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 Gobbla wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
See dark ages.

Yup. When the powers that be see innovation and initiative as heresy (i.e., a threat to power), they burn heretics at the stake, and kill their families. That's how you get 1000 years of stagnation. Carl Sagan claimed but for religious persecution, we could have put a man on the moon 1000 years ago. China stayed fairly primitive for more than a 2000 years, despite some technological progress, because disseminating technology was considered dangerous, or unnecessary. Not to mention over a 2000 years of internal disunity. Japan was just the opposite, highly unified in purpose. It maintained a feudal society in isolation for 600 years. Still fighting with swords and spears after the American Civil War. Sadly, fear and greed are also human nature.

Actually, the lack of innovation in the Dark Ages had nothing at all with it being repressed by authorities (in fact, there existed no authorities capable of such a feat during that era, thanks to the decentralisation of power that comes with feudalism), but it was due to the fact that people did not have the free time and resources neccessary for innovation. Virtually all people in that time were subsistence farmers. Their entire life was focused on survival, they spend all their time on making sure they had enough food to pay taxes to the local lord, enough to sow next year and also have something left to eat. It was not until the rise of a merchant middle class in the late Middle Ages that innovation picked up again. Carl Sagan's opinion is as good as worthless in this regard. He was no historian and should have stuck to areas he was actually knowledgable in. It goes to show that even smart people can be totally slowed when they speak about things they have no knowledge of. Historically there has been little to no religious persecution of scientific progress, that is mostly just a myth. In fact, for most of history religion formed the driving force behind scientific progress. The Renaissance and Enlightenment were fundamentally religious movements that led to the formation of modern science as we know it today, And if monasteries had not preserved so much knowledge in their libraries during the Dark Ages, we would still be living in the iron age today.
Also, the lack of innovation in China and Japan (or anywhere else except Europe for that matter) is the result of the feudal or tribal societies of those nations. Again, innovation only tends to come when there is a affluent middle class that has the luxury of free time and thus the opportunity to try out new things. The subsistence farmers and warrior nobilities of feudal and tribal societies simply do not have that. Their entire lives are dedicated to their work.


As to 40k, the AdMech does see plenty of innovation. In fact, innovation is encouraged as long as it is based on an STC.