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That's pretty snazzy stuff. That said, the notion that none of those things have seen improvement in 2000 years is untrue. The fact that some of them are still being used and the fact that some things we think of as inventions of the last hundred years are pretty remarkable though.

I never meant to imply that no improvement has happened in 2000 years, just to point out that some of technology goes back quite far.

It surprises me that the Chinese never had an industrial revolution. In Europe's heyday of big sailing ships, China had ships three times bigger than anything out of Europe. All hand made.

To get slightly back on topic...

I notice there's some discussion about the behaviour of "religions" in general. It seems that "religions" here mean Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

From living in Asia for a few years, I was amazed at the non-exclusivity of the Big Three (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianism). Each tend to adopt elements of the other. Also, none of them started out as religions, just philosophies. Folks, all of whom seem to need religions, turned them into religions.

I'm happy that FSM came along. Finally, a religion I can sink my teeth into.