Peter Turchin and his colleagues ask, What have been the causes and consequences of technological evolution in world history?
Many have argued that the evolution of military technologies is just one aspect of a much broader pattern of technological evolution driven by increasing size and interconnectedness among human societies. Several cultural evolutionary theories, conversely, highlight military technologies as a special case, arguing that steep improvements in both offensive and defensive capabilities of technologies along with accompanying tactical and organizational innovations resulted in “Military Revolutions” (note the plural), which in turn had major ramifications on the rise and, of particular concern here, the spread of state formations globally and the evolution of religion and other cultural phenomena.
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We empirically test previously speculative theories that proposed world population size, connectivity between geographical areas of innovation and adoption, and critical enabling technological advances, such as iron metallurgy and horse riding, as central drivers of military technological evolution. We find that all of these factors are strong predictors of change in military technology, whereas state-level factors such as polity population, territorial size, or governance sophistication play no major role.
Plus c’est change, plus c’est la meme chose.
We innovate how to kill each other faster and better when we have a pressing need to kill each other faster and better. Who’da thunk?
It is noteworthy that this WOULD be a substantial blow against the historical illiterati and their erroneous filial affirmation that democracy and/or liberalism is responsible for our present level of technological innovation, if not for the fact that they’re retarded. It doesn’t matter how many times, or ways, you instruct a pig how to read the King’s English, it’s still a pig.
Aren’t the Pigs in power?
Bob,
That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Ah well, I suspect we’ll outlast them.