Humanity arriving at "tech solutions" in the nick

[Mr. T]

Historically, how many examples are their of humanity arriving at a "tech solution" to a large foreseen problems just before the disaster was realized, just in the nick of time.

I'm not necessarily talking about "Voyager-esque" we have to cure this planet of disease within 3 days by some technobabble solution, but just in general, are their many examples of our best and brightest scientists, engineers and leaders recognizing that their's impending doom and theirs nothing they have available at that time to solve the problem and so with frantic research, design and implementation they were able to come up with a "silver bullet" to save their tribe or city or country or society or species or world etc.

What's instigated this topic is primarily the carbon twins of peak oil and global warming; both problems that are just now being realised by the majority and that maybe can potentially be solved by some technological "magic bullet". But historically has that magic bullet ever arrived before the crisis occurred? And if so, is the required lead time typically Months, years, decades or centuries?

One example that I can think of that sortof may fit this description would be the atomic bomb and the Manhattan project. Had this breakthrough not occurred maybe the war would have been alot bloodier or worse, maybe the Germans would have designed it first and won the war. Was this "tech solution" to the crisis of World War II something of an outlier historically? Perhaps it's the reason why when people speak of the kindof action necessary to solve a gigantic intractable crisis they say we would need to have a "Manhattan style project"to overcome it.

Some of the things that the Manhattan project had going for it were MASSIVE resources, incredible desperation brought on by war, a populace willing to make large sacrifices, at least in the short term , and a very strong government with alot of power to quickly get things done, are these all pre-requisites for a society in order to bring about a tech solution?

My example was fairly recent in human history but feel free to go back much further then that, even if it's referencing the tribe that developed the spear just in the nick of time to avert being eaten by lions.

[Mr. T]

Ghetto Edit: That title should read "in the nick of time"

[Ariphaos]

I'm not aware of any major disasters. The Apollo 13 incident is the closest thing that comes to mind.

The Manhattan project is sort of 'eh' as it was years in the making, and while dropping the bomb is the only way we -know- that Japan was going to surrender, the Hawks only made up half of the decision-making body - many Japanese wanted peace (though some of the hawks were the translators and not helping matters).

[Sriad]

Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution could very well be considered such a nick-of-time solution.

There are certainly still around a billion malnourished people around the world, but that is nothing compared to the Malthusian bombs that were predicted through much of the 20th century.

[Sikon]

Mankind approached the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems for a hunter gatherer society but then transitioned to agriculture. Mankind approached limits for agriculture with old methods, but the Haber process and later the Green Revolution arose.

After a shortage of whale oil developed and prices of it rose vastly during part of the late 19th century, kerosene filled the resulting market opportunity.

England started to run out of trees for wood fuel during the industrial revolution, and that motivated usage of coal to start, to go to the trouble of mining such instead of just chopping up trees for firewood.

Venice, the famous coastal city of canals of Italy, has experienced a few inches sea level rise per century, such as early levels of occupation being up to a number of feet underwater now.

Adaptation has tended to occur over a period of time when the problems themselves developed over years. For example, one typically can't talk about something having been accomplished while needing X months of lead time when there's no particular single month of instant 100% doom to measure that from, as opposed to trouble rising over decades such as by changes of a few percent a year.

It is telling that when Hollywood made a movie about climate change, The Day After Tomorrow, they depicted weather suddenly killing millions in days, helicopters freezing in mid-air, etc. They didn't depict reality, where global warming effects are headed towards being major but rather develop and increase over years, decades, and possibly centuries. Real life usually isn't as simplistic and exciting as either a flash of instant 100% disaster or a sudden 100% solution implementation.

Some things and some people can suffer greatly during the change, but that's the overall trend for how mankind as a whole survives.

[Winston Blake]

Public-key cryptography was a solution to the 'key distribution problem' that was developed 'just in time' for the boom of the internet and the need for worldwide secure communication. That's more luck than disaster mitigation, though.

[Skgoa]

dropping the bomb is the only way we -know- that Japan was going to surrender, the Hawks only made up half of the decision-making body - many Japanese wanted peace (though some of the hawks were the translators and not helping matters).

it had actually allready been decided that Japan would surrender BEFORE the bombs were dropped.

[Archaic`]

dropping the bomb is the only way we -know- that Japan was going to surrender, the Hawks only made up half of the decision-making body - many Japanese wanted peace (though some of the hawks were the translators and not helping matters).

it had actually allready been decided that Japan would surrender BEFORE the bombs were dropped.

I call bullshit on that one. Hirohito already desired it by then, but even after the bombings, numerous elements of the military still wished to go down fighting, without surrender, to the point of trying to kill him to prevent his radio broadcast of surrender. There would have been good numbers who did want to surrender by then, and they had discussed the issue repeatedly and throughly, but there was certainly no actual decision by those in charge to surrender until afterwards. Even as late as August 10, Hirohito himself would have been willing to continue the war, has the surrender demands meant he would be forced from the throne.

[NetKnight]

it had actually allready been decided that Japan would surrender BEFORE the bombs were dropped.

I call bullshit on that one. Hirohito already desired it by then, but even after the bombings, numerous elements of the military still wished to go down fighting, without surrender, to the point of trying to kill him to prevent his radio broadcast of surrender. There would have been good numbers who did want to surrender by then, and they had discussed the issue repeatedly and throughly, but there was certainly no actual decision by those in charge to surrender until afterwards. Even as late as August 10, Hirohito himself would have been willing to continue the war, has the surrender demands meant he would be forced from the throne.

I agree that the revisionist notion that the fission bombings were unnecessary is suspect, to say the least, in light of the fanatical determination of much of the Japanese military. However, it should be noted that the Aug. 8 Soviet declaration of war, and subsequent destruction of what was basically half of the Japanese army and loss of Manchuria in two weeks had a… not insignificant impact on the decisions of the Japanese leadership.

With regard to the OP, this campaign did not involve a technological breakthrough, if the reader will forgive the obvious.

[Panzer Grenadier]

Wasn't Penicillin developed just before or during WW2, and made a big difference in the amount of lives that were saved during the war?

[Ariphaos]

it had actually allready been decided that Japan would surrender BEFORE the bombs were dropped.

Which explains so perfectly why the Hawks attempted to shut the Emperor up before he made his surrender announcement, even -after- two bombs were dropped.

There were two factions, the Hawks and the Doves, and the Emperor was one of the Doves. But in order to issue a formal surrender, a consensus was needed, and none was forthcoming. Even to the point that the Japanese translation team intentionally mistranslated things to make the American demands seem worse than they actually were. The Hawk's goal was to see America injured as much as possible, and reasoned that America would have to go to war with Russia eventually. So, if they held out until the Russians were knocking on them too, the Americans would be in a much worse position globally.

Reading the (admittedly translated and such) overview, I got the impression that the Hiroshima bomb was certainly a catalyst for discussion, and may have urged the Emperor to make his speech. The second bomb only garnered the sentence "It changed no opinions." At best, it shook the confidence of the Japanese in the sanity of their military.

The documents are on line somewhere, I linked to them in a similar debate I had on the Scholars of Shen Zhou forums, I'll go see if I can dig them up again when I'm back.

[NetKnight]

Wasn't Penicillin developed just before or during WW2, and made a big difference in the amount of lives that were saved during the war?

Indeed. Penicillin was put into large scale production in 1941, and was a marked improvement over the Sulfa drugs that were previously avalable.

In a similar vein, the creation of MASH units in the Korean War was a major breakthrough in wound survivability. While this was to a large extent an administrative rather then technological inavation, then-recent technological improvments in front-to-rear transportation and comunication were also major componets of the system.

[Ariphaos]

Here we go. The book in question is 'Japan's Longest Day'. The following post covers the relevant excerpts.

http://yarchive.net/mil/japanese_surrender.html