The Lycurgus Cup is a 4th century Roman glass cup that changes color depending on which side you shine light on. We don’t know the process that was used to make it, although we have tried to reverse-engineer the results with our own technology today: https://youtu.be/x2mLfaozia8 2/5
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The Hundred Schools of Thought tried the same thing in the Late Zhou dynasty. Some like Confucius tried to reverse-engineer the knowledge, practices, and traditional rites that made the Zhou dynasty great. 3/5
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Contra Confucius, the Legalists, represented by Han Fei, sought to jerry-rig what was working without special reference to the Zhou. The Taoists, in disagreement with both, emphasized internal harmony and harmony with nature over social harmony. 4/5
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The contributions of these schools and other have melded together into later Chinese civilization. Without succeeding in completely restoring Zhou civilization, they succeeded in re-engineering key features of epistemic health, stability, and prosperity. 5/5
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“social technology” is an appealing phrase because it promises a kind of concreteness which you don’t expect from more general terms like “political culture”. Are there histories or cross-cultural surveys which list /specific/ social technologies, can date when they come and go?
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The closest I've found is Carroll Quigley's work. Some of Marx and Max Webers' writing comes close.
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Glad my
@palladiummag piece on the response of Late Zhou dynasty thinkers to their civilization's decline made it to front page of HN! Good comments so far.
https://news.ycombinator.com/news pic.twitter.com/4uvrbUzIcc
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Wonder if this would qualify as a social technologyhttps://twitter.com/mwiik/status/1303004145457209344 …
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