Well, if they thought they could be FIRING CANNONS in 50 years and FLYING IN AIRPLANES BOMBING THEIR ENEMIES in 100 years, if only they put loads of money and effort into science and tech, they surely would!)
I feel like you really hit the nail on the head here of where I think the original post went off track.
My opinion is that the original post is significantly underrating the value of the current zeitgeist, which is related to cultural norms and values but not the same thing. There will be this sense in the air of what things can become/return to, and it won’t be some vague notion of progress, it will be a very specific notion of planes, capitalism, computers, etc. It will be massively important that people understand that they can get to these things. I’d even go farther than you and say it’s not inventing the technologies that takes so much time, but the combination of having to invent them and not knowing which technologies to invent in the first place. If we told the romans that they should invent electricity I feel like it’s not that crazy to think they would have figured it out (depending on how much we specify what electricity is).
That’s why I said in my other comment that it might make sense to look at developing countries that leveraged catchup growth rather then rerunning history as a baseline. These countries had a similar Zeitgeist (i’m sort of just using this as a placeholder word until I can specify what I mean more) in this dimension. (some) People in these countries went to developed nations and saw what things could become. Of course it is also important they have some idea how to get there, but I don’t see that as much of a crux, since there should be books lying around everywhere.
I feel like you really hit the nail on the head here of where I think the original post went off track.
My opinion is that the original post is significantly underrating the value of the current zeitgeist, which is related to cultural norms and values but not the same thing. There will be this sense in the air of what things can become/return to, and it won’t be some vague notion of progress, it will be a very specific notion of planes, capitalism, computers, etc. It will be massively important that people understand that they can get to these things. I’d even go farther than you and say it’s not inventing the technologies that takes so much time, but the combination of having to invent them and not knowing which technologies to invent in the first place. If we told the romans that they should invent electricity I feel like it’s not that crazy to think they would have figured it out (depending on how much we specify what electricity is).
That’s why I said in my other comment that it might make sense to look at developing countries that leveraged catchup growth rather then rerunning history as a baseline. These countries had a similar Zeitgeist (i’m sort of just using this as a placeholder word until I can specify what I mean more) in this dimension. (some) People in these countries went to developed nations and saw what things could become. Of course it is also important they have some idea how to get there, but I don’t see that as much of a crux, since there should be books lying around everywhere.