Ask HN: How is that humans advanced so much in the past 100 yrs in all fields?

Re:Ask HN: How is that humans advanced so much in the past 1... by eb0la on Monday October 17, 2016 @04:48AM (#12723498)

I was a bit skeptic about your comment and Jaruzel's one until I saw this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:P...

Population is doubled every 2 generations during the 20th century. If nothing else changed, the probability of human advancement should have been at least 2x.

There are other factors like better life expectation that speed up advancement a lot (more probabilty of having advancement per generation).

But I think the literacy factor is the key. Sadly I have no data to prove it, but I bet this was the cause of all this.

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Re:Ask HN: How is that humans advanced so much in the past 1... by flukus on Monday October 17, 2016 @10:02PM (#12731477)

Not just the raw population, 100-200 hundred years ago most of that population was involved in agriculture, now it's a few percent. Dabbleing in science used to be a rich mans hobby, now it's a career path for many.

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