B. U. G. S.

I am getting something out of the SF thread I started by putting “Practical History: The Wheel” thjere. Maybe getting seminar thinking into SF is not impossible, just very, very hard.

Arnold pointed out that the Middle East DID use the wheel for military machines, but not for constructive building. I had said that the Mayans had wheels on their toys but didn’t use it in any practical way.

But the point is, like all Moots, this led to a rethinking of my thesis:

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From Arnold’s input, my thesis is changing. The hhite achievement was the PRACTICAL US of the wheel.

This all interrelates. People are always talking about how early the Chinese, meaning A Chinaman, invented something. They had the mecahnical clock, but that one mechanical clock was moved around and finally destroyed and no more were built.

The Chinese invented printing and used it to make a few playing cards. In the West, it caused the Reformation.

The Chinese had black powder and made some rockets out of it. In the West, it was a major factor in destroying feudalism and eventually the technology expanded to take us to the moon.

The Bell Curve tells us there will be some very smart Chinese. But the seeds they plant do not grow. The one huge technological advance in China was the paddy culture, based on aquatic rice. Aquatic rice was developed in India.

IQ is not a hell of a lot of use if it’s the wrong RACE.