Do not be intellectually lazy; if say two technologies differ, actually examine the specifics of those technologies so you can have something quantity to compare to.
Otherwise, are you actually equivocating technologies that were developed via trial and error with technologies that can only be developed by first having accurate, reliable, and detailed understandings of several aspects of nature? Or are you claiming that ancient societies understood statistical dynamics and quantum physics? Or are you claiming that understanding nature does not, in fact, allow one to more easily and more capably predicate and manipulate nature?
edit: One example: you say that technologies from the 30s and 50s (quite telling that you lump these two decades together) can only be said to be different from technology now, not that today's is comparatively high technology. As far as I am aware, fission weapons and energy were the most technology sophisticated tech developed in the 50s, requiring what was, at the time, the latest discoveries in what would later become quantum chromodynamics. Nuclear technology today is categorically more advanced: cheaper to build, higher energy yields, and smaller, all while no longer requiring the absolute top tier physicists to build.
edit2:
"Technological systems can be robust or frail. How would you classify the technological systems of today?"
Again, we are communicating on a world wide information network that is both theoretically and empirically robust to physical and digital attacks and misconfigurations of critical nodes. The device you are typing your replies on contains a CPU with billions of transistors that are sensitive to the slightest electromagnetic phenomenon, yet it doesn't break. The electrical grid you're a part of might not be robust to local failures, but again, that is demonstrably a cost savings decision. Localities that have spent the money building power grids with the predicted appropriate level of redundancy do not have long term power outages.
Your comments in this thread have broken the HN guidelines. "Your point isn't coherent" is already name-calling in the sense they ask you not to do; but "Do not be intellectually lazy" is worse; it's both uncivil and patronizing. If you'd please edit that kind of thing out of your posts to Hacker News, we'd appreciate it.
Thank you for your comment, but as the recipient of the two comments, I did not take them as name-calling but as an indication that my comments may have been less than succinct or logical and needed clarification, which I hope I have achieved in my response.
Many of the technologies that we have today are no less developed by trial and error than were done in previous generations and societies. Certainly, we have various mathematical theories that give pointers and direction for development and it is very unlikely that those theories and mathematical techniques were used or available in the past.
But as to our modern theories allowing us to actually understand the nature of the universe around and how to manipulate it according to our theories, they don't really do all that well. They can certainly give direction but when the rubber hits the road, reality generally requires modifications because reality is far more complex than our theories lead one to believe.
It was three decades thirties to the fifties. As far as nuclear fission is concerned, that would have developed without quantum mechanics and its ilk. That kind of technology arose out of the experimental work of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. if you look at the trial and error processes that were undertaken, researchers died because they did not understand what they were playing with. Just a pointer, energy-mass equivalence arises out of both classical electromagnetics as well the work done by Einstein and others in the quantum mechanics field.
I agree we are communicating on a world wide information network. It is so fragile that entire nations have lost external communication pathways in recent times. The technological basis for this network is entirely dependent on many choke points around the world. If some of those are attacked in any way or are destroyed by natural or even human caused events then that network will go down. For some of those events, a rerouting of communications may be possible. For others, it may required a large reconstruction process to occur and for others it may not be salvageable at all.
Our telecommunications networks require many things to work for it to stay up and operational. This is true for many of the technological pathways we use today. Our technological systems are very fragile today and it won't take much to strip our society of its technological edge. There are so many points of failure that most of the population is unaware of.
Get a single forest fire and the power transmission system can be decimated. A single earthquake can do the same. Start a war and see how long the technological infrastructure is maintained.
But back to the main point, just because we have a particular technological stand doesn't mean that other societies that have come before us were "primitive" because they had a different technological stand.
Otherwise, are you actually equivocating technologies that were developed via trial and error with technologies that can only be developed by first having accurate, reliable, and detailed understandings of several aspects of nature? Or are you claiming that ancient societies understood statistical dynamics and quantum physics? Or are you claiming that understanding nature does not, in fact, allow one to more easily and more capably predicate and manipulate nature?
edit: One example: you say that technologies from the 30s and 50s (quite telling that you lump these two decades together) can only be said to be different from technology now, not that today's is comparatively high technology. As far as I am aware, fission weapons and energy were the most technology sophisticated tech developed in the 50s, requiring what was, at the time, the latest discoveries in what would later become quantum chromodynamics. Nuclear technology today is categorically more advanced: cheaper to build, higher energy yields, and smaller, all while no longer requiring the absolute top tier physicists to build.
edit2: "Technological systems can be robust or frail. How would you classify the technological systems of today?"
Again, we are communicating on a world wide information network that is both theoretically and empirically robust to physical and digital attacks and misconfigurations of critical nodes. The device you are typing your replies on contains a CPU with billions of transistors that are sensitive to the slightest electromagnetic phenomenon, yet it doesn't break. The electrical grid you're a part of might not be robust to local failures, but again, that is demonstrably a cost savings decision. Localities that have spent the money building power grids with the predicted appropriate level of redundancy do not have long term power outages.