I think people would have noticed feathers, paper, or folded sheets of paper hovering above the ground for long periods of time; people would have been able to flap their arms and feel the upward force and then attach large slabs and test how much the upward force was increased; people would have had time to study the ergonomics of thrown objects. Maybe it would have taken longer, but I think flight still would have been done, in less than a “few decades” later than it took for the wright brothers to figure it out.
Reason+capitalism is surprisingly resilient to setbacks like these.
I think people would have noticed feathers, paper, or folded sheets of paper hovering above the ground for long periods of time; people would have been able to flap their arms and feel the upward force and then attach large slabs and test how much the upward force was increased; people would have had time to study the ergonomics of thrown objects. Maybe it would have taken longer, but I think flight still would have been done, in less than a “few decades” later than it took for the wright brothers to figure it out.
Reason+capitalism is surprisingly resilient to setbacks like these.