500 yrs in the future....and we still use needles ?

POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 16:57
VIEWED: 7544
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TENTHCREWMEMBER

Saturday, October 16, 2004 6:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by shinyseven:
Simon also gives Mal the injector and tells him to anesthetize Kaylee.

Hell, it's 500 years later, and he's still sewing people up with sutures and digging bullets out of 'em with retractors. And I'm pretty sure that it's not SOP to put surgical instruments in your mouth even if you don't have a surgical nurse available.

Hey, alot of things can be overlooked in SOPs when it comes to "field surgery". And remember, Simon does mention to Inara that her immunization packages will help because there isn't much in the infirmary. Because why? Because this is a CARGO ship in the middle of nowhere, not an Alliance HOSPITAL in the Core. So yeah, sewing, retractors, needles. It's all good.

And that's not even getting into the Economics of border worlds and oppresive Gov'ts (who notoriously like to keep people behind the times and *NEEDING* big Gov't) or the scientific aspect of molecules that can't be absorbed through the skin because they are too damn big!

Some things are eternal because they work. You can build an anti-grav chair, but A) it is *still* a chair and B) the principle behind it is the same...sit your ass down!

Guns and bullets are cheap AND effective ways to deter or invoke violence.

Even the Alliance realizes this (See Serenity, Train Job and Bushwhacked).

Hell, one of the best lines to me is "Use of a swhat?" As if to say "People still use those?"
And coming from a guy who was looking to smuggle cattle offworld to thems that need it, made me LOL. So even within the paradigm, there is the aspect of old world/new world. Just because wagons are not practical to modern transportation systems, does that mean we shouldn't use cars because 4 wheels and horsepower is outdated?

So all in all, I s'pect the more things change, the more they'll stay the same. Dong ma?

TCM

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BIKISDAD

Saturday, October 16, 2004 1:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by NeutrinoLad:
500 years in the future... and we're still using tables, chairs, and the wheel?

Yes, some technologies are long-lived because they serve the purpose SO WELL.
welcome to engineering.

Now where is my anti-grav pod?

You'd be surprised at how many things we use today that weren't in existance 500, hell, just 100 yrs ago.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

This has already been addressed by others, but I would also like to point out that probably 60-70% of the things we use in everyday life were already being used by the Romans and other advanced civilizations over 2000 years ago. A Roman inventor named Hero developed a working steam engine almost 2000 years ago. It took until the 1800's for someone to re-discover the technology. Also, I recently saw a piece on PBS showing that Archimedes developed the calculus in 400 B.C.. It was a full 2000 years before Leibnitz and Newton re-developed the same principals - principals without which we would have none of the advanced technology we currently have.

Why was there such a long period with little or no advancement in technology? In our real case, it was a little period of social and scientific stagnation known as The Dark Ages, brought on by the fall of the Roman Empire. In the case of Firefly, it was apparently a period of social stagnation brought on by the destruction of "earth-that-was" and the need for the human species to find new places to live. The development of some technologies, such as space travel, would have been a priority due to necessity. Resources would have been directed into that area of research. Other areas, such as medical research, would have been a much lower priority and would have received less resources and therefore, less advancement.

One of the reasons I like Firefly so much is that I think the "world" that Joss presented in the show is so realistic looking compared to other sci-fi shows. A very small part of that is using needles for injections.

Apathy on the Rise. No One Cares.

LEAFY

Saturday, October 16, 2004 4:32 PM

During the time that the earth was in the process of "dying" technology probably didn't make many advances. It could make a "technology gap" where when things settled down, science had to take up where it left off however many years before. During that time also, science was probably focused on trying to save the earth rather than making advances in other fields.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, October 17, 2004 9:13 PM

bikisdad wrote:
Saturday, October 16, 2004 03:23

Quote:
This has already been addressed by others, but I would also like to point out that probably 60-70% of the things we use in everyday life were already being used by the Romans and other advanced civilizations over 2000 years ago. A Roman inventor named Hero developed a working steam engine almost 2000 years ago. It took until the 1800's for someone to re-discover the technology. Also, I recently saw a piece on PBS showing that Archimedes developed the calculus in 400 B.C.. It was a full 2000 years before Leibnitz and Newton re-developed the same principals - principals without which we would have none of the advanced technology we currently have.

Why was there such a long period with little or no advancement in technology? In our real case, it was a little period of social and scientific stagnation known as The Dark Ages, brought on by the fall of the Roman Empire. In the case of Firefly, it was apparently a period of social stagnation brought on by the destruction of "earth-that-was" and the need for the human species to find new places to live. The development of some technologies, such as space travel, would have been a priority due to necessity. Resources would have been directed into that area of research. Other areas, such as medical research, would have been a much lower priority and would have received less resources and therefore, less advancement.

One of the reasons I like Firefly so much is that I think the "world" that Joss presented in the show is so realistic looking compared to other sci-fi shows. A very small part of that is using needles for injections.

Yep, well said.

It just dawned on me that saying, 'the Earth that was 'sounds so much cooler ( more cool? ) than just saying ' old Earth'.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

BRUISERSMOM

Monday, October 18, 2004 1:49 AM

Quote:
And I'm pretty sure that it's not SOP to put surgical instruments in your mouth even if you don't have a surgical nurse available.

It's also not SOP to have a crowd of people in the room in their non-surgical clothing and without face masks to prevent the spread of bacteria. I guess medical sanitation has gone downhill in 500 years.

YT

Monday, October 18, 2004 5:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by shinyseven:
I'm pretty sure that it's not SOP to put surgical instruments in your mouth even if you don't have a surgical nurse available.

Maybe not, but it looks way cool.

Keep the Shiny Side Up

TENTHCREWMEMBER

Monday, October 18, 2004 6:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BruisersMom:
Quote:
And I'm pretty sure that it's not SOP to put surgical instruments in your mouth even if you don't have a surgical nurse available.

It's also not SOP to have a crowd of people in the room in their non-surgical clothing and without face masks to prevent the spread of bacteria. I guess medical sanitation has gone downhill in 500 years.

I think I am in one of

"those moods" tonight...

500 years has NOTHING to do with it. See "emergency", "field surgery" and "using what is available".

|realitycheck|
I bet every soldier who had his life saved on a battlefield would have rather died waiting to get to a sanitary hospital where his surgery would have been performed by guys in white dresses who were cleaner than the guy next to him in the trench who had a knife, and a first aid kit and dug shrapnel out of the wounded guy's body even though they both were covered in mud, sand and the blood of the guy who unfortunately caught the brunt of the exploding grenade.
|/realitycheck|

|hypothetical|
Yeah, Simon should have said, "Fly all the way to Capital City on Osiris, so I can get proper tools, nurses in proper clothing, and a wetnap for washing my hands of the death of Kaylee because she was the one who decided to inconvienently get shot on a luh suh transport in the middle of space."
|/hypothetical|

|sarcasm|
Yeah, great show that would be. That would be so much more like real life. Mmmmhmmm. Shiny.
|noitdoesnotendhere|

Why is common sense so uncommon?

*sigh*
|/sarcasm|

TCM

NEUTRINOLAD

Monday, October 18, 2004 6:44 AM

You'd be surprised at how many things we use today that weren't in existance 500, hell, just 100 yrs ago.

Bet I wouldn't. Try me, list a few.

AURAPTOR

Monday, October 18, 2004 12:10 PM

mobile phones, remote control devices, cars,planes, trains,indoor
plumbing,refrigeration, the electric light, dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, computers, e-mail, message boards....

( just to list a few )

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

BIKISDAD

Monday, October 18, 2004 1:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
mobile phones, remote control devices, cars,planes, trains,indoor
plumbing,refrigeration, the electric light, dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, computers, e-mail, message boards....

Some of the things you named are actually new. Some are just new versions of things that have been around for a long time. Indoor plumbing has been around forever. The electric light is just an inefficient (energy conversion wise) version of the kerosene lamp. Dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers and remote controls used to all have one name - slaves. Planes are new. Cars (also inefficient from an energy use standpoint) used to be called carts (or buggies or chariots, etc.).

RANT WARNING!

We'll be going back to those as soon as we run out of oil - it's not like there's any more being made. We're just using up what little is left - notice the sky-high oil prices lately. They're only going higher over the long-term as we use it all up with our fabulous modern inventions. Makes Joss's vision of Firefly look even more realistic, although at the rate we're going we'll have to leave earth much sooner than 500 years from now.

RANT OVER.

EDIT: Sorry for the rant. I just filled my gas tank this morning. Makes me wish had a horse.

Apathy on the Rise. No One Cares.

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