Curious about Binary and Society

Yesterday I talked to a friend and tried to make him understand binary. He needs this because he is attending school again for his new Job. After hours of explaining him why and how binary is used ne finaly gave up(He is more a creativ guy, drawing, painting, making music etc.) shouting : "Can't I just use my hands like when I was a little learning the decimal sytem?"

Then I realised it. After years of remembering the pattern of ones and zeros I forgot that it is possible and a very good way to explain binary.(stupid me :P)

In the hand method(wait..what?) the thumb is the one, the index fingers is two, the middle finger 4, the ring finger is 8 and the pinky has the value of 16. Adding the values of the Fingers gives you the number(as you already know^^). Using both hands you could count up to 1.024, a huge difference to the normal count up to ten with decimal.


So now to my real question:
In Wikipedia I found that a system like binary was discovered many times ago, the oldest to be found was in India, developed 2300 years ago. That starts me thinking...what would have happend if the europeans discovered it by the time and used it and abolish the decimal system? Would Society be significantly be changed? Would mankind have been developed faster? If we would, would it make our society better ,because of the technological advantages, or would it be worse, because of the monachy which made the world unable to work together and the technological development which would give us the deadliest weapons a lot earlier(the atom bomb in the 15th century?)?

In my opinion the mankind would have developed faster. Computer would have been developed earlier and thus the technological developement would be quicker. I think binary could have safed us 200 years and remembering Moor's law we would have had passed the speed of light in computers about 80 Years ago.

Yes I have a optimistic view of life ;)