• alvvayson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    An idea has to be widely accepted to be useful.

    Just having one person think about it while the rest of society doesn’t is insufficient.

    • HardlightCereal@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The actual reason science took off is that there was a plague leading to a worker shortage leading to a wealth boom, while a lot of rich people had access to coffee and nothing to do.

      • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While I, too, am a big fan of the Coffee hypothesis, it should be noted that lots of civilizations had access to caffeine and other stimulants, including the Arabs, Chinese and Incas and probably the Roman’s, Greeks and Persians too.

        And there were a lot of plagues, but most of them happened long before the scientific revolution.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Free time and the wealth to have that time is what I also think the catalyst is. Same with arts. You can’t do experiments or spend time on art if your entire life is consumed by labor.