Technological advancement. This phrase says a lot but also doesn't. People that had only spears to hunt with were not as technological advanced as those with bows and arrows, yet those same bow and arrow people are not technological advanced when compared with us. It seems that before you can decide if someone or some race is technological advanced you must have something to compare it to. And as you can see, the same race can be technological advanced or not, depending on how advanced the race is that you are comparing it to. Have I confused you enough? Why am I mentioning this at all? The reason is that this is a ruler or way of measuring our present state of advancement, but the problem is that we have nothing to compare it to. Some might say that ufos are real and we could compare our current state of technology to them, but until we have concrete proof that they exist, this would be a mistake. We can compare ourselves to prior races that inhabited the earth and most would say we are way more advanced, but there are areas of past life on this planet where people seem to be more advanced then we are now. For example, we are still not capable of building cities on mountain tops using stone that weigh 20 tons or more, yet these cities appear, abandoned, in South America. We don't know how the pyramids were built to such precise measurements and may not be able to duplicate that feat today. We weren't even able to replicate Damascus steel until the secret was rediscovered in the 1960s, I believe.

Modern Day Travel
Photo Source: Me

Here is a question for you, why is it that technological innovations proceeded so slowly up to the industrial revolution? I am talking about many, many thousands of years were nothing much really changed. Does this make any sense when you see how fast things are progressing today? What is so special about this time in the life of the human race? Some would say that technology builds on itself, and this is true, buy why didn't primitive technology build on itself? How come someone didn't say he could make nails in a simple machine, 10 at a time rather than using a blacksmith to create 1 nail every 30 minutes. After all nails were made for at least a couple of thousand years before the industrial revolution and the same method was used. Where was all the innovation? Was the human race too busy creating weapons of destruction? Even in later years when people like Leonardo Da Vinci drew up plans for hundreds of inventions, how come they weren't built and why didn't they come in to everyday use? His bicycle was almost the modern day equivalent of a two wheeler and would have been very handy. Did you know that Leonardo invented Flip Flops, you know, that type of sandal without a back, yet again, no one made them. It could be argued that Leonardo didn't show his drawings to anyone, but I just can not believe this. Why work so hard creating all these inventions if you can't discuss them? Once discussed the ideas get out into the world and influence people to create things, but this doesn't seem to have happened, why?

NASA Robot
Photo Source: NASA

Now another baffling thing, how come we have discovered so many advanced things from the far past that were never duplicated or improved upon? I am talking about things like ancient batteries. We have found several of these batteries that are thousands of years old. We really don't know what they were for but we suspect either electroplating or healing in some sort of ritual. And what about the mechanical computer with clock gears that was found on an ancient Greek wreck that was over 2,500 years old. When it was examined it was shown to give accurate positions at sea. Why was there only one of these? How would someone be able to build something like this, that was at least 2,000 years in the technological future? And what is going on with those pictures of airplanes and helicopters in an ancient Egyptian temple?

There is a theory that man has evolved before only to face destruction and evolve again. If this is true could it be that things like the Greek computer were found in some ancient unknown area, maybe even Atlantis? That would account for there being only one, but of course you could also say that the inventor built one and was trying it out when the ship sunk. As far as the batteries go, the problem may have been that they were used for healing and just didn't work so people stopped making them because they didn't realize the potential of electricity. As for the pictures of planes and helicopters in an Egyptian temple, this just can't be explained except by saying the Egyptians must have seen pictures of them somewhere, but where? This is one of the greatest mysteries of our time and the answer might be in a room under the Sphinx. No one will know for sure until the Egyptian government allows digging under there.

Primitive art
Photo Source: National Park Service

Getting back to the original question, why didn't technology progress very much before the industrial revolution? Your guess is as good as mine. If it would have, just think where we might have been by this time. If other races on other worlds are ever discovered and even if they are much younger than us they may be well ahead of us because of this lag.

If anyone wantx to reply with their theory on this subject, I would be glad to hear it and if I find it interesting, I will add it to this article.