China can boast, in terms of civilization and culture, a substantial political and territorial continuity of more than 4000 years that is unmatched compared to all other civilizations that have succeeded on the planet in historical times. Yet one can wonder why, despite the fact that the Chinese have invented many of the things that have later been independently rediscovered by others, they have not been able to make the technological leap that has succeeded in the West more or less from the seventeenth century onwards. Why, after inventing gunpowder, paper, the compass, and many other things, have they not produced firearms, printed books, cars, airplanes, and so on? The current technological state of China, which has now reached and even surpassed that of most Western countries, is indebted to the transfusion of the Western scientific method into Eastern culture.
To return to the initial question, the causes are probably multiple and cannot be analyzed here, especially not by the undersigned, who is not an expert historian of Eastern culture. However, I want to mention what would seem to be a contributing factor to this lack of technological development, namely the attitude of the ruling class towards innovation. To understand the situation of the Middle Kingdom in the past, imagine that, for example, a Chinese Ming-era artisan had devised an innovative weaving frame that was much more efficient and faster than the existing model. Before using or marketing it, he would have to first ask for permission from the local Mandarin. The latter would most likely have denied him this permission, because in this way he could have wiped out the competition, that is, engaged in unfair competition with all weavers by having a better tool. It seems that, especially in periods of great stability of the empire, every change was seen as a threat to social stability (and above all to the existing power system).
All this is reminiscent of what is happening in Italy (and not only with the new government, although it seems that the latter has accentuated the tendency): every new technology is seen as a possible disturbance to the existing social order, because it risks disturbing consolidated situations and balances. I refer, for example, to the recent prohibition not only of the trade, but also of the research and development of synthetic foods (whose production technology is not yet well developed and whose taste can probably be criticized, but certainly not their health aspects), followed within a couple of days by the order to close ChatGTP, the new software based on artificial intelligence. In both cases, behind ridiculous formal justifications lies the desire to protect the consolidated interests of specific social categories, accompanied by a generic fear of innovation. The latter always presents risks, but every new discovery that also brings benefits inevitably imposes itself in the long run and the best thing is to guide and direct it, while it is useless and counterproductive to prohibit it.
A final recommendation: those who oppose it please do not invoke the precautionary principle, a call that is entirely inappropriate in these two cases (see one of the previous blogs, Technical Evolutions and the Precautionary Principle).
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