renaisance
(1400/1500), all art was flat and kinda clumpy. Why couldn't people draw nice
things until then?

That's what new technology is. A profound change in how we use resources.

~~~
jodrellblank
_I don't think this question is as profound as it seems. Basically, it is
asking: If a civilization had access to the resources to create a technology,
why didn't they?_

But it is a profound question. The turnaround version of it is: what do we
have the resources to create, but aren't doing? What aren't we looking for?
What aren't we seeing?

------
VladRussian
The governmental analysis around 1997-99 concluded that nuclear fusion power
woulnd't be cheaper than 4c/kwt (i.e. than coal based electricity) and thus it
wouldn't make an economical sense (thus that close to 0 investment in that
research - only LLNL's NIF which is deep in petty managerial fights (and laser
driven approach isn't really the one what will get it) and Sandia which
finally got back to the experiments at the level they left in 99 (though now
they use different target which allows for a lot of new articles on plasma
behavior (deja vu of Tokamaks, one can spend whole life looking at and
describing patterns of flowing water under the bridge), yet that type of
target is much worse for the fusion than the type used 10 years ago) .

It is easy to imagine an outcome of the battlefield maneuverability analysis
by a Rome DOD bureaucrat of horse driven chariot vs. hot air balloon and the
resulting decision on the development of the balloon technology.

------
ableal
A 17th century attempt:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_de_Gusm%C3%A3o>

------
tlear
Best example of a technology that we have not followed is Nuclear powered
space flight project Orion. One such launch would lift more material into
orbit then all the rockets we launched so far. Flight to Mars would be
trivial, staying on it would not but thats another issue

------
petervandijck
There are some good theories on this in social science;
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism> and the book "The co-
construction of users and technology" [http://www.amazon.com/How-Users-Matter-
Co-Construction-Techn...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Users-Matter-Co-
Construction-Technology/dp/0262651092/)

------
varjag
The Greeks and Romans were societies of slavery, with very little need to
industrial innovation.

~~~
simonsarris
Oh come now, there was certainly abundant industrial innovation in those
soceties.

The sawmill (like at Hierapolis), grainmill, shipmill, cranks and connecting
rods, roman cranes, the first book (codex) had many advantanges over
scrolls...

The first recorded (buttress) dams, cements, camel harnesses, foot-powered
looms, force pumps, glass blowing, hydraulic mining, hushing (flood mining),
reaper, lateen sails.

Almost all of these were not toys; they filled a very real need.

~~~
varjag
Some of those where invented there, but, not unlike Hero's turbine, never
enjoyed a widespread adoption. A lot of other is non-machinery processes that
can't really be easily replaced by manpower alone (sails? dams?)

Industrial innovation (as in replacing manpower with machines) was not really
catching up in ancient times, mainly because there is little incentive to save
on labor if you have a steady supply of slaves.

Perhaps the best illustration of social dynamics at play there we have is
North vs. South states, pre civil war. Same people, same starting point, but
such a dramatic difference.

------
kjhghj
The problem is their numbering system which makes it difficult to do
countdowns.

ex, eye-ex, eye-eye-ex, ve-eye-eye-eye, ve-eye-eye, ve-eye ve, eye-ve, eye-
eye-eye, eye-eye, eye

now what's next ? What's less than eye?

don't know - we have to wait for somebody to invent zero...

------
kujawa
"Research into stem cell therapies, cloning, and gene therapy technology have
also been greatly slowed by psychosocial concerns."

Dear humanity: you are simply too dumb to have nice things.

------
gacek
Any idea how the air for first baloons was heated?

------
deadmansshoes
Kudos to the Montgolfier for inventing the hot air balloon based on a need to
invade a strongly held fortress.

But when did the idea of slowly floating towards your fortified, gun-toting
enemy in a giant gas filled balloon seem a good idea?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>But when did the idea of slowly floating towards your fortified, gun-toting
enemy in a giant gas filled balloon seem a good idea?

You don't fly in the balloon your soldiers do. That is what makes it as good
an idea as trying to climb to the battlements whilst having rocks, hot pitch,
arrows and sword blows rain down on one from above.

Even if the balloon simply diverts attention from your siege ladders then it
might give enough advantage, it could also probably be used at distance to
gain information vital to a successful siege - can you starve them out
quickly, how strong are the numbers, where are cannon or arsenals located,
etc..

~~~
deadmansshoes
"You don't fly in the balloon your soldiers do."

Strangely, I wasn't suggesting the Montgolfier brothers were going to take
Gibraltar single-handedly.

There is a huge difference between climbing a wall with seige ladders where
once you get a few men across everyone else can follow, and 2-3 men floating
in a wooden basket and trying to land (!) in a fortress.

Granted reconnaissance may have been useful, but if after 4 years of seige you
haven't worked out your enemy through espoinage and being shot at, a balloon
is not going to help.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Strangely, I wasn't suggesting the Montgolfier brothers were going to take
Gibraltar single-handedly.

Lol, nor I, I was assuming that creation of one balloon would allow creation
of multiple balloons for use in any given battle.

I'd imagine the access a balloon gives, with the addition of surprise and
maybe a steering fan, to be pretty good. You could send up some test balloons
and then send up some huge ones with bombs on the bottom and shoot them down
over the target for yourself. Or perhaps a pile of diseased food to a hunger-
stricken garrison, or ...

You can't readily break down a whole castle with a single trebuchet either.

------
nradov
I wonder what history would have been like if the Roman empire had gunpowder
and bronze cannons? Just like with hot air balloons, they had all the
necessary basic technology but never thought to put the pieces together.

------
sovande
Yeah, well I'm still waiting for my flying car.

------
Nugem
I came to read about Roman hot air balloons, instead everyone is talking about
plutonium and nuclear weapons. Thanks guys, I am probably on a watch list now.

Reported.

------
Helianthus16
Bleh. The moment you start thinking "one of the most powerful and off putting
military advantages that could have been deployed, in either Ancient, or
Renaissance times, would have been hot air balloons." is the moment you start
thinking 'What if sharks had lasers?"

The breathless "and then I thought"s and stupid hypotheticals: "How would the
technological arc of the ancient world have been changed if Archimedes, and
not Edison, had invented the phonograph?" are just another series of what ifs.

The universe didn't fucking happen that way. Archimedes doesn't have access to
those ideas. You can't just wonder what would have happened if people had
discovered the internal combustion engine in the bronze age, because that
question is meaningless.

~~~
nitrogen
The entire genre of steampunk is devoted to asking the "What If?" of alternate
technological history. Clearly the question is slightly less than meaningless.
Understanding the history of technology and why certain things did or did not
happen can help us to optimize our societal approach to technology and
progress in the future.

