Why did the peoples of the New World fail to invent the wheel?

Re:Why did the peoples of the New World fail to invent the w... by 10ren on Sunday May 17, 2009 @06:06AM (#613250)

The general sequence of friction-reducing inventions is thought to have been runners, rollers, rollers held in place by guides, rollers held in place by guides and thickened on the ends to make them roll straighter, the wheel and axle

How to grow a wheel - it's not how smart you are, it's how often you iterate.

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Re:Why did the peoples of the New World fail to invent the w... by chaosmachine on Sunday May 17, 2009 @07:17PM (#614052)

I wonder if anyone ever said "There's no reason to reinvent the roller".

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Re:Why did the peoples of the New World fail to invent the w... by davi on Sunday May 17, 2009 @12:40PM (#613593)

And the context you choose to iterate in. (Academia, startup, big business, garage, etc.) For rapid growth & discovery, find/build an environment that lets you iterate a lot.

Advantage we have over Incas is we (people educated & wealthy enough to be reading HN) get to choose our contexts, to a significant extent --> lots of wheels get invented.

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