20th Century Appropriate Technologies

[tallwingedgoat]

I'm noticing a great deal of the technologies developed in later in the century were actually quite simple and could have been used earlier. For example some environmental concepts like Biochar fertilizer from biowaste, growing food on rooftops with aeroponics, using methane gas from landfills, or closed system algaeculture for biofuel and food. A lot of these technologies were doable decades ago. The main stumbling bloc would be cost effectiveness in a world where the alternative is cheaper. But there were always countries that had no alternative due to lack of petroleum resources for example that could have taken these idea further.

The concept of Appropriate Technology has come to use of late to describe innovative low or medium tech solutions for the developing world that is much cheaper than the more sophisticated alternatives. For example the phase-change incubator was developed by an MIT student which allow the study of microbial samples without expensive incubators. Such technologies would be greatly useful to early 20th century doctors as well.

On the military end, in WWII a crucial technology was 100 octane gasoline for fighter aircraft. Only US and Britain could make it in quantity. Yet all they had to do was mix ethanol with low octane gasoline and achieve 100 octane equivalence.

What are some other appropriate technologies that we have now that were simple enough to do much earlier?

(Please no more flogging of the "what if earlier AK-47" dead horse.)

[Sachyriel]

Another earlier development: The Internet. Don't laugh at me like that. It's a basic set of HTML codes. Artists could be paid to interpret them and paint them based on telegraph messages.

Might be a waste of time, but certainly possible. Today's Internet is a waste of time, but economically possible.