It’s always seemed strange to me that earth never made any sort of meaningfull technological progress despite having access to a galaxy full of new tech.
This actually seemed reasonable to me - if alien tech is anything like ours, we lack the parts to make the parts to make the parts to make the tech, so we can’t mass produce any of it yet. And we’re a bit of a backwater - what resources we do have of galactic interest (vibranium, maybe?) isn’t for sale. So we make do with what scraps do find their way to earth.
Sure, jumping multiple levels on the technology tree is not easy, but a real world analog would be China, which has turned from a “backwater” to one of the biggest competitors.
Their point is, that we can’t make super awesome tech X because it requires awesome tech Y, and we can’t make Y because it requires cool tech Z.
My counterpoint to that is that yes, we may not have the technology, YET. But knowing it exists, we can acquire it a lot faster, than having to invent it ourselves. For example, China hasn’t started by building world leading electric vehicles, either. They started out as a cheap manufacturer of simple items and gradually accumulated more expertise in more and more advanced fields.
In case you are talking about raw materials? Let’s give Toni Stark a bit more sophisticated equipment than a stack of books to balance his particle accelerator on and I bet you he can fix that problem too.
![Marvel [Tyler Hendrix]](https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/2c9c1796-73ea-4ae0-8325-0809abede939.webp){kind=link}
This actually seemed reasonable to me - if alien tech is anything like ours, we lack the parts to make the parts to make the parts to make the tech, so we can’t mass produce any of it yet. And we’re a bit of a backwater - what resources we do have of galactic interest (vibranium, maybe?) isn’t for sale. So we make do with what scraps do find their way to earth.
Sure, jumping multiple levels on the technology tree is not easy, but a real world analog would be China, which has turned from a “backwater” to one of the biggest competitors.
… because they have access to the materials.
I feel like you just ignored the major factor in their statement because it conflicted with your point of view.
I am not sure why you think I skipped something.
Their point is, that we can’t make super awesome tech X because it requires awesome tech Y, and we can’t make Y because it requires cool tech Z.
My counterpoint to that is that yes, we may not have the technology, YET. But knowing it exists, we can acquire it a lot faster, than having to invent it ourselves. For example, China hasn’t started by building world leading electric vehicles, either. They started out as a cheap manufacturer of simple items and gradually accumulated more expertise in more and more advanced fields.
In case you are talking about raw materials? Let’s give Toni Stark a bit more sophisticated equipment than a stack of books to balance his particle accelerator on and I bet you he can fix that problem too.