I've gone through these as part of a currently ongoing project, to index historical cases of 'paths untaken' -- unusually delayed, mid-development abandoned, or relinquished/dismantled technologies -- and the factors that plausibly contributed to this. I'm still working out and cleaning up the database (around 320 cases), but you can find some early selection of cases in this essay ( https://verfassungsblog.de/paths-untaken/ ) or this 2023 talk I did ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VxN3FDV-sZcCUe5LyxjInG2NAewiGIsj/view?usp=drive_link - see slides #43-57; and bibliography on slides #70-75).
All these links are amazing, thank you! I love the aesthetic of the low-tech magazine; the study of discontinuities on the AI Impacts blog is super interesting; and your database of paths untaken is very cool.
(The first entry about the Strategic Long-Range Cannon made me think of a similar earlier project that would fit your database — look up Gerald Bull and Project Babylon, the supergun he was building for Saddam Hussein before being assassinated.)
Also, perhaps slightly different, but Brian Potter over at Construction Physics has been running a cool 'US Megaprojects' database https://www.construction-physics.com/p/contribute-to-the-us-megaprojects?triedRedirect=true
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eLJ2vecazRRGVeldxD-adUWt2Wc73T1BqH2fcsFHYDo/edit?gid=1912799216#gid=1912799216
These are very neat!
Another list of interesting innovations (focusing especially on technological discontinuities) was developed by some people at AI Impacts -- e.g. https://aiimpacts.org/discontinuous-progress-in-history-an-update/. or https://aiimpacts.org/observed-patterns-around-major-technological-advancements/
Another overview (more an essay series than a database) of past technologies was also composed by Low Tech Magazine at https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/obsolete-technology/
I've gone through these as part of a currently ongoing project, to index historical cases of 'paths untaken' -- unusually delayed, mid-development abandoned, or relinquished/dismantled technologies -- and the factors that plausibly contributed to this. I'm still working out and cleaning up the database (around 320 cases), but you can find some early selection of cases in this essay ( https://verfassungsblog.de/paths-untaken/ ) or this 2023 talk I did ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VxN3FDV-sZcCUe5LyxjInG2NAewiGIsj/view?usp=drive_link - see slides #43-57; and bibliography on slides #70-75).
All these links are amazing, thank you! I love the aesthetic of the low-tech magazine; the study of discontinuities on the AI Impacts blog is super interesting; and your database of paths untaken is very cool.
(The first entry about the Strategic Long-Range Cannon made me think of a similar earlier project that would fit your database — look up Gerald Bull and Project Babylon, the supergun he was building for Saddam Hussein before being assassinated.)
The visualization of “Technology over the long run” is brilliant!
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-long-knotty-world-spanning-story-of-string/