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Its a tradition, they do everything manual like the Incas did it. They don't like using "wheels" or any sort of technology as it would ruin the tradition. You c

Its a tradition, they do everything manual like the Incas did it. They don't like using "wheels" or any sort of technology as it would ruin the tradition. You can see the process here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQl6geeY7CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQl6geeY7CM Oh- and it involves a lot of people not a 1 man job.

taeric 1y ago
Awesome, thanks for the video! And I'd expect anything like this to be more than a 1 man job! Apologies if I implied otherwise. I'd expect even using wheels for the turning that you would need more than a single person. It is obnoxious how hard it is to search on why they would have never invented a wheel for the spinning of thread. AI seems to insist that spinning wheels are directly the result of carting wheels. I'd expect even wheels for a pulley system would have helped with the hanging process.
- wahern 1y ago
  The Inca had wheels, they just didn't use them for much. There are Incan toys with wheels, for example. AFAIU the consensus opinion is that carting wheels never took hold in pre-Columbian America because of a lack of draft animals. The Inca used spindles for spinning thread, which apparently was sufficient for their needs. And the wheelbarrow is, interestingly (TIL), a relatively recent Old World invention, with the earliest depictions from 2nd century AD China. Even the chariot didn't arrive in the Old World until the early 2nd millennia BC. And the chariot wasn't invented by the Egyptians or Chinese, but by peoples in the Eurasian Steppe. (Who probably not coincidentally were some of the first to domestic horses? More primitive wheeled carts were much older but also contemporaneous with emergence of other domesticated draft animals like oxen, I think. Smaller animals can draft, but the utility is severely diminished beyond very favorable terrain.)
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    > AFAIU the consensus opinion is that carting wheels never took hold in pre-Columbian America because of a lack of draft animals. On hilly terrain, wheels simply aren't the best thing to use—you can't fully sustain the weight easily pulling up the hill as opposed to standing on the incline. Meanwhile we have tons of evidence of people used as couriers for relatively heavy items with a specific sort of framed backpack. The lack of pack animals is a real thing, but domesticated horses would have seriously struggled even if they magically appeared in the pre-colonial incan empire. Even today, transportation by donkey sans-cart is often the easiest way to move a bunch of stuff around the andes without prepared roads.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Many "obvious" inventions take a very long time to happen. For example, the very slow evolution of boats. It took forever to come up with the keel. Also the fork. Rigid, authoritarian societies also seem to have a lot of problems inventing new things, especially disruptive things. James Burke's "Connections" is a great history of invention.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      > authoritarian societies also seem to have a lot of problems inventing new things I'm not sure evidence can easily sustain this. Even putting aside the kind-of-tautological "rigid societies don't invent disruption" sentiment.... not only is "authoritarian" a pretty vague phrase in terms of economics, but we have a good deal of evidence of societies we mostly consider authoritarian inventing plenty of "disruptive" things. Just not a generally beneficial sort of disruption.
      - WalterBright 1y ago
        Inventions that disrupt the status quo tend to go nowhere in rigid societies. Inventors thrive in free market societies.
        MangoToupe 1y ago
        I'm not sure I've ever witnessed a free market society, but surely one is not incompatible with rigidity of social structure or (lack of) values. Undermining the basic social necessities of society doesn't tend to produce people able to produce innovation either....
        WalterBright 1y ago
        Consider the free market in the US. The greatest lifting of scores of millions of people ever from poverty into the middle class and wealthy. The enormous generation of inventions.
        1y ago
  - taeric 1y ago
    Even spinning wheels use a spindle. The question would be why they didn't invent the use of a wheel to help with the spinning portion of the task? But, yeah, my short dives show the same. It is generally held that carting wheels weren't useful due to lack of draft animals. I just find that reason awkward with how useful manual applications of the wheel are for me. Dolleys and wheelbarrows are the easiest example, of course. But pulley systems in general are super useful. And don't, necessarily, need a draft animal.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      > The question would be why they didn't invent the use of a wheel to help with the spinning portion of the task? They did have spinning pottery wheels, just not load-bearing ones.
      - taeric 1y ago
        So is the claim that they did not invent the wheel pretty strictly for use in carts? Still seems a little surprising they would not have invented pulleys. They clearly had good experience with ropes.

taeric 1y ago

Awesome, thanks for the video! And I'd expect anything like this to be more than a 1 man job! Apologies if I implied otherwise. I'd expect even using wheels for the turning that you would need more than a single person. It is obnoxious how hard it is to search on why they would have never invented a wheel for the spinning of thread. AI seems to insist that spinning wheels are directly the result of carting wheels. I'd expect even wheels for a pulley system would have helped with the hanging process.

wahern 1y ago
The Inca had wheels, they just didn't use them for much. There are Incan toys with wheels, for example. AFAIU the consensus opinion is that carting wheels never took hold in pre-Columbian America because of a lack of draft animals. The Inca used spindles for spinning thread, which apparently was sufficient for their needs. And the wheelbarrow is, interestingly (TIL), a relatively recent Old World invention, with the earliest depictions from 2nd century AD China. Even the chariot didn't arrive in the Old World until the early 2nd millennia BC. And the chariot wasn't invented by the Egyptians or Chinese, but by peoples in the Eurasian Steppe. (Who probably not coincidentally were some of the first to domestic horses? More primitive wheeled carts were much older but also contemporaneous with emergence of other domesticated draft animals like oxen, I think. Smaller animals can draft, but the utility is severely diminished beyond very favorable terrain.)
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  > AFAIU the consensus opinion is that carting wheels never took hold in pre-Columbian America because of a lack of draft animals. On hilly terrain, wheels simply aren't the best thing to use—you can't fully sustain the weight easily pulling up the hill as opposed to standing on the incline. Meanwhile we have tons of evidence of people used as couriers for relatively heavy items with a specific sort of framed backpack. The lack of pack animals is a real thing, but domesticated horses would have seriously struggled even if they magically appeared in the pre-colonial incan empire. Even today, transportation by donkey sans-cart is often the easiest way to move a bunch of stuff around the andes without prepared roads.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Many "obvious" inventions take a very long time to happen. For example, the very slow evolution of boats. It took forever to come up with the keel. Also the fork. Rigid, authoritarian societies also seem to have a lot of problems inventing new things, especially disruptive things. James Burke's "Connections" is a great history of invention.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    > authoritarian societies also seem to have a lot of problems inventing new things I'm not sure evidence can easily sustain this. Even putting aside the kind-of-tautological "rigid societies don't invent disruption" sentiment.... not only is "authoritarian" a pretty vague phrase in terms of economics, but we have a good deal of evidence of societies we mostly consider authoritarian inventing plenty of "disruptive" things. Just not a generally beneficial sort of disruption.
    - WalterBright 1y ago
      Inventions that disrupt the status quo tend to go nowhere in rigid societies. Inventors thrive in free market societies.
      - MangoToupe 1y ago
        I'm not sure I've ever witnessed a free market society, but surely one is not incompatible with rigidity of social structure or (lack of) values. Undermining the basic social necessities of society doesn't tend to produce people able to produce innovation either....
        WalterBright 1y ago
        Consider the free market in the US. The greatest lifting of scores of millions of people ever from poverty into the middle class and wealthy. The enormous generation of inventions.
        1y ago
- taeric 1y ago
  Even spinning wheels use a spindle. The question would be why they didn't invent the use of a wheel to help with the spinning portion of the task? But, yeah, my short dives show the same. It is generally held that carting wheels weren't useful due to lack of draft animals. I just find that reason awkward with how useful manual applications of the wheel are for me. Dolleys and wheelbarrows are the easiest example, of course. But pulley systems in general are super useful. And don't, necessarily, need a draft animal.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    > The question would be why they didn't invent the use of a wheel to help with the spinning portion of the task? They did have spinning pottery wheels, just not load-bearing ones.
    - taeric 1y ago
      So is the claim that they did not invent the wheel pretty strictly for use in carts? Still seems a little surprising they would not have invented pulleys. They clearly had good experience with ropes.