technology snowballing: any mechanics against it?

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Too bad I said "sent", not "filed".

I am not saying that the relationship between population size and scientific progress is 1:1. I simply disagree with using China and India as examples considering they actually are leading in things we can actually see, such as academic papers and patent applications.

But I agree. It is hard to determine who is and isn't a "leading scientific power". We can merely give a rough list based on things we can see and count. I also agree that the relationship between population size and "scientific output" is pretty complex. After all, China went centuries where it most definitely wasn't in the lead by any metric.

Natural science Nobel laureates per capita? Not a perfect indicator perhaps (Faroe Islands is hardly a scientific center) but it tells you something about the scientific output of a country.
 
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It is simplistic sonreal its also pretty dang accurate.

How many ideas or inventions excluding say the last 350 years weren't done in china first?

Gunpowder? Sailing ships? The compass? printing presses? accurate census's? First calculators/computers? Cast iron? The list continues almost indefinitely.

But your right konrad they aren't currently the leading edge of tech. But within the last 30 years (roughly) they've gone from third world country status to a first world nation, their still behind the curve on the top nations, but their gaining at a remarkable rate.

Its not so much that having more people means you can throw more people on the job. (science wise at least) But having more people makes it more likely to have more of the super brilliant people we cite with pushing technology ahead by leaps and bounds

1. Modern China was a third world country only in the stricte political meaning of the term - neither western nor Soviet. They were never "third wordly" since they became PRC in terms of research, industry or military.
2. Your point is actually supporting the other argument. Getting something done first doesn't mean much. Oil pumps were invented in Poland - do you see Poland getting in on all that oil drilling? Not really. What matters is implementation.
Research in those games isn't, in my mind, anything like "Hey, I just invented wheel!", rather "Hey, I just found a way to use the brilliant invention of wheel to establish road network between our major cities and use it to power all kinds of crazy shit, like mills and... mills!"
And in this meaning smaller nations are exactly the ones getting cheaper tech. Look at Israel - THE nation, when it comes to implementing high-tech in both military and civilian areas. Road safety "happened" in Sweden rather then the US not because the Americans were too dumb and "gas"-high to invent the three-point safety belt, but because it was easier to implement in smaller country with fewer people/cars.
 
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I've always wanted space strategy game that modeled scientific advancement as the generation and flow of ideas within an empire and between empires. In Stellaris terms, each pop would have a tiny chance each month to "have an idea" that unlocks a technology that the pop wasn't exposed to before. The chance of having that idea depends on how advanced the tech is, prereqs and the social condition and academic freedom of the pop (are you the kind of society that encourages new ideas or not? slaves don't give you ideas, etc).

Once the idea is there, it can spread pretty easily to pops on the same planet, and via civilian ships and/or imperial bureaucracy to other planets in the empire. It can also spread by trade, research agreements or espionage to other empires. Social attitudes might also affect how easily new ideas spread to your people.

To move past the idea stage, you'd need to assign a research team to turn the idea into working technology (or refine existing technology), but the research teams can get a big boost by having plans or already working examples of the tech.

So you end up with a scenario where to generate ideas internally, you want to be an open society. But unless you are very big, you probably can't keep up on your own without also getting ideas from other empires. So you want those trade connections, communications, basically wide-band contact with other empires so they ideas they generate can spread to your pops. Except of course that it's a two-way street, and your ideas will be spreading to them.

A small empire, even if it is highly innovative internally, can't really afford to cut itself off from the general flow of ideas since it probably won't have enough pops to generate ideas internally. What it can do it try to prevent transmission of the implementations, especially of military technology (unless to an approved ally). Society-wide tech would be harder to prevent leaking out, particularly if you have any kind of trade relationship.

I think I'd prefer this sort of organic model of idea flow or contagion rather than each empire developing technology in it's own silo and possibly trading it only as a high-level interaction between governments. I mean, in the organic model you can do tech in your own silo if you want, but you risk falling far behind more open societies.
 
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Your point is actually supporting the other argument. Getting something done first doesn't mean much. Oil pumps were invented in Poland - do you see Poland getting in on all that oil drilling? Not really. What matters is implementation.
Research in those games isn't, in my mind, anything like "Hey, I just invented wheel!", rather "Hey, I just found a way to use the brilliant invention of wheel to establish road network between our major cities and use it to power all kinds of crazy shit, like mills and... mills!"
That's actually a really great way of looking at it.
 
1. Modern China was a third world country only in the stricte political meaning of the term - neither western nor Soviet. They were never "third wordly" since they became PRC in terms of research, industry or military.
2. Your point is actually supporting the other argument. Getting something done first doesn't mean much. Oil pumps were invented in Poland - do you see Poland getting in on all that oil drilling? Not really. What matters is implementation.
Research in those games isn't, in my mind, anything like "Hey, I just invented wheel!", rather "Hey, I just found a way to use the brilliant invention of wheel to establish road network between our major cities and use it to power all kinds of crazy shit, like mills and... mills!"
And in this meaning smaller nations are exactly the ones getting cheaper tech. Look at Israel - THE nation, when it comes to implementing high-tech in both military and civilian areas. Road safety "happened" in Sweden rather then the US not because the Americans were too dumb and "gas"-high to invent the three-point safety belt, but because it was easier to implement in smaller country with fewer people/cars.

During Mao's regime, roughly 30 millions starved to death. Tens of millions more died due to forced labour. That's pretty third world.
 
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You try to compare a single country (China) versus one country (for example England). But the technology research and the concrete evolution of England is totally dependent of the research of France + Germany + USA + Spain + Italia + ............ England can fire all scientists, England will continue to improve with the foreign country.
Same logic for China and every country in the world. Most of the technology in one country is not from this country.

If one day we meet another specie, both we will have totally different technology and will be totally independent; until we copy, share and stole (both side). That will be a different system that we know.

Today it is very hard to have an Einstein, because Einstein was beyond everybody and was lucky to find something very special. Today, we have very more scientist, so it is hard to be beyond, and it is more have to be lucky, because there less special and fondamental staff to find, the easy one are know.

And we dont care about how the true is. We must care only how make a funny system.
 
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During Mao's regime, roughly 30 millions starved to death. Tens of millions more died due to forced labour. That's pretty third world.

While in the second world Stalin's regime killed, what, 40 million people?

Today it is very hard to have an Einstein, because Einstein was beyond everybody and was lucky to find something very special. Today, we have very more scientist, so it is hard to be beyond, and it is more have to be lucky, because there less special and fondamental staff to find, the easy one are know.

And we dont care about how the true is. We must care only how make a funny system.

In the grand scheme of things single people don't matter. Where there's one popular and successful individual, there are always others, just behind them with similar ideas. Nuclear research would happen without Einstein, eventually. Basically, to every Edison, there is a Tesla.
 
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That's going pretty away from topic. Both of those were planned mass murders, only thing is Mao was more resilient in his then Stalin. It was a planned famine, not a lack of food - a lack of distribution, to say. The Great Chinese Famine happened because of the Peoples Republic of China, not because of droughts, floods or other disasters and even the PRC government recognizes it.
 
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I've always wanted space strategy game that modeled scientific advancement as the generation and flow of ideas within an empire and between empires. In Stellaris terms, each pop would have a tiny chance each month to "have an idea" that unlocks a technology that the pop wasn't exposed to before. The chance of having that idea depends on how advanced the tech is, prereqs and the social condition and academic freedom of the pop (are you the kind of society that encourages new ideas or not? slaves don't give you ideas, etc).

Once the idea is there, it can spread pretty easily to pops on the same planet, and via civilian ships and/or imperial bureaucracy to other planets in the empire. It can also spread by trade, research agreements or espionage to other empires. Social attitudes might also affect how easily new ideas spread to your people.

To move past the idea stage, you'd need to assign a research team to turn the idea into working technology (or refine existing technology), but the research teams can get a big boost by having plans or already working examples of the tech.

This would be my preferred approach to science too - Vic 2 used a similar method with the chance of discovering an idea increasing depending on whether others have already discovered it, etc. I think there's a really good opportunity to turn that into part of the political game as well: a further incentive for peaceful expansion through mutual research pacts, a natural drift through alliances, etc. Basically a way for taller empires to keep up with wide ones that have built their research ability through sheer domination of star systems.
 
This would be my preferred approach to science too - Vic 2 used a similar method with the chance of discovering an idea increasing depending on whether others have already discovered it, etc. I think there's a really good opportunity to turn that into part of the political game as well: a further incentive for peaceful expansion through mutual research pacts, a natural drift through alliances, etc. Basically a way for taller empires to keep up with wide ones that have built their research ability through sheer domination of star systems.

Yes, thank you Traum77. You beat me to mentioning Victoria 2's system, which seems to reflect the kind of thing EntropyAvatar was thinking. However, it's worthwhile to note the Victoria 2 implementation wasn't without issue. Researching technology allowed a number of Inventions to be invented/discovered, but each had a random chance per month. Only certain Inventions like the colonization inventions and some military ones had an increased chance of happening if other nations had them. This means you could research the technology to invent X-Rays, and not actually invent X-Rays until years later!

It would definitely be interesting to see a game model natural technology growth and spread throughout society, but implementing that in a way that's mechanically engaging for the player seems like quite a hurdle. The whole point of such a system would be to make the society feel more alive/real, but unless the player can meaningfully interact with it it's likely to just be ignored - much like a lot of Victoria 2's economy model.
 
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1. Modern China was a third world country only in the stricte political meaning of the term - neither western nor Soviet. They were never "third wordly" since they became PRC in terms of research, industry or military.
2. Your point is actually supporting the other argument. Getting something done first doesn't mean much. Oil pumps were invented in Poland - do you see Poland getting in on all that oil drilling? Not really. What matters is implementation.
Research in those games isn't, in my mind, anything like "Hey, I just invented wheel!", rather "Hey, I just found a way to use the brilliant invention of wheel to establish road network between our major cities and use it to power all kinds of crazy shit, like mills and... mills!"
And in this meaning smaller nations are exactly the ones getting cheaper tech. Look at Israel - THE nation, when it comes to implementing high-tech in both military and civilian areas. Road safety "happened" in Sweden rather then the US not because the Americans were too dumb and "gas"-high to invent the three-point safety belt, but because it was easier to implement in smaller country with fewer people/cars.


First doing something first is exactly what it means. Upgrading your infrastructure to use the new tech is an entirely different thing. In stellaris this would be the equivalent of sending your ships to be refit with the new weapon systems, building that nice new attachment to the starport you've got. Secondly you make the presumption that they didn't infact use all of aforementioned technologies. These weren't theoretical ideas, these were major innovations that were used in china and the rest of the world for centuries after being created. Or are you telling me you don't enjoy a standardized public government funded education? If that is indeed the case I laud your dedication to learning.


Secondly we've decided china isn't a third world country before the 60s why exactly? Is it their industrial might? No not really, what little they have is funded by the soviets and ran by soviet advisers. Their military might? Again no, they have a large force of primarily guerrilla fighters armed with weapons that were old during the first world war. Now during the 1950's, the soviet union again funds equips and modernizes china's army so that by the sixties china's army is actually a coherent trained and equipped force. Research? Well no not unless count Mao's theories and work as social research. Political influence? We'll maybe there's some arguments for that point going both ways. However, for most of the first decade of the PRC the term often used to describe their relationship by scholars with the soviets is client state.


And next were equating, a single year of famine in russias case which killed 3.2 million people in a localized area, And Britains great famine that killed a million over the course of 4 years to several years or nationwide famine that killed between 30 and 40 million people and were declaring all three of these equal and clear signs of third world status?
 
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Yes, thank you Traum77. You beat me to mentioning Victoria 2's system, which seems to reflect the kind of thing EntropyAvatar was thinking. However, it's worthwhile to note the Victoria 2 implementation wasn't without issue. Researching technology allowed a number of Inventions to be invented/discovered, but each had a random chance per month. Only certain Inventions like the colonization inventions and some military ones had an increased chance of happening if other nations had them. This means you could research the technology to invent X-Rays, and not actually invent X-Rays until years later!

It would definitely be interesting to see a game model natural technology growth and spread throughout society, but implementing that in a way that's mechanically engaging for the player seems like quite a hurdle. The whole point of such a system would be to make the society feel more alive/real, but unless the player can meaningfully interact with it it's likely to just be ignored - much like a lot of Victoria 2's economy model.

Yes, thanks Traum77 for bringing up V2. I guess I'd want things kind of the other way around from V2. Instead of researching the broad area and then randomly getting the applications, you would get the broad ideas via semi-random factors and need to direct research to get the applications of the idea. So a highly isolated empire might have highly refined lasers but never have made the conceptual breakthroughs needed for phasors. On the other hand, maybe they have some rare tech that they've been improving for decades that no one else has even heard of.
 
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During Mao's regime, roughly 30 millions starved to death. Tens of millions more died due to forced labour. That's pretty third world.

No it isn't.

Third world has an actual meaning.

There's a reason that scholars today talk in developed and developing world and not first, second, and third world these days. First, second, and third worlds strictly referred to western aligned Capitalist democratic nations, the second to communist/soviet aligned nations, and the third to everyone else. There wasn't a regard to economic development except as implied by which theory of economics you prefer

While in the second world Stalin's regime killed, what, 40 million people?



In the grand scheme of things single people don't matter. Where there's one popular and successful individual, there are always others, just behind them with similar ideas. Nuclear research would happen without Einstein, eventually. Basically, to every Edison, there is a Tesla.

Stalin did not kill nearly 40 million people. Mao was by far the more incompetent a dictator. You only get 40 million deaths by pretnding Stalin was also a nazi and all 20 million war casaulties of the USSR were caused by him. The remaining 20 million is also a GROSS inflation based on biased numbers. The most likely numbers are still pretty horrible, roughly 8 to 11 million last I checked, but people need to stop this inflation of Stalin as the worst ever because gosh durn it you hate the USSR and Russia so much.

You're comparing a starvation period that lasted 1 year to one that lasted 30.

The Great Leap Forward didn't last 30 years. The GLF was where the vast majority of starvation and the majority of all deaths attributable to Mao's reign occur.

Also the largest difference between the Holdomor and the Great Leap Forward is that Stalin was well aware of what he was doing. He didn't care. He wanted central control of grain production so that the USSR could profit and industrialize. It's why the Holdomor happened to the fringe, though there was general famine at several points for the same reason, Stalin usually backed off when it was Russians doing the starving. Dizzy with success and all. Mao was largely deluded enough to believe his plans would centralize control, industrialize the nation, and still have enough food production to feed the majority of his people.

That's going pretty away from topic. Both of those were planned mass murders, only thing is Mao was more resilient in his then Stalin. It was a planned famine, not a lack of food - a lack of distribution, to say. The Great Chinese Famine happened because of the Peoples Republic of China, not because of droughts, floods or other disasters and even the PRC government recognizes it.

The GLF was not a planned famine in the way the Holdomor was. It was a famine of incompetence. Stalin was literally too smart to let that many people die, especially that many people of the populations he gathered the majority of his support from like the Mao's famine managed to kill.
 
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the promise of snowballing superpowerism is what gets any of us to bother to get out of bed. Without that, why bother doing anything if we are all made equal anyway?
 
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the promise of snowballing superpowerism is what gets any of us to bother to get out of bed. Without that, why bother doing anything if we are all made equal anyway?

I think the Wiz has a wonderful quote for this occasion that I... am too lazy to look up. Suffice to say, they want the player to win, but not too easily because loosing is usually not fun but it is also not fun without a challenge.