Technological Stasis/Peak-Advancements+Still-Existing-Problems

[CarlManvers2019]

One thing I've noticed regarding extremely ancient and highly advanced civilisations that predate our most primitive ones or even our time as cavemen or even our time as mere cells is that their technology matches up even when one finds their old artefacts or scattered relics

One example, I can think of are the VERS from Darling In the FranXX

They existed long before the dinosaurs and waited an unnecessarily long time to come back and I think they're still using the same tech and just as strong/weak/vulnerable when they end up having to deal with a force that can fight back

Even ONE mook getting killed for me, is enough reason to consider looking into weaknesses and possible avenues for advancements and efficiency

 

[Scottty]

It's possible for a civilization to go through a phase of technological advancement, but then land in a cultural mindset in which any further changes are a threat to the status quo.

Some people worry that modern civilization might be heading in that direction.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

It's possible for a civilization to go through a phase of technological advancement, but then land in a cultural mindset in which any further changes are a threat to the status quo.

Some people worry that modern civilization might be heading in that direction.

Ever read Travis J Corcoran's Aristillus? The Earth Governments, or at least the USA(well them and the UN are highly centralised)made two entire Departments for dealing with technology.

One was to prevent a theoretical Singularity(which was why they were gonna kill off highly intelligent sapient genetically engineered dogs and trash an AI's hardware)and one to prevent new technologies that can disrupt economies by providing too much competition and removing jobs

Hugh Taigh, a college student turned journalist/blogger who decided to stay on Aristillus looked at the place's technological advancements with disdain, like one bricklayer using a machine to do the work quick and thinking "too little manual labor" and how the economy and whatever tools of trade needed to be "regulated" and "reviewed" before being allowed any widespread use alongside new products like drinks

 

[JagerIV]

Hm, well, one potential is you reach the peak of what you can do. This can be a case if anything is a limiting factor. For example, for ancient races that otherwise don't really "grow". Say, there were 10 million individuals 1 million years ago, and 10 million now. Limits of scale can set somewhat hardish limits on what you can actually do: your already at a limit of what you can do maintaining what you have, let alone upgrade things.

For example, the Manhattan project to produce a couple of bombs involved some 130,000 people. That was about 0.1% of the US population at the time. A smaller country would have had a great deal of difficulty setting aside that much of the population for a speculative tech advancement.

Or, think of how much more limited development would be over the last 50 years if you did not have several billion more people entering the modern work force and boosting the global economy: If the world had needed to rely on just the 130 million people in the United States for all further tech and industrial work, then the peek GDP and the rate of advancement would be greatly slowed. Some things just wouldn't be possible at the lower scale.

Of course, they are very bad at showing such a thing, and the idea of operating at carrying capacity is something fairly foreign to most of us, but you also need the steady state, well, state.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I guess a lack of resources and people would do it

Instead of the whole, entire societies make zero attempt at improving or changing anything for the better or seeing alternative methods because they suddenly got this “decadent” culture that doesn’t see its use